6 ms·

Emacs is in that disastrous stage of a product's life where the geezers destroy their own community by refusing to adapt to new expected behavior, thus driving

Emacs is in that disastrous stage of a product's life where the geezers destroy their own community by refusing to adapt to new expected behavior, thus driving away the newbies. Eventually the product dwindles to just supporting the few remaining geezers left. I'm not talking about stupid fads such as skinning and color palette changes. But cut-copy-paste keybindings (not to mention select-all, save, close window, undo, etc.) are not a fad. They have been the standard in everything except for Emacs for over THIRTY FIVE YEARS. They were standard when Ronald Reagan was president. Pop-up menus on right-button-click have been standard for almost as long, dating to X11 and NeXTSTEP (which is where OS X got them). And the most awful trend is in preventing clear improvements in modes and functionality from coming to the forefront simply because geezers are not used to them. The argument seems to be that making all these kinds of things standard would be hard on the geezers. This is nonsense. Unlike the newbies, the geezers know how to turn this stuff off. The geezers prevent this because Emacs is their ecosystem. But for everyone else, Emacs is a small part of a much larger ecosystem (MacOS, Linux, Windows) with which it is increasingly incompatible and archaic. This is myopia pure and simple.

vinceguidry 6y ago
Emacs has been at that stage for well over a decade, arguably two. What we're seeing now is the slow process of finally muddling their way out.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
liability 6y ago
As an Emacs newbie (less than one year of usage) I could not disagree more. I disagree with basically everything you just said. If somebody wants notepad++, they should just use that instead of trying to turn Emacs into something it never was. As an olive branch: Perhaps Emacs could prompt the user on first run what sort of control scheme they want. Emacs standard, Evil mode, or some notepad clone could be modes that ship with Emacs by default (evil already does.) (I chose evil, because I came from vim. Maybe this is why Emacs was so easy for me to pick up. But by the same token, Vim is arcane compared to Notepad style editors but is quite popular, so I outright reject the hypothesis that Emacs has lower numbers because it's arcane. Rather, I think it has a marketting ''problem'' relative to Vim.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kzemek 6y ago
  > But by the same token, Vim is arcane compared to Notepad style editors but is quite popular, so I outright reject the hypothesis that Emacs has lower numbers because it's arcane vim might be arcane compared to Notepad, but I've been successfully using vim as an editor of choice in ssh pretty much throughout the whole uni without knowing more than :w and :q (at which point it basically was a notepad). I was ever completely lost in Emacs though, with its nested C-x, M-x seemingly without rhyme or reason. I wouldn't "outright" reject that hypothesis without more scrutiny. Anecdotally, I've been an Emacs (Spacemacs) user for a few years after that, and I never got used to all the commands I would use on a daily - but not hourly - basis, having to always look those up. But, as one of the other top-level posts said, what made me switch in the end were the language servers.
  - liability 6y ago
    Vim drops noobs straight into normal mode, meaning the moment they start trying to type they get confused. I know that's what happened to me. The arcane nature of Emacs doesn't make itself apparent nearly so fast.
    - JdeBP 6y ago
      Only if it isn't invoked as "evim", "eview", "vim -y", or "view -y".
      - liability 6y ago
        True, though a noob wouldn't know how to invoke it like that.
- mplanchard 6y ago
  Yeah honestly I think a config “wizard” when you start up to get some basic standard stuff ready to go, like package installs, themes, evil/CUA/traditional keybindings, LSP stuff, some major modes, etc. would go a long way towards making it less intimidating and more productive out of the gate. Also some kind of popup help for keybindings like you get with the Doom/Spacemacs leader key would I think help a lot. I certainly don’t think that changing the color scheme or other “chrome” improvements are going to make any meaningful difference, and honestly the discussion in the article sounded kind of condescending, assuming that the only reason people might find emacs difficult to get started with is because it doesn’t have cat videos or a dark color scheme.
BeetleB 6y ago
> Emacs is in that disastrous stage of a product's life where the geezers destroy their own community by refusing to adapt to new expected behavior It doesn't look like your an Emacs user. As another commenter pointed out (as did the article indirectly), Emacs has more users than ever. It's definitely growing - not dwindling. As an Emacs user, the last decade has shown an immense growth in capabilities via MELPA packages. The number of sites with tips on improving Emacs flows has also gone up exponentially. Not only is it not dying, it's thriving. > They were standard when Ronald Reagan was president. For a whole other definition of standard. A lot of the popular DOS applications from Reagan/Bush's time did not use these keybindings. Ctrl-Ins and Shift-Ins were the norm. Ctrl-C for quitting was the norm. (I'm not against CUA bindings by default - merely pointing out a misconception you have). > But for everyone else, Emacs is a small part of a much larger ecosystem (MacOS, Linux, Windows) with which it is increasingly incompatible and archaic. Actually, Emacs is pretty good at interacting with the wider ecosystems. It can communicate and interact with other processes, etc. I can, for example, link to a message in MS Outlook and have it open up in my TODO list in Emacs.
- SeanLuke 6y ago
  > It doesn't look like your an Emacs user. I have been an avid Emacs user since, I think, 1988. > A lot of the popular DOS applications Bzzt. 35 years ago the standard was Windows and MacOS. Soon thereafter NeXTSTEP and nearly all X11 apps adapted the same.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    While Windows technically existed in '85, no one statistically was using it yet. Other's copied the CUA interface into the late 80s however.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Windows didn't start going anywhere until Windows 3.0 in 1990. Windows 95 was really where it went mainstream.
- mi_lk 6y ago
  > Emacs has more users than ever. It's definitely growing - not dwindling. Growing in terms of the number of users, dwindling in terms of the share among editors
FandangoRanger 6y ago
Is it really necessary to ascribe some negative quality of ageism to people who created and use software and then castigate them for it? Do you work for PeopleSoft? Makes your argument seem weak and flimsy, in fact arguments like yours can be dismissed out of hand.
- SeanLuke 6y ago
  I am one of those geezers.
  - FandangoRanger 6y ago
    Doesn't pass the switch test.
    - SeanLuke 6y ago
      I've developed software since the early 1980s. I've used Emacs continuously since the late 1980s. Perhaps you should respond to the substance of a posting rather than complaining that a geezer used the term geezer to describe people like himself. EDIT You created your account two days ago and you're already accusing people of ageism? Get off my lawn.
- TheGrassyKnoll 6y ago
  Another geezer here. Using Emacs since Bush I.
donio 6y ago
Emacs is in that blissful state where it's resisting sacrificing its core user base by trying to cater to people who are not going to use it anyway. As a long term user I am very happy with the direction of Emacs development over the past few years. Emacs is pretty much the only piece of modern software where I don't have worry about losing functionality when I upgrade to a new version. Each new version is better than the old one.
sebow 6y ago
I'm not even a "geezer" of which you speak for but the fact that emacs does not have the standard copy-paste, cut, save, etc key-bindings by default is what makes it so powerful. The reason the community is the way it is is presumably because the learning curve makes the people who give up easily left out. The only fact I personally "hate" emacs is only that i don't have the time to learn lisp & customize the editor to the full extent myself, but that's not really a strong argument against emacs.(As resources about customizing emacs are not that hard to find, and the lisp/emacs-lisp community is not 'harsh') Just because everyone has some "standard"-deemed features does not mean emacs should have it aswell.Are you complaining about these things with vim aswell? A lot of people use emacs because of performance reasons, customization opportunities and more or less because emacs is de facto almost an operating system.
throwaway2938a 6y ago
Don't know what platform you are on, but on Mac with the GUI version, standard cut-copy-paste keybindings all work, as well as select-all, save, close window (Cmd + w), undo. Obviously they don't work in terminals.

