5 ms·

Elisp is a really poor language compared to almost anything else, more work should be done to allow Emacs to be configured in other languages.

nonameisfinetoo 5y ago
Dude, I think you might have a problem
shidima 5y ago
Maybe if you would elaborate on why you think that, you would not be down voted so much. Having said that, if you don't like it maybe you should find an editor that suits you more?
- Koshkin 5y ago
  To be fair, the parent is not talking about the editor but rather its configuration language. Indeed, there have been attempts to replace elisp with other languages, such as Scheme (guile) and Common Lisp.
  - mindcrime 5y ago
    There is apparently a Guile enabled version of Emacs available. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacsBuild https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacsBuild
NeutralForest 5y ago
Emacs and Elisp are too intertwined at this point. This interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKegZI9vWUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKegZI9vWUU of the creator of Doom Emacs talks about this exact problem.
klibertp 5y ago
> Elisp is a really poor language compared to almost anything else What makes Elisp a "poor language" in your opinion? Elisp is actually a really good language. Especially compared to other languages used for scripting, like Lua or JS. In some areas Elisp is significantly more advanced than either: pattern matching (pcase, dash), object orientation (multimethods, multiple inheritance), iteration (loop), data types (Lua has 3, JS a bit more, while Elisp gives you lists (pairs, proplists, assoc lists, trees), vectors, maps, unicode strings with optional metadata, queues, rings, and more. While the lack of reader macros is unfortunate, the macro system along with hooks and advice allow for writing libraries that integrate seamlessly into the environment, and ones that cleanly hide a lot of complexity (ie. use-package). Additionally, Elisp performance is not very bad (though of course worse than JITed languages) and it got AOT native compiler recently, which should help improve upon it. Namespaces are the only lacking feature at this point. I mean, there are lots of places where Elisp could and should be improved, but it's in quite good shape already. Definitely not "really poor", especially compared to the other scripting languages.
bloopernova 5y ago
Can you give some reasons why you dislike Elisp? What language would you re-write Emacs configurations in?
- mcguire 5y ago
  I believe your second question needs to be rephrased as "What language would you re-write Emacs in?" I don't remember what the core to elisp fraction is, but it's not that big.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    Emacs is written in C and Emacs Lisp. I’m not able to download the source right now, but from some googling the C portion is around 20-25%. So 75-80% lisp. That’s a rather substantial amount of code that would need to be rewritten, not to mention that probably does not include all the lisp code that’s not included in the core distribution. Tons of packages out there that would need to be rewritten. -----ADDED----- Downloaded 27.2: Emacs Lisp: 1,171,507 C : 318,611 C Headers : 43,738 (that's without comments) That's a lot of code to replace, and again, just what's in the core distribution.

nonameisfinetoo 5y ago

Dude, I think you might have a problem

shidima 5y ago

Maybe if you would elaborate on why you think that, you would not be down voted so much. Having said that, if you don't like it maybe you should find an editor that suits you more?

Koshkin 5y ago
To be fair, the parent is not talking about the editor but rather its configuration language. Indeed, there have been attempts to replace elisp with other languages, such as Scheme (guile) and Common Lisp.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  There is apparently a Guile enabled version of Emacs available. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacsBuild https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacsBuild

NeutralForest 5y ago

Emacs and Elisp are too intertwined at this point. This interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKegZI9vWUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKegZI9vWUU of the creator of Doom Emacs talks about this exact problem.

klibertp 5y ago

> Elisp is a really poor language compared to almost anything else What makes Elisp a "poor language" in your opinion? Elisp is actually a really good language. Especially compared to other languages used for scripting, like Lua or JS. In some areas Elisp is significantly more advanced than either: pattern matching (pcase, dash), object orientation (multimethods, multiple inheritance), iteration (loop), data types (Lua has 3, JS a bit more, while Elisp gives you lists (pairs, proplists, assoc lists, trees), vectors, maps, unicode strings with optional metadata, queues, rings, and more. While the lack of reader macros is unfortunate, the macro system along with hooks and advice allow for writing libraries that integrate seamlessly into the environment, and ones that cleanly hide a lot of complexity (ie. use-package). Additionally, Elisp performance is not very bad (though of course worse than JITed languages) and it got AOT native compiler recently, which should help improve upon it. Namespaces are the only lacking feature at this point. I mean, there are lots of places where Elisp could and should be improved, but it's in quite good shape already. Definitely not "really poor", especially compared to the other scripting languages.

bloopernova 5y ago

Can you give some reasons why you dislike Elisp? What language would you re-write Emacs configurations in?

mcguire 5y ago
I believe your second question needs to be rephrased as "What language would you re-write Emacs in?" I don't remember what the core to elisp fraction is, but it's not that big.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  Emacs is written in C and Emacs Lisp. I’m not able to download the source right now, but from some googling the C portion is around 20-25%. So 75-80% lisp. That’s a rather substantial amount of code that would need to be rewritten, not to mention that probably does not include all the lisp code that’s not included in the core distribution. Tons of packages out there that would need to be rewritten. -----ADDED----- Downloaded 27.2: Emacs Lisp: 1,171,507 C : 318,611 C Headers : 43,738 (that's without comments) That's a lot of code to replace, and again, just what's in the core distribution.