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Honestly, I never really had that much love for Emacs until relatively recently. I've always dabbled due to it generally having good support for most languages

Honestly, I never really had that much love for Emacs until relatively recently. I've always dabbled due to it generally having good support for most languages (including esoteric ones) but recently I got into it a lot more due to the fact that many of the new-ish OSS editors but Emacs has always been there and likely will always be there. A few years back I got into Atom quite a bit since it checked all the boxes: extensible, open source, and it was very nice. Then VSCode killed it. And it seems more and more that VSCode is taking over, all the while inserting more proprietary code to the point where half the 'big' plugins don't work on Codium, only the proprietary MS distribution. So I got back into Emacs but really worked on my environment. Stopped dabbling and started just forcing myself to use it. And it's honestly amazing. It checks off every box available in VSCode and more. And it's nice knowing that it'll always be there. I'm not against proprietary software per-se, but I definitely don't have a lot of trust in Microsoft.

quotemstr 5y ago
And thanks to recent developments in cross-editor infrastructure projects like tree-sitter and LSP, editors like VSCode, Emacs, Sublime Tex, and even public nuisances like vim can all advance at the same time and benefit from each other's development work in areas where the editors aren't differentiated. We're very close to a world in which we don't have N implementations of finding the start of a C function or figuring out what parts of a Python buffer are keywords.
- lc9er 5y ago
  > even public nuisances like vim. I love vim (err… Neovim), and this was great.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    we all love vim, especially to mock it absurdly
    - smitty1e 5y ago
      Spacemacs is bee's knees.
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      Which flavor of vi do you use? Spacemacs or Doom? (Edit: Yes, this is a joke)
    - sg47 5y ago
      Vim is dn addiction. Difficult to quit
      - iainctduncan 5y ago
        OMG this. so this.
    - randomswede 5y ago
      I don't, it is a poor substitute for nvi, doesn't behave like the vim of old and defaults to angry fruit salad mode. No, nvi or bust, man!
- pronik 5y ago
  Somehow, Microsoft managed to invent LSP for VSCode and then abandon some parts of it just a couple of years later -- e.g. python language server is dead, pylance is there instead, closed source, VSCode-specific and with prohibitive license. Most language plugins in VSCode don't use LSP anymore IIRC.
  - pitaj 5y ago
    While it may be true that pylance is closed source and vscode specific, pyright[1] is MIT. Pylance does appear to still be a language server as well. As far as I know, most language plugins still use LSP, including Typescript/Javascript, Rust, and Go. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/pyright https://github.com/microsoft/pyright
    - Spivak 5y ago
      Pyright is the best thing I've ever added to my Python workflow. It's nuts how productive you can be with a good type checker and completions.
    - pronik 5y ago
      pyright only does typing and nothing else. You'd have to combine it with another python LSP for syntax and linting.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- nocman 5y ago
  "public nuisances like vim" Others here seem to have taken this as tongue-in-cheek. On the first read I took it as "I think vim is ridiculous". I'm honestly curious to know which it is (or if both are inaccurate).
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    Of course it's tongue in cheek. Vim is venerable high quality software that a lot of people love. Emacs people dunking on vim (and vice versa) is just an old traditional joke with no actual animus behind it.
    - nocman 5y ago
      I'm well aware of the decades long "feud" between emacs users and vi/vim users. But that isn't always just harmless joking around either - there are people in both camps that can be quite nasty about it. At any rate I didn't read your comment as being "and emacs user dunking on vim" (you mentioned emacs in a list of editors, but it wasn't obvious that you were coming from the emacs camp). A lot of people scoff at vim because it works so much differently than anything else they've used before (mostly due to modal editing). I guess that was the vibe I got from my first reading of your comment, but I'll just chaulk that up to there being no "tone of voice" when reading text. Personally I am in both camps - I use both editors. and like both of them for different reasons.
throw10920 5y ago
One of the (several) unfortunate things about Atom being killed by VSCode was that its extension model was much closer to that of Emacs - everything ran in the main editor process - far more flexible than VSCode, but also with the mass-market appeal of JavaScript. (yeah, that model led to poor performance, but afaict that's a combination of (a) just JS things and (b) not putting any effort into the design) > I definitely don't have a lot of trust in Microsoft. Very wise, given the user-hostile stuff they've been doing in Windows recently...
- smallnamespace 5y ago
  > (a) just JS things and (b) not putting any effort into the design This feels a bit self-contradictory, since one might argue a properly designed extension API must include process isolation, so naively-written extensions can't mess up the main loop. VS Code extensions are also in JS. This is the same problem that, say, preemptive multitasking solves, and why Windows 3.1 crashed much more than '95 and XP.
rvieira 5y ago
I'm also a recent Emacs enthusiast. Many many years ago, I never felt productive with the navigation and keys. Then, recently, I _really_ wanted to try org and thought "I'll force myself to use it". I started with Evil mode and Doom. I was blown away tbh. What I thought to be an "old" tool that would slow me down, is actually a massive booster (and fun!). My personal experience, of course.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Evil/Doom never really clicked for me and I went back to Neovim because of it. There were always gotcha's or packages that didn't have evil support and the when the walls broke down it was kinda clunky. Now that you can script Vim with Lua (or Python/Ruby) I don't really think I care too much about Emacs' infinite extensibility.
- rolandog 5y ago
  I had a very similar experience, but I started with plain Emacs, and little by little adding what I needed. I was afraid of getting something really bloated, or not understanding how it all bundles together. I think it has paid off a bit, but the learning curve has been steep.
  - rvieira 5y ago
    IMO that's the proper way to learn Emacs. Doom seemed right to me at the time because I just wanted to uncomment `;; org` in `init.el` , not learn a lot of keybindings and get started. I think I'll start an "Emacs from scratch" someday too.
    - kencausey 5y ago
      Why didn't you just start with the arrow, backspace, and delete keys?
      - rvieira 5y ago
        Sorry, don't get your point. What do arrow, backspace, and delete have to do with wanting to use Vim's keybindings on Emacs?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

