7 ms·

A few new things in Emacs 29

119 points by Amorymeltzer 4y ago

smcn 4y ago
My Emacs is reporting that `count-words` was "Probably introduced at or before Emacs version 24.1." but good post regardless.
- michaelhoffman 4y ago
  > *now also reports the number of sentences* Emphasis added.
  - abudabi123 4y ago
    WOW That means Emacs has the smarts now to decide where a full stop ends a sentence and can follow up with double spacing.
    - mbork_pl 4y ago
      > The sentence commands assume that you follow the American typist’s convention of putting two spaces at the end of a sentence. That is, a sentence ends wherever there is a ‘.’, ‘?’ or ‘!’ followed by the end of a line or two spaces, with any number of ‘)’, ‘]’, ‘'’, or ‘"’ characters allowed in between. A sentence also begins or ends wherever a paragraph begins or ends. It is useful to follow this convention, because it allows the Emacs sentence commands to distinguish between periods that end a sentence and periods that indicate abbreviations. (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Sentences.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Se...)
      - goosedragons 4y ago
        That's a good convention for people taught typing on a typewriter but pretty bad for younger folks.
        Wildgoose 4y ago
        Disagree. I wasn't taught on a typewriter, (although my mother did teach typing), but any plain text will be aided by that convention. Yes, it's not necessary with justified text when using (for example) TeX. But seeing a solid wall of text in a long paragraph with no hints as to its sentence structure other than a tiny "."? No thanks.
        MadcapJake 4y ago
        Perhaps this is true but the convention is no longer in use pedagogically.
      - tmtvl 4y ago
        Of course Emacs has a configuration option you can toggle which disables the need for a double space after a sentence.
- jchmrt 4y ago
  I think the author means that count-words already existed, but only reported words and characters. Now it also reports the amount of sentences.
  - smcn 4y ago
    That's entirely my bad. Reread it and it was obvious what was being said!
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
- gumby 4y ago
  That's odd, as Emacs had this function long before being ported to C/elisp, i.e. over 40 years ago.
  - michaelhoffman 4y ago
    Over 40 years ago is definitely "at or before" Emacs 24.1. Specifically before. As far as I can tell, the "probably introduced at or before" info comes from finding a symbol's first appearance in NEWS. So if there were no changes to `count-words` between Emacs 1 and 24, this is what you'd get.
323 4y ago
Another feature is that you can now run VS Code inside, so now Emacs finally has a decent text editor: https://i.redd.it/1a4yhesko26a1.png https://i.redd.it/1a4yhesko26a1.png
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  Is this VS Code running in an internal Webbrowser of emacs? Webkit then I guess?
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  You've been able to do that with exwm for many years.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mark_l_watson 4y ago
I agree that Emacs 29 contains many improvements, thanks to all of the developers and documentation writers. I am more excited by Emacs 30, mostly I like the ahead of time compilation of Lisp code.
- mattarm 4y ago
  > I am more excited by Emacs 30, mostly I like the ahead of time compilation of Lisp code. Emacs has had an ahead of time compilation feature, "Native Compilation," since Emacs 28. Is this what you mean? Or is the Emacs 30 feature something different?
  - yaantc 4y ago
    Emacs 28 has just in time compilation: the compilation happens lazily as a package is loaded. Ahead of time would means at installation time I guess.
    - mark_l_watson 4y ago
      That is y understanding also.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    there's a flag to decide if you want AOT or on-load/on-demand native comp
- e3bc54b2 4y ago
  AOT is coming in 29.1.
chimprich 4y ago
> (It never ceases to amaze me that MS Word and its ilk do not seem to have equivalents of view-lossage or describe-key or where-is. Or am I mistaken?) (I'm guessing the author means VS Code, not MS Word here?) There are some features of Emacs that are amazingly useful, have been there for years (or decades), but which I haven't yet managed to find in any other editor. For example, regional undo: select a region of text and step back through changes in that region only.
- jolmg 4y ago
  > regional undo Is that from a package?
  - wara23arish 4y ago
    Nope, i think it’s enabled automatically.
  - yaantc 4y ago
    Not, it's build in: when you undo with a region highlighted the undo is limited to the content of this region. Really nice when you made changes elsewhere and realize late that you made a mistake (but not too late: the undo info must still be present of course).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- IncRnd 4y ago
  > (I'm guessing the author means VS Code, not MS Word here?) I took that to mean that the author painted all non-emacs editors as not really being useful editors.
  - shakow 4y ago
    That's not reading between the lines, that's just inventing a new article.
    - 4y ago
josteink 4y ago
Emacs 29 contains so many things OOB that it has completely eliminated the use of 70-80% of the packages I use in my day-to-day job: - use-package built in - csharp-mode (now built in) - typescript-mode (now built in) - same with json-mode too. - project.el instead of projectile - eglot (now built in) over lsp-mode As far as Emacs releases goes this one has more functionality packed than I can remember in any previous release ever.
- brabel 4y ago
  I already use use-package, so that's great... I also use projectile and it's been working great... how should I prepare to move to project.el? Are there any guides? Or things just work the same I am used to, and I just need to delete projectile once upgrading? I also use lsp-* for all IDE features... is eglot going to be the better choice here for every language?? LSP works with Go, Dart, Java, Zig, Rust, Lua... do I need to remove all my config for those to use eglot??
  - chimprich 4y ago
    > how should I prepare to move to project.el? Are there any guides? # I recently switched from projectile to project and I noticed essentially zero changes. If you're not doing anything particularly custom you might not even notice. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Project-File-Commands.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Pr...
    - juxtapose 4y ago
      I tried switching to project.el, but eventually decided it's too bare-bones for me. As far as I'm concerned, project.el lacks the following features OOTB: 1. Something like the .projectile file to mark a folder as a project (without VCS). 2. Support for ag, rg and vterm. 3. Register new project types (to customize configure commands, compile commands, etc.) 4. Regenerate tags. 5. The ability to find the "other file" (x.h <-> x.c) across the project. And this list is incomplete! So if you rely on any of the above, I suggest not migrating to a project.el-only setup.
Barrin92 4y ago
As an emacs user who has never paid much attention to the development pace, is it just that people talk more about Emacs or is there actually more momentum around it these days because it feels that way. Which is kind of amazing for a piece of software that old.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  Probably both IMO. Since melpa there's been an increase in contributions (it helps not having to be license compatible like core emacs extensions I guess), and even then there was heavy work like native-comp that landed very very rapidly.
thom 4y ago
Emacs 29 is now a fully fledged SQLite client, which for me is one of the neatest new features.
xedrac 4y ago
Does anyone have any recommendations on Emacs performance tweaks on large codebases? I used Emacs (Evil mode) for about a year, but then switched to VSCode simply because the latency spikes while editing drove me nuts. VSCode has these too, but not as frequently or severely.
sakesun 4y ago
Wishing for M-x chatgpt in Emacs 30

