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Ask HN: Emacs on macOS Ventura on Apple Silicon

17 points by plg 4y ago

What is your go-to emacs for MacOS on apple silicon? I'm aware of the wiki https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS Just wondering what people choose. I grew up on emacs on Sun workstations. Want to get back to it. IDEs are driving me nuts.

mark_l_watson 4y ago
I recently just built it from source to get ahead of time compiling for ELisp. A little bit of effort, but after 1 long build, now it starts quickly and runs fast.
djaouen 4y ago
I use emacs-plus installed from homebrew. I also create an alias to the actual App in /Applications so that it is picked up by Spotlight. :)
- karmajunkie 4y ago
  same here, it’s been pretty stable and trouble free for me
johnklos 4y ago
NetBSD's pkgsrc will let you compile any of a number of different emacs versions easily.
- tcmart14 4y ago
  I haven't tested it on the M1 machine, but from experience, pkgin/pkgsrc did work pretty well with my 2015 Macbook Pro. I should give it a whirl on the M1.
plg 4y ago
update: tried this build script and seems good https://github.com/jimeh/build-emacs-for-macos https://github.com/jimeh/build-emacs-for-macos
noidesto 4y ago
https://github.com/d12frosted/homebrew-emacs-plus https://github.com/d12frosted/homebrew-emacs-plus
- foobarbaz33 4y ago
  ditto. I think the build from d12frosted on homebrew do not have the new native comp feature enabled. Not sure if that's a limitation of running on the M1. But on the M1, Emacs is fast and snappy regardless.
  - VTimofeenko 4y ago
    I think it's disabled by default. To enable: brew install emacs-plus@28 --with-native-comp Works fine with doom emacs on an M1
foobarbaz33 4y ago
> Want to get back to it. IDEs are driving me nuts. This. I get a great experience without even using LSP which itself can be finicky. 1. ripgrep. Regex searches are the universal "do-everything" tool. If you really master them and integrate them into your workflow you will not want for much else. They can even supplant the need for auto completion to a certain degree. When you pop open the definition you searched for in a new window that's analogous to a completion popup. Then just M-/ for dumb completion to assist with the manual typing. 2. ctags. Old school. But it works. They can work across weird file types with languages embedded in them, etc. citre-mode has some nice "candy" features built on ctags like a "peek" overlay popup. 3. snippets. Create a set of hand crafted snipppets for each language you use. Code flows out of your fingers at the speed of thought. Yasnippet does what I need and allows embedding of lisp code into the snippet for some really really advanced expansions. Although simple expansions are all that's needed 99% of the time. 4. debugging. Take time to master a debugger like GDB. Or add debug(msg) statements through your code. Many languages will have a mechanism for the debug statements to be compiled out of a production build. 5. profit. Your laptop will never sound like an airplane take off the runway. The M1 may never be noisy but it will still reap the increased battery time.
onedognight 4y ago
I use Homebrew’s emacs brew install emacs or when I want a GUI, I use the Cask version from https://emacsforosx.com https://emacsforosx.com brew install --cask emacs The https://emacsforosx.com https://emacsforosx.com maintainer goes to great lengths to compile many of the optional dependencies, like image formats, and to support older versions of MacOS.
soraminazuki 4y ago
The Emacs package from Nix. It’s the only macOS build of Emacs I used that was fully featured, provided in binary form, distributed from a reputable source, and not broken. I initially used Homebrew Emacs, but it removed GUI support a while back. I then briefly tried the emacsformacosx build, the one Homebrew Cask points to, but I stopped using that too because it’s not compiled with the full set of dependencies and isn’t supported by DoomEmacs [1]. I then moved to emacs-plus, but that too had issues like the lack of binary packages and unreliable updates. I finally settled on Nix and it hasn’t given me problems since. The current situation personally came off as a surprise considering the popularity of Emacs. [1]: https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs/blob/085b5563fc73daf50d4661b45214123c5ed820f7/docs/getting_started.org#where-not-to-install-emacs-from https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs/blob/085b5563fc73daf5...

