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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 hav

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.
- wara23arish 4y ago
  in case u didnt know C-h m i believe that lists all of the functions/variables of the current major mode you have I think also C - M x (not sure abt this one) is like M-x but basically only displays commands related to the modes you have active
  - tmtvl 4y ago
    M-S-x, actually, C-M-x is eval-defun in Elisp mode (and similar functions for Slime and Geiser).
tgv 4y ago
Emacs definitely doesn't have a low barrier. How many people know LISP in the first place? > All Emacs users I have met though were quite fanatical in customizing the editor. Indeed, and that's the bias of the poll, too. So emacs has a problem getting people on-board. I got into emacs via a Symbolics. It was great, back then, but it's such a specific combination of skills, and the user experience of emacs is completely outdone by e.g. VSCode. Add to that that most devs nowadays have a very shallow technical understanding, and emacs seems to be cornered in a niche. The only opportunity I see for it to come back is when the terminal interface becomes fashionable again.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  I don't think that emacs need to cater to those with very shallow understanding [1] to survive. It has prospered for decades in its niche and I think it is perfectly fine like this. The percentage of developers that use it might shrink, but the absolute numbers are very likely going up. [1] mind, I don't think that emacs requires very deep understanding either, but I might be overestimating the average programmer.
- User23 4y ago
  > How many people know LISP in the first place? The basics of Lisp are trivial. I’d happily no-hire any supposed developer that couldn’t easily pick it up. > and the user experience of emacs is completely outdone by e.g. VSCode. I heard this too. I was starting a new job using Ruby, which I hadn’t used in years. Despite being a long time Emacs user, since I hadn’t used Emacs in a few years and by far the most popular editor used by my team was VS Code, I thought I’d give it a shot. To my surprise it didn’t work anywhere near out of the box. I, and other developers on slack too, spent several days mucking with plugins and configs to get sorbet and other language servers working. At that point it was still a laggy lousy experience, but one where I was forced to use the mouse and had poor discoverability. So I said eff this, pulled spacemacs, and had a fully featured lsp based ruby IDE customized to my liking in about four hours. My conclusion from all this is that people say VS Code has a superior user experience they either don’t know what they’re talking about or are drawing the most superficial of conclusions.
  - donio 4y ago
    Yep, people tend to ignore the time spent mucking about with GUI based configurations even though it often adds up to enormous amounts of time. The big difference between the two approaches is that the effort I've spent customizing Emacs has continued to pay dividends over the past 20 years. And I only had to make each change once instead of every time I move to a new computer.
  - torben-friis 4y ago
    Alternatively, you are confusing familiar with intuitive. If you hit a wall with vs code, which many people consider the most user friendly editor because of lack or familiarity, imagine how it is for emacs newcomers, when the community’s approach to user experience is “you’re a user? Nope, you’re one of the devs now”.

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.

wara23arish 4y ago
in case u didnt know C-h m i believe that lists all of the functions/variables of the current major mode you have I think also C - M x (not sure abt this one) is like M-x but basically only displays commands related to the modes you have active
- tmtvl 4y ago
  M-S-x, actually, C-M-x is eval-defun in Elisp mode (and similar functions for Slime and Geiser).

tgv 4y ago

Emacs definitely doesn't have a low barrier. How many people know LISP in the first place? > All Emacs users I have met though were quite fanatical in customizing the editor. Indeed, and that's the bias of the poll, too. So emacs has a problem getting people on-board. I got into emacs via a Symbolics. It was great, back then, but it's such a specific combination of skills, and the user experience of emacs is completely outdone by e.g. VSCode. Add to that that most devs nowadays have a very shallow technical understanding, and emacs seems to be cornered in a niche. The only opportunity I see for it to come back is when the terminal interface becomes fashionable again.

gpderetta 4y ago
I don't think that emacs need to cater to those with very shallow understanding [1] to survive. It has prospered for decades in its niche and I think it is perfectly fine like this. The percentage of developers that use it might shrink, but the absolute numbers are very likely going up. [1] mind, I don't think that emacs requires very deep understanding either, but I might be overestimating the average programmer.
User23 4y ago
> How many people know LISP in the first place? The basics of Lisp are trivial. I’d happily no-hire any supposed developer that couldn’t easily pick it up. > and the user experience of emacs is completely outdone by e.g. VSCode. I heard this too. I was starting a new job using Ruby, which I hadn’t used in years. Despite being a long time Emacs user, since I hadn’t used Emacs in a few years and by far the most popular editor used by my team was VS Code, I thought I’d give it a shot. To my surprise it didn’t work anywhere near out of the box. I, and other developers on slack too, spent several days mucking with plugins and configs to get sorbet and other language servers working. At that point it was still a laggy lousy experience, but one where I was forced to use the mouse and had poor discoverability. So I said eff this, pulled spacemacs, and had a fully featured lsp based ruby IDE customized to my liking in about four hours. My conclusion from all this is that people say VS Code has a superior user experience they either don’t know what they’re talking about or are drawing the most superficial of conclusions.
- donio 4y ago
  Yep, people tend to ignore the time spent mucking about with GUI based configurations even though it often adds up to enormous amounts of time. The big difference between the two approaches is that the effort I've spent customizing Emacs has continued to pay dividends over the past 20 years. And I only had to make each change once instead of every time I move to a new computer.
- torben-friis 4y ago
  Alternatively, you are confusing familiar with intuitive. If you hit a wall with vs code, which many people consider the most user friendly editor because of lack or familiarity, imagine how it is for emacs newcomers, when the community’s approach to user experience is “you’re a user? Nope, you’re one of the devs now”.