119 points by Amorymeltzer 4y ago

smcn 4y ago

My Emacs is reporting that `count-words` was "Probably introduced at or before Emacs version 24.1." but good post regardless.

michaelhoffman 4y ago
> *now also reports the number of sentences* Emphasis added.
- abudabi123 4y ago
  WOW That means Emacs has the smarts now to decide where a full stop ends a sentence and can follow up with double spacing.
  - mbork_pl 4y ago
    > The sentence commands assume that you follow the American typist’s convention of putting two spaces at the end of a sentence. That is, a sentence ends wherever there is a ‘.’, ‘?’ or ‘!’ followed by the end of a line or two spaces, with any number of ‘)’, ‘]’, ‘'’, or ‘"’ characters allowed in between. A sentence also begins or ends wherever a paragraph begins or ends. It is useful to follow this convention, because it allows the Emacs sentence commands to distinguish between periods that end a sentence and periods that indicate abbreviations. (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Sentences.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Se...)
    - goosedragons 4y ago
      That's a good convention for people taught typing on a typewriter but pretty bad for younger folks.
      - Wildgoose 4y ago
        Disagree. I wasn't taught on a typewriter, (although my mother did teach typing), but any plain text will be aided by that convention. Yes, it's not necessary with justified text when using (for example) TeX. But seeing a solid wall of text in a long paragraph with no hints as to its sentence structure other than a tiny "."? No thanks.
        MadcapJake 4y ago
        Perhaps this is true but the convention is no longer in use pedagogically.
    - tmtvl 4y ago
      Of course Emacs has a configuration option you can toggle which disables the need for a double space after a sentence.
jchmrt 4y ago
I think the author means that count-words already existed, but only reported words and characters. Now it also reports the amount of sentences.
- smcn 4y ago
  That's entirely my bad. Reread it and it was obvious what was being said!
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
gumby 4y ago
That's odd, as Emacs had this function long before being ported to C/elisp, i.e. over 40 years ago.
- michaelhoffman 4y ago
  Over 40 years ago is definitely "at or before" Emacs 24.1. Specifically before. As far as I can tell, the "probably introduced at or before" info comes from finding a symbol's first appearance in NEWS. So if there were no changes to `count-words` between Emacs 1 and 24, this is what you'd get.

