8 ms·

Emacs User Survey – 2022 Results

94 points by gmemstr 4y ago

ykonstant 4y ago
He he; all I see is a very cute bad gateway pic.
- forgotpwd16 4y ago
  Alt: https://web.archive.org/web/20221218110505/https://emacssurvey.org/results/3425413930 https://web.archive.org/web/20221218110505/https://emacssurv...
forgotpwd16 4y ago
Those are raw results, not edited for presentation. For example "favourite packages" just gives answers as is rather considering that input was comma-separated list. Interestingly a significant majority of surveyees are from HN and r/emacs. And for anyone seeing the "Vector{String}" and wonders, yes, the framework utilized for the survey is written in Julia.
- usr1106 4y ago
  Unusable at least on my phone. When I extend "What are the biggest strengths" I seem to seen thousands of free-text answers. Scrolling never ends...
- celeritascelery 4y ago
  The author of the survey gave a presentation at EmacsConf that does a little more analysis of the results. https://emacsconf.org/2022/talks/survey/ https://emacsconf.org/2022/talks/survey/
  - pxc 4y ago
    Heads up for those who try the video and ditch it due to crappy audio: the audio-only Opus recording sounds fine
tgv 4y ago
The fact that about 10% maintains an elisp package, and that about 90% can program in elisp, makes me suspect the outcomes are skewed. Either that, or emacs is doomed.
- blahgeek 4y ago
  > or emacs is doomed. Can you elaborate? Isn’t a high developer/user ratio a good thing?
  - NeutralForest 4y ago
    No, it means that only people highly involved in the ecosystem keep using Emacs. Ideally, you'd like people completely unaware of how it works to use it; like for VSCode for example.
    - pluijzer 4y ago
      The low maintainer/user ratio could be explain by the low barrier that Emacs provide to extend it in comparison to other editors like vscode. Most people I have met using vscode use it very vanilla, maybe thet use a handful of plugins bit non of them have written custom code for it. All Emacs users I have met though were quite fanatical in customizing the editor.
      - NeutralForest 4y ago
        Fair enough, I just don't have sufficient numbers and analysis to have a good opinion on this.
      - aeonik 4y ago
        This is definitely partially true, I'm already working on my own package after only having used emacs for a few months. That being said, as a a newbie, even when M-x <command> it's pretty hard for me to figure out commands. Documentation is also a bit hard for me to understand and seems to assume you know what you are doing already. I think having the menu system expose more commands from minor and major modes might go a long way to reducing friction from new users.
NeutralForest 4y ago
Good steps are taken for Emacs 29: use-package, eglot, tree-sitter are coming to core!
- kstrauser 4y ago
  That’s three less things I have to install afterward. It also means that each of those can be used in the official docs as the standard way of doing their respective things, which is great news.
philonoist 4y ago
Offtopic: Why did Spacemacs development stop? They didn't have a stable release from 2018.
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  They did not stop, it's just rolling release for some years now and everything is happening in develop-branch. See the last release-note at master: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/core/info/release-notes/0.200.14.txt https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/core/info/...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- opan 4y ago
  Unsure if anything changed, but even the first time I ever used Spacemacs, they recommended the development branch. Some projects are allergic to cutting releases for some reason (pfetch hasn't had one in years). edit: Here is a relevant issue with some discussion https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/11191 https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/11191
Archelaos 4y ago
I wonder what conclusion people want to draw from such a "survey". Whom does it represent? Only people who happen to know about the survey and felt motivated enough to work through it. I would therefore guess that it was highly networked Emacs power users and avid consumers of tech news who participated. -- It's hard to escape the echo chamber.
- Forge36 4y ago
  I'm brand new (only started in past 9 months). I took the survey. That's a great question to include next time
  - grumpyprole 4y ago
    I've been using Emacs for over 25 years, sadly I missed this survey.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- yaantc 4y ago
  I agree but still find the survey interesting. It shows what's actually used among (power) users, which can sometimes give a different perspective from web/email discussions that naturally are biased toward new things.
- celeritascelery 4y ago
  How do you think the results would be different if “all” Emacs users were polled? I would expect significantly less packages used and less elisp proficiency.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - morelisp 4y ago
    I'm not sure about "less packages used." Anecdotally it's the new users who install a massive amount of "plugins" from ELPAs and the more experienced ones slowly integrating a few large packages but mostly custom code into their workflows over 20+ years.
323 4y ago
For those who don't really know what Emacs is (besides being an editor), I found this overview video from Steve Yegge as excellent. I never used Emacs, so it was very informing for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkIicfzPBys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkIicfzPBys One particular aspect that intrigued me: you can extend VS Code (and similiar), but it's a lot of work and boilerplate to create a plugin whose actual functionality is 3 lines of code (let's say toLowercase()). In emacs, you can just write those 3 lines of code and that's it, that's your plugin.
- hollerith 4y ago
  >you can extend VS Code (and similiar), but it's a lot of work and boilerplate to create a plugin whose actual functionality is 3 lines of code (let's say toLowercase()). In emacs, you can just write those 3 lines of code and that's it, that's your plugin. This right here is the main reason I'm still using Emacs. Another thing that makes it easy to extend Emacs is that the (freely downloadable) documentation on how to extend Emacs is very well written and organized -- much more so than the documentation on how to extend vscode for example. And it is easy to obtain a local, offline copy of all the documentation I need to extend Emacs by installing a couple of packages in my package manager of choice (namely, one package containing Emacs's source code and one package consisting of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual). For a few years recently I didn't have a net connection in my apartment. (I still had access to the net by walking to a community room in my apartment building.) During those years, I spent hundreds of hours in my apartment modifying Emacs -- often quite complicated modifications -- but only a few times did I feel the need during one of those Emacs-modification sessions to leave my apartment to look something up on the net. In contrast, while extending vscode, a coder needs to be connected to the net because all the documentation is on the net, with no easy or even medium-difficulty way of obtaining an offline copy that I have been able to find.
  - tweetle_beetle 4y ago
    I'm sure there are many interesting reasons to prefer Emacs to VS Code, but lack of offline documentation surely isn't one. Installing an Emacs package is not significantly easier or less technical than downloading a git repository. - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-docs https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-docs - https://vscode.dev/github/microsoft/vscode-docs/blob/main/api/get-started/your-first-extension.md https://vscode.dev/github/microsoft/vscode-docs/blob/main/ap...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

