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That's great and all, but people who are learning emacs for the first time don't know or care that it's one of the most successful text editors or that it's bee

That's great and all, but people who are learning emacs for the first time don't know or care that it's one of the most successful text editors or that it's been around for 40 years. They care about being able to write code effectively. And emacs doesn't let users write code effectively by modern standards. Sure, after boatloads of configuration and tinkering it does, but it's unclear if it's worth it. Forking it is also missing the point. There's plenty of forks with dark coloring schemes and predefined packages. Spacemacs, Doom emacs, etc. The issue is that most people hear about emacs and try to download emacs, not Spacemacs, not Doom. They're then greeted by an unfriendly UI and confusing commands and dammit it doesn't even autocomplete JavaScript by default. Dark color schemes and proper right click functionality might seen dumb, but they're one easy step towards making emacs seem like an editor for the 21st century and not something your dad used on a Lisp machine in the 80's.

stingraycharles 6y ago
Yeah I think this is on point. The core maintainers are always kind of resisting changing things to more sane defaults, which is a pity. I recently had the experience of a friend of mine, a data scientist, tell me he tried to use emacs but just couldn’t get it to work. When I asked how he installed it, he was like “well I just downloaded it, and started tinkering a bit with my config”. After which he just ditched it, he accepted that the learning curve was just to steep. The idea that there are these whole starter packs never crossed his mind. I referred him to a few, and he suddenly got much more productive and has been a happy emacs user ever since. Moral of the story: at the very least, users should be made aware of these starter packs much more prominently when downloading or installing emacs. Alternatively, fix the defaults.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  A little messaging about starter-pack options, in the default welcome screens, would go a long way.
- ngcc_hk 6y ago
  Great. Now where is the starter pack. Better with some lisp in a box etc. as well. I use lisp download with Mac because at least the key I know of. No strange key combination.
  - stingraycharles 6y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't understand the point that you're trying to make?
elsjaako 6y ago
> That's great and all, but people who are learning emacs for the first time don't know or care that it's one of the most successful text editors or that it's been around for 40 years I don't think this is true. In fact, I think most people that start in Emacs do so because they've heard that old experts use it, and know they will have to put some effort in to understand why.
umanwizard 6y ago
Who cares if new people use it or if it looks modern? It’s working well for the people who want it. Not every piece of software has to be everything to everyone.
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  It’s not that black and white. A simple hint when installing or downloading, “hey did you know that there are these starter packs?” would already do wonders. It’s not that people are suggesting emacs tries to be everything to everyone; heck, by pure virtue of its extensibility, emacs is actually the one editor that could potentially be everything to everyone. But a simple startup screen, “hey, it looks like this is your first time using emacs. what kind of defaults would you like?” would do wonders and existing users would be entirely unaffected.
  - slightwinder 6y ago
    > A simple hint when installing or downloading, “hey did you know that there are these starter packs?” would already do wonders. Automating the Starter-Pack-Installation at virgin start and adding one or two out of the box would be better. Many people are not downloading emacs directly. On Linux you go through your destribution.
- aldanor 6y ago
  If new people don't use it, both its user base and developer list will monotonically decrease until both reach zero which may happen sooner than it could've been otherwise.
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    I think that's okay. I see that many younger colleagues and friends no longer use Emacs or Vim, preferring editors with Textmate heritage (sublime, vs code and so on). I think the middle ground during the transition would be the worst of both worlds and there is no shame to no longer be on the top if the times change.
- deleted 6y ago
blablabla123 6y ago
I don't think nice color schemes are the point - although I do highly appreciate them. I've tried Spacemacs and it's pretty nice. Using it in vi-mode, it provides multicursors that are far more advanced than in any other editor I know. Also it has a sidebar. On the other hand for me Spacemacs is pretty buggy (macOS + Linux), I sometimes have to redo commands. Some important vim shortcuts are not implemented and the sidebar is also not always working as it should. Therefore I refrain from adding more plugins to the mix. Experienced Emacs tend to not use the Spacemacs theme and are working with solid configurations. Maybe a rock-solid default configuration would work.
- trenchgun 6y ago
  Doom emacs is probably the state of the art emacs starter pack now. A lot faster than spacemacs, more stable etc. A rock solid default config made out of Doom emacs might work.
  - TrisMcC 6y ago
    I don't think a starter pack that completely disables the "Customize" interface would be a good candidate for default. https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs/blob/a2a5038b970df20ec512447b7bbbe96fa2446851/core/core-ui.el#L666 https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs/blob/a2a5038b970df20e... "Doom doesn't support `customize' and it never will. It's a clumsy interface" I find the Customize interface very useful.
    - dan-robertson 6y ago
      Yeah, unfortunately doom isn’t designed to be beginner friendly. I’m personally in two minds about customize. It is quite clunky and I think it’s too easy to have your customisations overwritten by customise or something else or to have them overwritten in confusing ways. But it also gives a non-lisp interface to a lot of customisation (manually setting up the data structures can be a big pain to get right without it).
    - vfclists 6y ago
      When you use the customize interface you sacrifice proper version control. Bad idea.
how_gauche 6y ago
I don't know dude, I've had new grads recently wholesale switch to Emacs just after watching me work for five minutes. "Holy crap, why are you editing these programs so much faster than me?" Completely agree that out-of-the-box Emacs experience is NOT where it's at. I have twenty years invested in tweaking it to minimize keystrokes and operate faster for my use cases. Just remember that Emacs is not actually an editor, it's a Lisp Machine OS you can use to build an editor out of parts Also keep in mind that alternate distros like Spacemacs are the way Emacs has to evolve, because making drastic structural changes to defaults would break so many user scripts and packages -- the things that provide most of the long-term value proposition of using Emacs in the first place.
phaer 6y ago
> That's great and all, but people who are learning emacs for the first time don't know or care that it's one of the most successful text editors or that it's been around for 40 years. They care about being able to write code effectively. I started using Emacs ~2008 and it's longevity has been a major factor in my decision, as I thought it would likely be usable for the next 30 years as well and help me to avoid changing environments every few years with each new hype. Later I found a talk which expresses the same sentiment in it's title: "The Editor of a Lifetime" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADudzQGvU8&t=1823s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADudzQGvU8&t=1823s
Siira 6y ago
Then the solution is to just point people to some of the popular starter packs when emacs starts for the first few times. I think Doom is pretty rad by default.

