9 ms·

Emacs Timeline

124 points by susam 4y ago

eichin 4y ago
It's got some of the commercial emacsen, but I don't see CCA Emacs (ran on VAX BSD, at MIT in 1984-1985 at least; notable for things like "running a child csh to do file globbing" which was almost clever... until you didn't save for an hour and the csh autologout fired, and you discovered you could no longer save anything either. Never got bit by it, just remember being unable to help people with it...) No reason to think it shared code with anything else in the tree, of course.
eichin 4y ago
There are some interesting interactions between emacs and the rest of technical computing that might be interesting additions here, or at least footnotes. For example, me recollection of the first version of Linux that was worth running instead of 386BSD was 0.12... not as-posted, but with John Kohl's patches to make the select() syscall work well enough that you could actually use emacs... I wasn't the only one who saw that as a benchmark for "Oh, huh, this linux thing might actually be worth a look, if it runs emacs" (Note that it didn't have TCP yet :-)
ordu 4y ago
Nice. But `content-type: text/plain` makes html to be shown as a text. Not a big difference, because mostly it is a one big `pre`, but nevertheless.
- dang 4y ago
  We've changed the URL from https://depp.brause.cc/brause.cc/emacs/timeline.html https://depp.brause.cc/brause.cc/emacs/timeline.html and it seems to be working now.
sys_64738 4y ago
No mention of derivatives like Micro Emacs for the Amiga circa. 1985.
forgotpwd16 4y ago
Although updated in GNU Emacs side, SXEmacs shows recent version to be 22.1.16 (06-may-16) whereas 22.1.17 (02-sep-20) has been released.
juice_bus 4y ago
Has anyone here 'adapted' to Emacs after starting out with Visual Studio / Code / etc? I have tried multiple times over the years to give it a shot but it hasn't stuck.
- WoodenChair 4y ago
  I only tried once about 15 years ago (from GUI IDEs/editors) and it didn't appeal to me. Now with GitHub Copilot and the like I think the use of command-line editors will further diminish for generalized programming tasks, although they will always have a place in system administration.
  - mplanchard 4y ago
    Realistically, there’s not much emacs can’t do, including integrating with copilot[1]. I think it’s niche isn’t system administration, but people who have the time, energy, and interest to really invest in their tools. Its configurability is second to none, and it’s not going anywhere. Emacs will still be around long after vscode is forgotten, and it’s nice to know that the time I spend learning my editor won’t go to waste when some big corp decides to up and leave, or the programming zeitgeist moves on to the shiny new thing. [1]: https://github.com/zerolfx/copilot.el https://github.com/zerolfx/copilot.el
    - scombridae 4y ago
      Emacs will still be around long after vscode is forgotten Neither antecedent (vscode dies) nor consequent (emacs survives) is at all assured.
      - a_e_k 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
      - mplanchard 4y ago
        True! I guess there’s only one way to find out.
gumby 4y ago
I think the first entry should include Eugene Cicarelli’s TECO init file which was the base of the others. The 0th entry should be the addition of “^R MODE” to TECO, which was the interactive display editing mode for what was previously just a text mode editor like Multics qed or its descendant, Unix’s ed. I believe ^R mode (an MIT extension) was around ‘75. But this is second hand as I was quite late to the party, not encountering Emacs until 1978.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  i used the TECO init file version, it was on Multics. at that stage, i actually preferred "command line" TECO to visual TECO, keeping the abstract visualization in my head led to fluid authoring of edit commands, where looking at the screen with the cursor caret it was too easy to be distracted by material away from the point.
- ajross 4y ago
  Agreed. Does anyone know if there are sources retained anywhere for any of that stuff? IIRC I went digging around the simh ITS packages (hard to do since it's an alien filesystem image, not exactly a consumable tarball) and couldn't find it.
  - gumby 4y ago
    Have you asked Lars Brinkhoff?
- User23 4y ago
  > I was quite late to the party, not encountering Emacs until 1978. I didn’t discover Emacs until almost two decades later and I’ve been using it my entire career. It’s truly remarkable longevity.
mcbuilder 4y ago
Emacs first public release is as old as I am. It seems that development on GNU Emacs is regaining momentum. I'm glad to be using an editor that's probably going to be around for the rest of my life time.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  GNU Emacs development does indeed seem to have picked up the pace in the last 5-10 years. And the package archives and development community outside of people working on the core editor seems super vibrant. See, eg, magit, helm/ivy/vertico/…, spacemacs/doom, paredit, eglot, …
  - ashton314 4y ago
    My people to follow are Daniel Mendler (github.com/minad; author of vertico, consult, marginalia, corfu, tempel…) and Protesilaos Stavrou (modus-themes, denote) but that's in part due to the fact that the development of these packages specifically impacts my work directly. There is a ton of other stuff happening in other packages. Some off the top of my head are org-roam, the magit ecosystem, lsp-related stuff. Nicolas P. Rougier has some insanely beautiful Emacs packages as well.
intrasight 4y ago
I started with Gosmacs back in 1984 at CMU. Time does fly.
- caboteria 4y ago
  I'm curious whether you are still an emacs user. I'm a relative emacs noob, having started using it around the turn of the century, and I can't imagine how much time I would have wasted learning the editor of the moment over and over.
  - dilap 4y ago
    Otoh, how much time have you wasted customizing your editor? I know it's a lot for me! :-) It's sort of a palette cleanser. "Ehhh, I don't feel like working what I'm supposed to be working on, I think there's this urgent emacs feature I should figure out..."
    - intrasight 4y ago
      My approach is to put aside a dedicated week once a year.
  - intrasight 4y ago
    I still use it every day. Still learning new things - and probably will be for the remainder of my time here.
- convolvatron 4y ago
  I started with zmacs in '87. it seemed so old and such an established part of the canon even then - I can hardly believe it was just a baby, and that I'm still using it as a daily driver 35 years later.
muxneo 4y ago
Can't thank you more. Being an avid emacs user, I have always wanted to know the history and lineage.
argiopetech 4y ago
I'm amused by the recursive acronyms EINE and ZWEI. While I doubt seriously they're the oldest recursive acronyms, they're the oldest I've seen (and clever, to boot.)
- gumby 4y ago
  Daniel Weinreb’s death was a genuine tragedy. Not just a great hacker, but a truly kind human being.