323 4y ago

Another feature is that you can now run VS Code inside, so now Emacs finally has a decent text editor: https://i.redd.it/1a4yhesko26a1.png https://i.redd.it/1a4yhesko26a1.png

PurpleRamen 4y ago
Is this VS Code running in an internal Webbrowser of emacs? Webkit then I guess?
hprotagonist 4y ago
You've been able to do that with exwm for many years.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mark_l_watson 4y ago

I agree that Emacs 29 contains many improvements, thanks to all of the developers and documentation writers. I am more excited by Emacs 30, mostly I like the ahead of time compilation of Lisp code.

mattarm 4y ago
> I am more excited by Emacs 30, mostly I like the ahead of time compilation of Lisp code. Emacs has had an ahead of time compilation feature, "Native Compilation," since Emacs 28. Is this what you mean? Or is the Emacs 30 feature something different?
- yaantc 4y ago
  Emacs 28 has just in time compilation: the compilation happens lazily as a package is loaded. Ahead of time would means at installation time I guess.
  - mark_l_watson 4y ago
    That is y understanding also.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  there's a flag to decide if you want AOT or on-load/on-demand native comp
e3bc54b2 4y ago
AOT is coming in 29.1.

chimprich 4y ago

> (It never ceases to amaze me that MS Word and its ilk do not seem to have equivalents of view-lossage or describe-key or where-is. Or am I mistaken?) (I'm guessing the author means VS Code, not MS Word here?) There are some features of Emacs that are amazingly useful, have been there for years (or decades), but which I haven't yet managed to find in any other editor. For example, regional undo: select a region of text and step back through changes in that region only.

jolmg 4y ago
> regional undo Is that from a package?
- wara23arish 4y ago
  Nope, i think it’s enabled automatically.
- yaantc 4y ago
  Not, it's build in: when you undo with a region highlighted the undo is limited to the content of this region. Really nice when you made changes elsewhere and realize late that you made a mistake (but not too late: the undo info must still be present of course).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
IncRnd 4y ago
> (I'm guessing the author means VS Code, not MS Word here?) I took that to mean that the author painted all non-emacs editors as not really being useful editors.
- shakow 4y ago
  That's not reading between the lines, that's just inventing a new article.
  - 4y ago

josteink 4y ago

Emacs 29 contains so many things OOB that it has completely eliminated the use of 70-80% of the packages I use in my day-to-day job: - use-package built in - csharp-mode (now built in) - typescript-mode (now built in) - same with json-mode too. - project.el instead of projectile - eglot (now built in) over lsp-mode As far as Emacs releases goes this one has more functionality packed than I can remember in any previous release ever.

brabel 4y ago
I already use use-package, so that's great... I also use projectile and it's been working great... how should I prepare to move to project.el? Are there any guides? Or things just work the same I am used to, and I just need to delete projectile once upgrading? I also use lsp-* for all IDE features... is eglot going to be the better choice here for every language?? LSP works with Go, Dart, Java, Zig, Rust, Lua... do I need to remove all my config for those to use eglot??
- chimprich 4y ago
  > how should I prepare to move to project.el? Are there any guides? # I recently switched from projectile to project and I noticed essentially zero changes. If you're not doing anything particularly custom you might not even notice. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Project-File-Commands.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Pr...
  - juxtapose 4y ago
    I tried switching to project.el, but eventually decided it's too bare-bones for me. As far as I'm concerned, project.el lacks the following features OOTB: 1. Something like the .projectile file to mark a folder as a project (without VCS). 2. Support for ag, rg and vterm. 3. Register new project types (to customize configure commands, compile commands, etc.) 4. Regenerate tags. 5. The ability to find the "other file" (x.h <-> x.c) across the project. And this list is incomplete! So if you rely on any of the above, I suggest not migrating to a project.el-only setup.

Barrin92 4y ago

As an emacs user who has never paid much attention to the development pace, is it just that people talk more about Emacs or is there actually more momentum around it these days because it feels that way. Which is kind of amazing for a piece of software that old.

agumonkey 4y ago
Probably both IMO. Since melpa there's been an increase in contributions (it helps not having to be license compatible like core emacs extensions I guess), and even then there was heavy work like native-comp that landed very very rapidly.

thom 4y ago

Emacs 29 is now a fully fledged SQLite client, which for me is one of the neatest new features.

xedrac 4y ago

Does anyone have any recommendations on Emacs performance tweaks on large codebases? I used Emacs (Evil mode) for about a year, but then switched to VSCode simply because the latency spikes while editing drove me nuts. VSCode has these too, but not as frequently or severely.

sakesun 4y ago

Wishing for M-x chatgpt in Emacs 30