stingraycharles 6y ago

Yeah I think this is on point. The core maintainers are always kind of resisting changing things to more sane defaults, which is a pity. I recently had the experience of a friend of mine, a data scientist, tell me he tried to use emacs but just couldn’t get it to work. When I asked how he installed it, he was like “well I just downloaded it, and started tinkering a bit with my config”. After which he just ditched it, he accepted that the learning curve was just to steep. The idea that there are these whole starter packs never crossed his mind. I referred him to a few, and he suddenly got much more productive and has been a happy emacs user ever since. Moral of the story: at the very least, users should be made aware of these starter packs much more prominently when downloading or installing emacs. Alternatively, fix the defaults.

fennecfoxen 6y ago
A little messaging about starter-pack options, in the default welcome screens, would go a long way.
ngcc_hk 6y ago
Great. Now where is the starter pack. Better with some lisp in a box etc. as well. I use lisp download with Mac because at least the key I know of. No strange key combination.
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't understand the point that you're trying to make?

elsjaako 6y ago

> That's great and all, but people who are learning emacs for the first time don't know or care that it's one of the most successful text editors or that it's been around for 40 years I don't think this is true. In fact, I think most people that start in Emacs do so because they've heard that old experts use it, and know they will have to put some effort in to understand why.

umanwizard 6y ago

Who cares if new people use it or if it looks modern? It’s working well for the people who want it. Not every piece of software has to be everything to everyone.

