5 ms·

I don't really buy the argument I'm afraid. I've been an Emacs user for over 20 years. I like it, and find it productive. But it's stuck in a rut, in a very

by rleigh 6y ago

I don't really buy the argument I'm afraid. I've been an Emacs user for over 20 years. I like it, and find it productive. But it's stuck in a rut, in a very similar manner to Perl 5. If that isn't addressed, it will fade into the background. I'd argue that's already happened. None of my coworkers in any of the jobs I've worked in have used it, and that includes academia and various industries. It seems to be restricted to the uber-nerds who find out about it and go through the pain of learning how to drive it effectively. I used to use it for everything, from GNUS to org-mode, but my usage is declining. The keybindings need to be fixed. CUA has been the norm for what, 35 years at this point. C-y is paste. C-z minimises the window (WTF!) C-_ is undo. It's not just nonstandard and counterintutive, it's unnecessarily nonstandard and counterintuitive. They aren't more efficient, they aren't more effective. It's a barrier to adoption which doesn't need to be there. It has a certain familiarity for us long-time users, but that's about it. Every other application uses something based on CUA, so it's not like we couldn't switch over. While I certainly wouldn't want a "GNOME 3" type of makeover, where all the actual userbase are cast aside to be replaced by a hypothetical potential userbase which doesn't actually exist, I do think it's well worth a look at present-day alternatives and to make sure it doesn't fall behind. Because I think it actually has fallen behind, and it needs to get its act together to retain its relevance. Recently I got a personal JetBrains subscription and started using CLion. While I still miss many little small features, there are quite a number of big features which Emacs doesn't attempt to do, and so the small annoyances are worth it for those large benefits. Emacs needs to be able to do better than this to not only keep up, but to do better than its competitors.

htns 6y ago
The CUA issue seems frivolous, since retention among those who don't even do the built-in tutorial on the splash page was never going to be high. It might help somewhat, but the bigger issue with emacs is the association with spacemacs (vi), lisp, and "configurability", which attracts some but perhaps leads many more to disregard emacs as Kool-Aid and never even try it. The reason to use emacs is that the text-editing is superior. magit, org-mode, email, and so on having an unified interface is great, but the text-editing (navigation, mark and region, macros, rectangles, and more) is what I miss acutely when using anything else, and it's also the reason why the rest of emacs exists.
BeetleB 6y ago
I said: > (I'm not against CUA bindings by default - merely pointing out a misconception you have). And you respond with: > I don't really buy the argument I'm afraid. And then you write a whole comment about how CUA is better. Which argument did I make that you don't buy? Why is this a reply to my comment? > I do think it's well worth a look at present-day alternatives and to make sure it doesn't fall behind. In all my jobs that used IDEs (including JetBrains's excellent stuff), I used both the IDE and Emacs - the latter for text editing, etc. The former for all the goodies it brings (navigation, etc). There's no law saying it has to be one or the other. IDEs becoming very popular in no way threatens Emacs. > Because I think it actually has fallen behind, and it needs to get its act together to retain its relevance. I could really easily write a whole article on all the features Emacs has that many more popular editors don't have, and then end the article with "Those other editors are falling behind." We have to clearly delineate what "falling behind" means, and whether it is relevant. VS Code gaining in popularity doesn't necessarily impact Emacs. In my career I've met an order of magnitude more Vim users, and Emacs is not the worse because of it. Emacs's capabilities have grown much faster than Vim's has, and Emacs has a lot more users than it used to. Furthermore, most Vim users I've encountered at work are not fairly advanced users: They just need something to edit files with. Having them switch to Emacs will neither help them nor the Emacs community. I don't mind some of the proposed changes (nicer defaults, revamping the tutorial, etc). But I really don't want a mindless goal of increasing user counts. More users will not make Emacs gain more capabilities. Passionate users will.
nobody9999 6y ago
>The keybindings need to be fixed. CUA has been the norm for what, 35 years at this point. M-x cua-mode<return> Oh, and you're welcome.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  Thatcs not the norm. That's an off-by-default feature that doesn't display its existence to people who would use it.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >Thatcs not the norm So what? Is your argument that if not many people/products/software packages do a certain thing a certain way, they should be rejected out of hand? Back when I was a teen, I rode my skateboard goofy-footed[0]. That wasn't (and still isn't) the norm. Should I have been chastised or prevented from doing so? I'm also left-handed. While I do keep the mouse on the left side of my keyboard, I do not swap the mouse buttons. As such, a right-click is done with my index finger and a left-click with my middle finger. That's not the norm either. Should I be criticized for that? Chrome is, by far, the "norm" for web browsers. I use Firefox, and occasionally Vivaldi. Should FF or Vivaldi just make themselves clones of Chrome because they're not "the norm"? I run sendmail and not postfix, even though that's much more "the norm." Does that make my MTA bad or less useful? I could probably rattle off a dozen other similar things that aren't "the norm." Does that mean no one should do things that way or use them? If you want/need an editor that uses CUA by default, there are dozens of editors that do so. Why should Emacs (or any other product that you don't contribute to or use) do things the way you want them to do so? [0] https://www.liveabout.com/goofy-meaning-3002686 https://www.liveabout.com/goofy-meaning-3002686
- CJefferson 6y ago
  If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config?
  - nobody9999 6y ago

