10 ms·

VSCode allows you to write in Javascript what Emacs allows you to write in elisp. What's missing?

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Probably just about a couple of million lines of existing elisp (or more relevantly, the functionality therein).
hollerith 5y ago
If you're not a professional web developer, spending 80 hours learning how to modify Emacs will give you much more control over Emacs than the control you get from spending 80 hours learning how to modify VSCode. Or ar least that was my experience though I was in my prime when I learned Emacs decades ago and almost 60 years old when I spent the 80 hours learning how to modify VSCode. (I feel I have barely scratched the surface of VSCode and of web tech.) Web tech gives you a greater degree of control: e.g., Emacs Lisp cannot put red sqiggles under text like VSCode does, but rather limits the user interface essentially to one large "textarea" (though in contrast to TTY interfaces, Emacs has good support for the mouse), but it is very rare for me to want web tech's greater degree of control. One more thing. For years I went without internet access in my home, yet during those years I continued my habit of doing my emacs modifying at home: all I needed to do was make sure I had the Emacs Lisp reference manual and the Emacs Lisp source-code package installed. On every Linux distro I have used, these are standard packages, and they are all the information I needed to make most of the modifications I made to my local Emacs environment. In contrast, although there are troves of documentation on web tech, I have never succeeded in making a usable offline local copy of any of these troves, and wouldn't consider trying to modify (or explore the internals of) VSCode without constant access to the net.
- freemint 5y ago
  While true it also means that there is a way larger group of people skilled enough to develop new plugins in js.
- githubalphapapa 5y ago
  > Web tech gives you a greater degree of control: e.g., Emacs Lisp cannot put red sqiggles under text like VSCode does, but rather limits the user interface essentially to one large "textarea" (though in contrast to TTY interfaces, Emacs has good support for the mouse), but it is very rare for me to want web tech's greater degree of control. Emacs can certainly apply red squiggles and many other rich text formatting, through the use of faces (which is how all syntax highlighting is implemented). Emacs also has a rich text-properties API through which any part of a buffer's text may be propertized with metadata. And it also provides overlays, which "overlay" text, also optionally with additional properties, without modifying the buffer text itself. Together, these features are used to implement GUIs such as the Customization system with widgets, buttons, clickable links, collapsible sections, etc., as well as red-squiggle-style linting tools like flymake, flycheck, and LSP-related tools.
  - hollerith 5y ago
    Do you have a screenshot or a sexpr I can eval to produce the red squiggles in my Emacs?
    - githubalphapapa 5y ago
      > as well as red-squiggle-style linting tools like flymake, flycheck, and LSP-related tools.
      - hollerith 5y ago
        Thanks. I now know how to make red squiggles in my Emacs.

Probably just about a couple of million lines of existing elisp (or more relevantly, the functionality therein).

If you're not a professional web developer, spending 80 hours learning how to modify Emacs will give you much more control over Emacs than the control you get from spending 80 hours learning how to modify VSCode. Or ar least that was my experience though I was in my prime when I learned Emacs decades ago and almost 60 years old when I spent the 80 hours learning how to modify VSCode. (I feel I have barely scratched the surface of VSCode and of web tech.) Web tech gives you a greater degree of control: e.g., Emacs Lisp cannot put red sqiggles under text like VSCode does, but rather limits the user interface essentially to one large "textarea" (though in contrast to TTY interfaces, Emacs has good support for the mouse), but it is very rare for me to want web tech's greater degree of control. One more thing. For years I went without internet access in my home, yet during those years I continued my habit of doing my emacs modifying at home: all I needed to do was make sure I had the Emacs Lisp reference manual and the Emacs Lisp source-code package installed. On every Linux distro I have used, these are standard packages, and they are all the information I needed to make most of the modifications I made to my local Emacs environment. In contrast, although there are troves of documentation on web tech, I have never succeeded in making a usable offline local copy of any of these troves, and wouldn't consider trying to modify (or explore the internals of) VSCode without constant access to the net.

freemint 5y ago
While true it also means that there is a way larger group of people skilled enough to develop new plugins in js.
githubalphapapa 5y ago
> Web tech gives you a greater degree of control: e.g., Emacs Lisp cannot put red sqiggles under text like VSCode does, but rather limits the user interface essentially to one large "textarea" (though in contrast to TTY interfaces, Emacs has good support for the mouse), but it is very rare for me to want web tech's greater degree of control. Emacs can certainly apply red squiggles and many other rich text formatting, through the use of faces (which is how all syntax highlighting is implemented). Emacs also has a rich text-properties API through which any part of a buffer's text may be propertized with metadata. And it also provides overlays, which "overlay" text, also optionally with additional properties, without modifying the buffer text itself. Together, these features are used to implement GUIs such as the Customization system with widgets, buttons, clickable links, collapsible sections, etc., as well as red-squiggle-style linting tools like flymake, flycheck, and LSP-related tools.
- hollerith 5y ago
  Do you have a screenshot or a sexpr I can eval to produce the red squiggles in my Emacs?
  - githubalphapapa 5y ago
    > as well as red-squiggle-style linting tools like flymake, flycheck, and LSP-related tools.
    - hollerith 5y ago
      Thanks. I now know how to make red squiggles in my Emacs.