124 points by susam 4y ago

It's got some of the commercial emacsen, but I don't see CCA Emacs (ran on VAX BSD, at MIT in 1984-1985 at least; notable for things like "running a child csh to do file globbing" which was almost clever... until you didn't save for an hour and the csh autologout fired, and you discovered you could no longer save anything either. Never got bit by it, just remember being unable to help people with it...) No reason to think it shared code with anything else in the tree, of course.

eichin 4y ago

There are some interesting interactions between emacs and the rest of technical computing that might be interesting additions here, or at least footnotes. For example, me recollection of the first version of Linux that was worth running instead of 386BSD was 0.12... not as-posted, but with John Kohl's patches to make the select() syscall work well enough that you could actually use emacs... I wasn't the only one who saw that as a benchmark for "Oh, huh, this linux thing might actually be worth a look, if it runs emacs" (Note that it didn't have TCP yet :-)

ordu 4y ago

Nice. But `content-type: text/plain` makes html to be shown as a text. Not a big difference, because mostly it is a one big `pre`, but nevertheless.

dang 4y ago
We've changed the URL from https://depp.brause.cc/brause.cc/emacs/timeline.html https://depp.brause.cc/brause.cc/emacs/timeline.html and it seems to be working now.

sys_64738 4y ago

No mention of derivatives like Micro Emacs for the Amiga circa. 1985.

forgotpwd16 4y ago

Although updated in GNU Emacs side, SXEmacs shows recent version to be 22.1.16 (06-may-16) whereas 22.1.17 (02-sep-20) has been released.

juice_bus 4y ago

Has anyone here 'adapted' to Emacs after starting out with Visual Studio / Code / etc? I have tried multiple times over the years to give it a shot but it hasn't stuck.