by rleigh 6y ago

htns 6y ago

The CUA issue seems frivolous, since retention among those who don't even do the built-in tutorial on the splash page was never going to be high. It might help somewhat, but the bigger issue with emacs is the association with spacemacs (vi), lisp, and "configurability", which attracts some but perhaps leads many more to disregard emacs as Kool-Aid and never even try it. The reason to use emacs is that the text-editing is superior. magit, org-mode, email, and so on having an unified interface is great, but the text-editing (navigation, mark and region, macros, rectangles, and more) is what I miss acutely when using anything else, and it's also the reason why the rest of emacs exists.

BeetleB 6y ago

I said: > (I'm not against CUA bindings by default - merely pointing out a misconception you have). And you respond with: > I don't really buy the argument I'm afraid. And then you write a whole comment about how CUA is better. Which argument did I make that you don't buy? Why is this a reply to my comment? > I do think it's well worth a look at present-day alternatives and to make sure it doesn't fall behind. In all my jobs that used IDEs (including JetBrains's excellent stuff), I used both the IDE and Emacs - the latter for text editing, etc. The former for all the goodies it brings (navigation, etc). There's no law saying it has to be one or the other. IDEs becoming very popular in no way threatens Emacs. > Because I think it actually has fallen behind, and it needs to get its act together to retain its relevance. I could really easily write a whole article on all the features Emacs has that many more popular editors don't have, and then end the article with "Those other editors are falling behind." We have to clearly delineate what "falling behind" means, and whether it is relevant. VS Code gaining in popularity doesn't necessarily impact Emacs. In my career I've met an order of magnitude more Vim users, and Emacs is not the worse because of it. Emacs's capabilities have grown much faster than Vim's has, and Emacs has a lot more users than it used to. Furthermore, most Vim users I've encountered at work are not fairly advanced users: They just need something to edit files with. Having them switch to Emacs will neither help them nor the Emacs community. I don't mind some of the proposed changes (nicer defaults, revamping the tutorial, etc). But I really don't want a mindless goal of increasing user counts. More users will not make Emacs gain more capabilities. Passionate users will.

nobody9999 6y ago

>The keybindings need to be fixed. CUA has been the norm for what, 35 years at this point. M-x cua-mode<return> Oh, and you're welcome.

Qwertious 6y ago
Thatcs not the norm. That's an off-by-default feature that doesn't display its existence to people who would use it.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Thatcs not the norm So what? Is your argument that if not many people/products/software packages do a certain thing a certain way, they should be rejected out of hand? Back when I was a teen, I rode my skateboard goofy-footed[0]. That wasn't (and still isn't) the norm. Should I have been chastised or prevented from doing so? I'm also left-handed. While I do keep the mouse on the left side of my keyboard, I do not swap the mouse buttons. As such, a right-click is done with my index finger and a left-click with my middle finger. That's not the norm either. Should I be criticized for that? Chrome is, by far, the "norm" for web browsers. I use Firefox, and occasionally Vivaldi. Should FF or Vivaldi just make themselves clones of Chrome because they're not "the norm"? I run sendmail and not postfix, even though that's much more "the norm." Does that make my MTA bad or less useful? I could probably rattle off a dozen other similar things that aren't "the norm." Does that mean no one should do things that way or use them? If you want/need an editor that uses CUA by default, there are dozens of editors that do so. Why should Emacs (or any other product that you don't contribute to or use) do things the way you want them to do so? [0] https://www.liveabout.com/goofy-meaning-3002686 https://www.liveabout.com/goofy-meaning-3002686
CJefferson 6y ago
If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config?
- nobody9999 6y ago