quotemstr 5y ago

And thanks to recent developments in cross-editor infrastructure projects like tree-sitter and LSP, editors like VSCode, Emacs, Sublime Tex, and even public nuisances like vim can all advance at the same time and benefit from each other's development work in areas where the editors aren't differentiated. We're very close to a world in which we don't have N implementations of finding the start of a C function or figuring out what parts of a Python buffer are keywords.

lc9er 5y ago
> even public nuisances like vim. I love vim (err… Neovim), and this was great.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  we all love vim, especially to mock it absurdly
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    Spacemacs is bee's knees.
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    Which flavor of vi do you use? Spacemacs or Doom? (Edit: Yes, this is a joke)
  - sg47 5y ago
    Vim is dn addiction. Difficult to quit
    - iainctduncan 5y ago
      OMG this. so this.
  - randomswede 5y ago
    I don't, it is a poor substitute for nvi, doesn't behave like the vim of old and defaults to angry fruit salad mode. No, nvi or bust, man!
pronik 5y ago
Somehow, Microsoft managed to invent LSP for VSCode and then abandon some parts of it just a couple of years later -- e.g. python language server is dead, pylance is there instead, closed source, VSCode-specific and with prohibitive license. Most language plugins in VSCode don't use LSP anymore IIRC.
- pitaj 5y ago
  While it may be true that pylance is closed source and vscode specific, pyright[1] is MIT. Pylance does appear to still be a language server as well. As far as I know, most language plugins still use LSP, including Typescript/Javascript, Rust, and Go. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/pyright https://github.com/microsoft/pyright
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Pyright is the best thing I've ever added to my Python workflow. It's nuts how productive you can be with a good type checker and completions.
  - pronik 5y ago
    pyright only does typing and nothing else. You'd have to combine it with another python LSP for syntax and linting.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nocman 5y ago
"public nuisances like vim" Others here seem to have taken this as tongue-in-cheek. On the first read I took it as "I think vim is ridiculous". I'm honestly curious to know which it is (or if both are inaccurate).
- quotemstr 5y ago
  Of course it's tongue in cheek. Vim is venerable high quality software that a lot of people love. Emacs people dunking on vim (and vice versa) is just an old traditional joke with no actual animus behind it.
  - nocman 5y ago
    I'm well aware of the decades long "feud" between emacs users and vi/vim users. But that isn't always just harmless joking around either - there are people in both camps that can be quite nasty about it. At any rate I didn't read your comment as being "and emacs user dunking on vim" (you mentioned emacs in a list of editors, but it wasn't obvious that you were coming from the emacs camp). A lot of people scoff at vim because it works so much differently than anything else they've used before (mostly due to modal editing). I guess that was the vibe I got from my first reading of your comment, but I'll just chaulk that up to there being no "tone of voice" when reading text. Personally I am in both camps - I use both editors. and like both of them for different reasons.

throw10920 5y ago

One of the (several) unfortunate things about Atom being killed by VSCode was that its extension model was much closer to that of Emacs - everything ran in the main editor process - far more flexible than VSCode, but also with the mass-market appeal of JavaScript. (yeah, that model led to poor performance, but afaict that's a combination of (a) just JS things and (b) not putting any effort into the design) > I definitely don't have a lot of trust in Microsoft. Very wise, given the user-hostile stuff they've been doing in Windows recently...

smallnamespace 5y ago
> (a) just JS things and (b) not putting any effort into the design This feels a bit self-contradictory, since one might argue a properly designed extension API must include process isolation, so naively-written extensions can't mess up the main loop. VS Code extensions are also in JS. This is the same problem that, say, preemptive multitasking solves, and why Windows 3.1 crashed much more than '95 and XP.

rvieira 5y ago

I'm also a recent Emacs enthusiast. Many many years ago, I never felt productive with the navigation and keys. Then, recently, I _really_ wanted to try org and thought "I'll force myself to use it". I started with Evil mode and Doom. I was blown away tbh. What I thought to be an "old" tool that would slow me down, is actually a massive booster (and fun!). My personal experience, of course.

Spivak 5y ago
Evil/Doom never really clicked for me and I went back to Neovim because of it. There were always gotcha's or packages that didn't have evil support and the when the walls broke down it was kinda clunky. Now that you can script Vim with Lua (or Python/Ruby) I don't really think I care too much about Emacs' infinite extensibility.
rolandog 5y ago
I had a very similar experience, but I started with plain Emacs, and little by little adding what I needed. I was afraid of getting something really bloated, or not understanding how it all bundles together. I think it has paid off a bit, but the learning curve has been steep.
- rvieira 5y ago
  IMO that's the proper way to learn Emacs. Doom seemed right to me at the time because I just wanted to uncomment `;; org` in `init.el` , not learn a lot of keybindings and get started. I think I'll start an "Emacs from scratch" someday too.
  - kencausey 5y ago
    Why didn't you just start with the arrow, backspace, and delete keys?
    - rvieira 5y ago
      Sorry, don't get your point. What do arrow, backspace, and delete have to do with wanting to use Vim's keybindings on Emacs?

deleted 5y ago

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