2 ms·

He didn't state any technical reasons, or even related ethical reasons, why JS is bad for Emacs. RMS ranted on unrelated subject matter: that JS is used for "ev

by ok_dad 4y ago

He didn't state any technical reasons, or even related ethical reasons, why JS is bad for Emacs. RMS ranted on unrelated subject matter: that JS is used for "evil" in the web browser world. Why does that taint JS as a language in any way?

teddyh 4y ago
You quote the word “evil”, but RMS did not use that word. If you actually listen to (or read) what he said, he explains it quite well: “Emacs is supposed to defend your freedom. It's supposed to help you to defend your freedom, and lead you to defend your freedom, which means it shouldn't lead you to throw your freedom away as soon as you visit a site that tries to send you a non-free program to run straight off of that other machine. So it's important not to lead users to do computing this way.” I.e. if Emacs were to run JavaScript, people would use Emacs as a web browser, which would make Emacs help users run various privacy-invading JavaScript software.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  So it's important to RMS that our software protect us from using it in the way we want if that way is going to harm us according to his personal ethics and morals? Seems sketchy to me. RMS might want to consider retiring and letting his past work define him, as he seems to be thinking and saying some dumb shit lately, IMO. I don't know why I care what he thinks so much, I don't even use Emacs. I just bristle at his dumb moral reasoning behind what should be as simple as, "we want to focus on things other than JS support, and we also want lisp to be the primary language interface, according to our vision". His whole argument here is just moral and ethical grandstanding.
  - ziftface 4y ago
    You said the same thing as him in slightly more vague corporate speak. I think either is fine.
  - nequo 4y ago
    > His whole argument here is just moral and ethical grandstanding. I don’t think it is a moral or ethical question. The more freedoms you give away to companies with significant market power, the worse off you are in an economic sense. See Microsoft’s takeover of open-source .NET libraries and VS Code extensions, the Intel Management Engine, the glued in batteries in Apple devices, Google’s efforts to make alternative OSs harder to run on Android devices and ChromeBooks which in their factory form are built to track you, Toyota’s subscription model to keep your remote key fob functional, Mercedes’ subscription model for acceleration, and so on. You buy hardware, you use (and often buy) software, and they are more and more locked down so you don’t truly own them and are more and more designed to force you to pay more of your money.
zelphirkalt 4y ago
Ah, so you didn't listen to the first half of the video, in which he said, that JS would be a less beautiful and less powerful language than elisp and that it would split their focus? OK! But keep the claims about what he said or did not say comming.

by ok_dad 4y ago

teddyh 4y ago

You quote the word “evil”, but RMS did not use that word. If you actually listen to (or read) what he said, he explains it quite well: “Emacs is supposed to defend your freedom. It's supposed to help you to defend your freedom, and lead you to defend your freedom, which means it shouldn't lead you to throw your freedom away as soon as you visit a site that tries to send you a non-free program to run straight off of that other machine. So it's important not to lead users to do computing this way.” I.e. if Emacs were to run JavaScript, people would use Emacs as a web browser, which would make Emacs help users run various privacy-invading JavaScript software.

ok_dad 4y ago
So it's important to RMS that our software protect us from using it in the way we want if that way is going to harm us according to his personal ethics and morals? Seems sketchy to me. RMS might want to consider retiring and letting his past work define him, as he seems to be thinking and saying some dumb shit lately, IMO. I don't know why I care what he thinks so much, I don't even use Emacs. I just bristle at his dumb moral reasoning behind what should be as simple as, "we want to focus on things other than JS support, and we also want lisp to be the primary language interface, according to our vision". His whole argument here is just moral and ethical grandstanding.
- ziftface 4y ago
  You said the same thing as him in slightly more vague corporate speak. I think either is fine.
- nequo 4y ago
  > His whole argument here is just moral and ethical grandstanding. I don’t think it is a moral or ethical question. The more freedoms you give away to companies with significant market power, the worse off you are in an economic sense. See Microsoft’s takeover of open-source .NET libraries and VS Code extensions, the Intel Management Engine, the glued in batteries in Apple devices, Google’s efforts to make alternative OSs harder to run on Android devices and ChromeBooks which in their factory form are built to track you, Toyota’s subscription model to keep your remote key fob functional, Mercedes’ subscription model for acceleration, and so on. You buy hardware, you use (and often buy) software, and they are more and more locked down so you don’t truly own them and are more and more designed to force you to pay more of your money.

zelphirkalt 4y ago

Ah, so you didn't listen to the first half of the video, in which he said, that JS would be a less beautiful and less powerful language than elisp and that it would split their focus? OK! But keep the claims about what he said or did not say comming.