stingraycharles 6y ago
It’s not that black and white. A simple hint when installing or downloading, “hey did you know that there are these starter packs?” would already do wonders. It’s not that people are suggesting emacs tries to be everything to everyone; heck, by pure virtue of its extensibility, emacs is actually the one editor that could potentially be everything to everyone. But a simple startup screen, “hey, it looks like this is your first time using emacs. what kind of defaults would you like?” would do wonders and existing users would be entirely unaffected.
- slightwinder 6y ago
  > A simple hint when installing or downloading, “hey did you know that there are these starter packs?” would already do wonders. Automating the Starter-Pack-Installation at virgin start and adding one or two out of the box would be better. Many people are not downloading emacs directly. On Linux you go through your destribution.
aldanor 6y ago
If new people don't use it, both its user base and developer list will monotonically decrease until both reach zero which may happen sooner than it could've been otherwise.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  I think that's okay. I see that many younger colleagues and friends no longer use Emacs or Vim, preferring editors with Textmate heritage (sublime, vs code and so on). I think the middle ground during the transition would be the worst of both worlds and there is no shame to no longer be on the top if the times change.
deleted 6y ago

blablabla123 6y ago

I don't think nice color schemes are the point - although I do highly appreciate them. I've tried Spacemacs and it's pretty nice. Using it in vi-mode, it provides multicursors that are far more advanced than in any other editor I know. Also it has a sidebar. On the other hand for me Spacemacs is pretty buggy (macOS + Linux), I sometimes have to redo commands. Some important vim shortcuts are not implemented and the sidebar is also not always working as it should. Therefore I refrain from adding more plugins to the mix. Experienced Emacs tend to not use the Spacemacs theme and are working with solid configurations. Maybe a rock-solid default configuration would work.

trenchgun 6y ago
Doom emacs is probably the state of the art emacs starter pack now. A lot faster than spacemacs, more stable etc. A rock solid default config made out of Doom emacs might work.
- TrisMcC 6y ago
  I don't think a starter pack that completely disables the "Customize" interface would be a good candidate for default. https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs/blob/a2a5038b970df20ec512447b7bbbe96fa2446851/core/core-ui.el#L666 https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs/blob/a2a5038b970df20e... "Doom doesn't support `customize' and it never will. It's a clumsy interface" I find the Customize interface very useful.
  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    Yeah, unfortunately doom isn’t designed to be beginner friendly. I’m personally in two minds about customize. It is quite clunky and I think it’s too easy to have your customisations overwritten by customise or something else or to have them overwritten in confusing ways. But it also gives a non-lisp interface to a lot of customisation (manually setting up the data structures can be a big pain to get right without it).
  - vfclists 6y ago
    When you use the customize interface you sacrifice proper version control. Bad idea.

how_gauche 6y ago

I don't know dude, I've had new grads recently wholesale switch to Emacs just after watching me work for five minutes. "Holy crap, why are you editing these programs so much faster than me?" Completely agree that out-of-the-box Emacs experience is NOT where it's at. I have twenty years invested in tweaking it to minimize keystrokes and operate faster for my use cases. Just remember that Emacs is not actually an editor, it's a Lisp Machine OS you can use to build an editor out of parts Also keep in mind that alternate distros like Spacemacs are the way Emacs has to evolve, because making drastic structural changes to defaults would break so many user scripts and packages -- the things that provide most of the long-term value proposition of using Emacs in the first place.

phaer 6y ago

> That's great and all, but people who are learning emacs for the first time don't know or care that it's one of the most successful text editors or that it's been around for 40 years. They care about being able to write code effectively. I started using Emacs ~2008 and it's longevity has been a major factor in my decision, as I thought it would likely be usable for the next 30 years as well and help me to avoid changing environments every few years with each new hype. Later I found a talk which expresses the same sentiment in it's title: "The Editor of a Lifetime" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADudzQGvU8&t=1823s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADudzQGvU8&t=1823s

Siira 6y ago

Then the solution is to just point people to some of the popular starter packs when emacs starts for the first few times. I think Doom is pretty rad by default.