94 points by gmemstr 4y ago

ykonstant 4y ago

He he; all I see is a very cute bad gateway pic.

forgotpwd16 4y ago
Alt: https://web.archive.org/web/20221218110505/https://emacssurvey.org/results/3425413930 https://web.archive.org/web/20221218110505/https://emacssurv...

forgotpwd16 4y ago

Those are raw results, not edited for presentation. For example "favourite packages" just gives answers as is rather considering that input was comma-separated list. Interestingly a significant majority of surveyees are from HN and r/emacs. And for anyone seeing the "Vector{String}" and wonders, yes, the framework utilized for the survey is written in Julia.

usr1106 4y ago
Unusable at least on my phone. When I extend "What are the biggest strengths" I seem to seen thousands of free-text answers. Scrolling never ends...
celeritascelery 4y ago
The author of the survey gave a presentation at EmacsConf that does a little more analysis of the results. https://emacsconf.org/2022/talks/survey/ https://emacsconf.org/2022/talks/survey/
- pxc 4y ago
  Heads up for those who try the video and ditch it due to crappy audio: the audio-only Opus recording sounds fine

tgv 4y ago

The fact that about 10% maintains an elisp package, and that about 90% can program in elisp, makes me suspect the outcomes are skewed. Either that, or emacs is doomed.

blahgeek 4y ago
> or emacs is doomed. Can you elaborate? Isn’t a high developer/user ratio a good thing?
- NeutralForest 4y ago
  No, it means that only people highly involved in the ecosystem keep using Emacs. Ideally, you'd like people completely unaware of how it works to use it; like for VSCode for example.
  - pluijzer 4y ago
    The low maintainer/user ratio could be explain by the low barrier that Emacs provide to extend it in comparison to other editors like vscode. Most people I have met using vscode use it very vanilla, maybe thet use a handful of plugins bit non of them have written custom code for it. All Emacs users I have met though were quite fanatical in customizing the editor.
    - NeutralForest 4y ago
      Fair enough, I just don't have sufficient numbers and analysis to have a good opinion on this.
    - aeonik 4y ago
      This is definitely partially true, I'm already working on my own package after only having used emacs for a few months. That being said, as a a newbie, even when M-x <command> it's pretty hard for me to figure out commands. Documentation is also a bit hard for me to understand and seems to assume you know what you are doing already. I think having the menu system expose more commands from minor and major modes might go a long way to reducing friction from new users.