vinceguidry 6y ago

Emacs has been at that stage for well over a decade, arguably two. What we're seeing now is the slow process of finally muddling their way out.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

liability 6y ago

As an Emacs newbie (less than one year of usage) I could not disagree more. I disagree with basically everything you just said. If somebody wants notepad++, they should just use that instead of trying to turn Emacs into something it never was. As an olive branch: Perhaps Emacs could prompt the user on first run what sort of control scheme they want. Emacs standard, Evil mode, or some notepad clone could be modes that ship with Emacs by default (evil already does.) (I chose evil, because I came from vim. Maybe this is why Emacs was so easy for me to pick up. But by the same token, Vim is arcane compared to Notepad style editors but is quite popular, so I outright reject the hypothesis that Emacs has lower numbers because it's arcane. Rather, I think it has a marketting ''problem'' relative to Vim.)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kzemek 6y ago
> But by the same token, Vim is arcane compared to Notepad style editors but is quite popular, so I outright reject the hypothesis that Emacs has lower numbers because it's arcane vim might be arcane compared to Notepad, but I've been successfully using vim as an editor of choice in ssh pretty much throughout the whole uni without knowing more than :w and :q (at which point it basically was a notepad). I was ever completely lost in Emacs though, with its nested C-x, M-x seemingly without rhyme or reason. I wouldn't "outright" reject that hypothesis without more scrutiny. Anecdotally, I've been an Emacs (Spacemacs) user for a few years after that, and I never got used to all the commands I would use on a daily - but not hourly - basis, having to always look those up. But, as one of the other top-level posts said, what made me switch in the end were the language servers.
- liability 6y ago
  Vim drops noobs straight into normal mode, meaning the moment they start trying to type they get confused. I know that's what happened to me. The arcane nature of Emacs doesn't make itself apparent nearly so fast.
  - JdeBP 6y ago
    Only if it isn't invoked as "evim", "eview", "vim -y", or "view -y".
    - liability 6y ago
      True, though a noob wouldn't know how to invoke it like that.
mplanchard 6y ago
Yeah honestly I think a config “wizard” when you start up to get some basic standard stuff ready to go, like package installs, themes, evil/CUA/traditional keybindings, LSP stuff, some major modes, etc. would go a long way towards making it less intimidating and more productive out of the gate. Also some kind of popup help for keybindings like you get with the Doom/Spacemacs leader key would I think help a lot. I certainly don’t think that changing the color scheme or other “chrome” improvements are going to make any meaningful difference, and honestly the discussion in the article sounded kind of condescending, assuming that the only reason people might find emacs difficult to get started with is because it doesn’t have cat videos or a dark color scheme.