17 points by plg 4y ago

mark_l_watson 4y ago

I recently just built it from source to get ahead of time compiling for ELisp. A little bit of effort, but after 1 long build, now it starts quickly and runs fast.

djaouen 4y ago

I use emacs-plus installed from homebrew. I also create an alias to the actual App in /Applications so that it is picked up by Spotlight. :)

karmajunkie 4y ago
same here, it’s been pretty stable and trouble free for me

johnklos 4y ago

NetBSD's pkgsrc will let you compile any of a number of different emacs versions easily.

tcmart14 4y ago
I haven't tested it on the M1 machine, but from experience, pkgin/pkgsrc did work pretty well with my 2015 Macbook Pro. I should give it a whirl on the M1.

plg 4y ago

update: tried this build script and seems good https://github.com/jimeh/build-emacs-for-macos https://github.com/jimeh/build-emacs-for-macos

noidesto 4y ago

https://github.com/d12frosted/homebrew-emacs-plus https://github.com/d12frosted/homebrew-emacs-plus

foobarbaz33 4y ago
ditto. I think the build from d12frosted on homebrew do not have the new native comp feature enabled. Not sure if that's a limitation of running on the M1. But on the M1, Emacs is fast and snappy regardless.
- VTimofeenko 4y ago
  I think it's disabled by default. To enable: brew install emacs-plus@28 --with-native-comp Works fine with doom emacs on an M1

foobarbaz33 4y ago

> Want to get back to it. IDEs are driving me nuts. This. I get a great experience without even using LSP which itself can be finicky. 1. ripgrep. Regex searches are the universal "do-everything" tool. If you really master them and integrate them into your workflow you will not want for much else. They can even supplant the need for auto completion to a certain degree. When you pop open the definition you searched for in a new window that's analogous to a completion popup. Then just M-/ for dumb completion to assist with the manual typing. 2. ctags. Old school. But it works. They can work across weird file types with languages embedded in them, etc. citre-mode has some nice "candy" features built on ctags like a "peek" overlay popup. 3. snippets. Create a set of hand crafted snipppets for each language you use. Code flows out of your fingers at the speed of thought. Yasnippet does what I need and allows embedding of lisp code into the snippet for some really really advanced expansions. Although simple expansions are all that's needed 99% of the time. 4. debugging. Take time to master a debugger like GDB. Or add debug(msg) statements through your code. Many languages will have a mechanism for the debug statements to be compiled out of a production build. 5. profit. Your laptop will never sound like an airplane take off the runway. The M1 may never be noisy but it will still reap the increased battery time.

onedognight 4y ago

I use Homebrew’s emacs brew install emacs or when I want a GUI, I use the Cask version from https://emacsforosx.com https://emacsforosx.com brew install --cask emacs The https://emacsforosx.com https://emacsforosx.com maintainer goes to great lengths to compile many of the optional dependencies, like image formats, and to support older versions of MacOS.

soraminazuki 4y ago

The Emacs package from Nix. It’s the only macOS build of Emacs I used that was fully featured, provided in binary form, distributed from a reputable source, and not broken. I initially used Homebrew Emacs, but it removed GUI support a while back. I then briefly tried the emacsformacosx build, the one Homebrew Cask points to, but I stopped using that too because it’s not compiled with the full set of dependencies and isn’t supported by DoomEmacs [1]. I then moved to emacs-plus, but that too had issues like the lack of binary packages and unreliable updates. I finally settled on Nix and it hasn’t given me problems since. The current situation personally came off as a surprise considering the popularity of Emacs. [1]: https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs/blob/085b5563fc73daf50d4661b45214123c5ed820f7/docs/getting_started.org#where-not-to-install-emacs-from https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs/blob/085b5563fc73daf5...