WoodenChair 4y ago
I only tried once about 15 years ago (from GUI IDEs/editors) and it didn't appeal to me. Now with GitHub Copilot and the like I think the use of command-line editors will further diminish for generalized programming tasks, although they will always have a place in system administration.
- mplanchard 4y ago
  Realistically, there’s not much emacs can’t do, including integrating with copilot[1]. I think it’s niche isn’t system administration, but people who have the time, energy, and interest to really invest in their tools. Its configurability is second to none, and it’s not going anywhere. Emacs will still be around long after vscode is forgotten, and it’s nice to know that the time I spend learning my editor won’t go to waste when some big corp decides to up and leave, or the programming zeitgeist moves on to the shiny new thing. [1]: https://github.com/zerolfx/copilot.el https://github.com/zerolfx/copilot.el
  - scombridae 4y ago
    Emacs will still be around long after vscode is forgotten Neither antecedent (vscode dies) nor consequent (emacs survives) is at all assured.
    - a_e_k 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
    - mplanchard 4y ago
      True! I guess there’s only one way to find out.

gumby 4y ago

I think the first entry should include Eugene Cicarelli’s TECO init file which was the base of the others. The 0th entry should be the addition of “^R MODE” to TECO, which was the interactive display editing mode for what was previously just a text mode editor like Multics qed or its descendant, Unix’s ed. I believe ^R mode (an MIT extension) was around ‘75. But this is second hand as I was quite late to the party, not encountering Emacs until 1978.

fsckboy 4y ago
i used the TECO init file version, it was on Multics. at that stage, i actually preferred "command line" TECO to visual TECO, keeping the abstract visualization in my head led to fluid authoring of edit commands, where looking at the screen with the cursor caret it was too easy to be distracted by material away from the point.
ajross 4y ago
Agreed. Does anyone know if there are sources retained anywhere for any of that stuff? IIRC I went digging around the simh ITS packages (hard to do since it's an alien filesystem image, not exactly a consumable tarball) and couldn't find it.
- gumby 4y ago
  Have you asked Lars Brinkhoff?
User23 4y ago
> I was quite late to the party, not encountering Emacs until 1978. I didn’t discover Emacs until almost two decades later and I’ve been using it my entire career. It’s truly remarkable longevity.

mcbuilder 4y ago

Emacs first public release is as old as I am. It seems that development on GNU Emacs is regaining momentum. I'm glad to be using an editor that's probably going to be around for the rest of my life time.

dan-robertson 4y ago
GNU Emacs development does indeed seem to have picked up the pace in the last 5-10 years. And the package archives and development community outside of people working on the core editor seems super vibrant. See, eg, magit, helm/ivy/vertico/…, spacemacs/doom, paredit, eglot, …
- ashton314 4y ago
  My people to follow are Daniel Mendler (github.com/minad; author of vertico, consult, marginalia, corfu, tempel…) and Protesilaos Stavrou (modus-themes, denote) but that's in part due to the fact that the development of these packages specifically impacts my work directly. There is a ton of other stuff happening in other packages. Some off the top of my head are org-roam, the magit ecosystem, lsp-related stuff. Nicolas P. Rougier has some insanely beautiful Emacs packages as well.

intrasight 4y ago

I started with Gosmacs back in 1984 at CMU. Time does fly.

caboteria 4y ago
I'm curious whether you are still an emacs user. I'm a relative emacs noob, having started using it around the turn of the century, and I can't imagine how much time I would have wasted learning the editor of the moment over and over.
- dilap 4y ago
  Otoh, how much time have you wasted customizing your editor? I know it's a lot for me! :-) It's sort of a palette cleanser. "Ehhh, I don't feel like working what I'm supposed to be working on, I think there's this urgent emacs feature I should figure out..."
  - intrasight 4y ago
    My approach is to put aside a dedicated week once a year.
- intrasight 4y ago
  I still use it every day. Still learning new things - and probably will be for the remainder of my time here.
convolvatron 4y ago
I started with zmacs in '87. it seemed so old and such an established part of the canon even then - I can hardly believe it was just a baby, and that I'm still using it as a daily driver 35 years later.

muxneo 4y ago

Can't thank you more. Being an avid emacs user, I have always wanted to know the history and lineage.

argiopetech 4y ago

I'm amused by the recursive acronyms EINE and ZWEI. While I doubt seriously they're the oldest recursive acronyms, they're the oldest I've seen (and clever, to boot.)

gumby 4y ago
Daniel Weinreb’s death was a genuine tragedy. Not just a great hacker, but a truly kind human being.