BeetleB 6y ago

> Emacs is in that disastrous stage of a product's life where the geezers destroy their own community by refusing to adapt to new expected behavior It doesn't look like your an Emacs user. As another commenter pointed out (as did the article indirectly), Emacs has more users than ever. It's definitely growing - not dwindling. As an Emacs user, the last decade has shown an immense growth in capabilities via MELPA packages. The number of sites with tips on improving Emacs flows has also gone up exponentially. Not only is it not dying, it's thriving. > They were standard when Ronald Reagan was president. For a whole other definition of standard. A lot of the popular DOS applications from Reagan/Bush's time did not use these keybindings. Ctrl-Ins and Shift-Ins were the norm. Ctrl-C for quitting was the norm. (I'm not against CUA bindings by default - merely pointing out a misconception you have). > But for everyone else, Emacs is a small part of a much larger ecosystem (MacOS, Linux, Windows) with which it is increasingly incompatible and archaic. Actually, Emacs is pretty good at interacting with the wider ecosystems. It can communicate and interact with other processes, etc. I can, for example, link to a message in MS Outlook and have it open up in my TODO list in Emacs.

SeanLuke 6y ago
> It doesn't look like your an Emacs user. I have been an avid Emacs user since, I think, 1988. > A lot of the popular DOS applications Bzzt. 35 years ago the standard was Windows and MacOS. Soon thereafter NeXTSTEP and nearly all X11 apps adapted the same.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  While Windows technically existed in '85, no one statistically was using it yet. Other's copied the CUA interface into the late 80s however.
- icedchai 6y ago
  Windows didn't start going anywhere until Windows 3.0 in 1990. Windows 95 was really where it went mainstream.
mi_lk 6y ago
> Emacs has more users than ever. It's definitely growing - not dwindling. Growing in terms of the number of users, dwindling in terms of the share among editors

FandangoRanger 6y ago

Is it really necessary to ascribe some negative quality of ageism to people who created and use software and then castigate them for it? Do you work for PeopleSoft? Makes your argument seem weak and flimsy, in fact arguments like yours can be dismissed out of hand.

SeanLuke 6y ago
I am one of those geezers.
- FandangoRanger 6y ago
  Doesn't pass the switch test.
  - SeanLuke 6y ago
    I've developed software since the early 1980s. I've used Emacs continuously since the late 1980s. Perhaps you should respond to the substance of a posting rather than complaining that a geezer used the term geezer to describe people like himself. EDIT You created your account two days ago and you're already accusing people of ageism? Get off my lawn.
TheGrassyKnoll 6y ago
Another geezer here. Using Emacs since Bush I.

donio 6y ago

Emacs is in that blissful state where it's resisting sacrificing its core user base by trying to cater to people who are not going to use it anyway. As a long term user I am very happy with the direction of Emacs development over the past few years. Emacs is pretty much the only piece of modern software where I don't have worry about losing functionality when I upgrade to a new version. Each new version is better than the old one.

sebow 6y ago

I'm not even a "geezer" of which you speak for but the fact that emacs does not have the standard copy-paste, cut, save, etc key-bindings by default is what makes it so powerful. The reason the community is the way it is is presumably because the learning curve makes the people who give up easily left out. The only fact I personally "hate" emacs is only that i don't have the time to learn lisp & customize the editor to the full extent myself, but that's not really a strong argument against emacs.(As resources about customizing emacs are not that hard to find, and the lisp/emacs-lisp community is not 'harsh') Just because everyone has some "standard"-deemed features does not mean emacs should have it aswell.Are you complaining about these things with vim aswell? A lot of people use emacs because of performance reasons, customization opportunities and more or less because emacs is de facto almost an operating system.

throwaway2938a 6y ago

Don't know what platform you are on, but on Mac with the GUI version, standard cut-copy-paste keybindings all work, as well as select-all, save, close window (Cmd + w), undo. Obviously they don't work in terminals.