NeutralForest 4y ago

Good steps are taken for Emacs 29: use-package, eglot, tree-sitter are coming to core!

kstrauser 4y ago
That’s three less things I have to install afterward. It also means that each of those can be used in the official docs as the standard way of doing their respective things, which is great news.

philonoist 4y ago

Offtopic: Why did Spacemacs development stop? They didn't have a stable release from 2018.

PurpleRamen 4y ago
They did not stop, it's just rolling release for some years now and everything is happening in develop-branch. See the last release-note at master: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/core/info/release-notes/0.200.14.txt https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/core/info/...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
opan 4y ago
Unsure if anything changed, but even the first time I ever used Spacemacs, they recommended the development branch. Some projects are allergic to cutting releases for some reason (pfetch hasn't had one in years). edit: Here is a relevant issue with some discussion https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/11191 https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/11191

Archelaos 4y ago

I wonder what conclusion people want to draw from such a "survey". Whom does it represent? Only people who happen to know about the survey and felt motivated enough to work through it. I would therefore guess that it was highly networked Emacs power users and avid consumers of tech news who participated. -- It's hard to escape the echo chamber.

Forge36 4y ago
I'm brand new (only started in past 9 months). I took the survey. That's a great question to include next time
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  I've been using Emacs for over 25 years, sadly I missed this survey.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
yaantc 4y ago
I agree but still find the survey interesting. It shows what's actually used among (power) users, which can sometimes give a different perspective from web/email discussions that naturally are biased toward new things.
celeritascelery 4y ago
How do you think the results would be different if “all” Emacs users were polled? I would expect significantly less packages used and less elisp proficiency.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- morelisp 4y ago
  I'm not sure about "less packages used." Anecdotally it's the new users who install a massive amount of "plugins" from ELPAs and the more experienced ones slowly integrating a few large packages but mostly custom code into their workflows over 20+ years.

323 4y ago

For those who don't really know what Emacs is (besides being an editor), I found this overview video from Steve Yegge as excellent. I never used Emacs, so it was very informing for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkIicfzPBys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkIicfzPBys One particular aspect that intrigued me: you can extend VS Code (and similiar), but it's a lot of work and boilerplate to create a plugin whose actual functionality is 3 lines of code (let's say toLowercase()). In emacs, you can just write those 3 lines of code and that's it, that's your plugin.

hollerith 4y ago
>you can extend VS Code (and similiar), but it's a lot of work and boilerplate to create a plugin whose actual functionality is 3 lines of code (let's say toLowercase()). In emacs, you can just write those 3 lines of code and that's it, that's your plugin. This right here is the main reason I'm still using Emacs. Another thing that makes it easy to extend Emacs is that the (freely downloadable) documentation on how to extend Emacs is very well written and organized -- much more so than the documentation on how to extend vscode for example. And it is easy to obtain a local, offline copy of all the documentation I need to extend Emacs by installing a couple of packages in my package manager of choice (namely, one package containing Emacs's source code and one package consisting of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual). For a few years recently I didn't have a net connection in my apartment. (I still had access to the net by walking to a community room in my apartment building.) During those years, I spent hundreds of hours in my apartment modifying Emacs -- often quite complicated modifications -- but only a few times did I feel the need during one of those Emacs-modification sessions to leave my apartment to look something up on the net. In contrast, while extending vscode, a coder needs to be connected to the net because all the documentation is on the net, with no easy or even medium-difficulty way of obtaining an offline copy that I have been able to find.
- tweetle_beetle 4y ago
  I'm sure there are many interesting reasons to prefer Emacs to VS Code, but lack of offline documentation surely isn't one. Installing an Emacs package is not significantly easier or less technical than downloading a git repository. - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-docs https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-docs - https://vscode.dev/github/microsoft/vscode-docs/blob/main/api/get-started/your-first-extension.md https://vscode.dev/github/microsoft/vscode-docs/blob/main/ap...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]