3 ms·

I'm going to post it as a reply to my comment, so it's not a mistake that this is here. I notice my comment being downvoted, and that's fine. I don't really ca

I'm going to post it as a reply to my comment, so it's not a mistake that this is here. I notice my comment being downvoted, and that's fine. I don't really care- but my statement stands; it's a far better use of your time to learn JavaScript and write extensions in VS Code to accomplish what you want. I realize this might get flagged and someone might be offended. I don't have patience today. My JavaScript advice is multi-fold: - You'll learn a language that's in active use and development, and the lingua franca of the web. - You'll learn how extensions are created for VS Code, one of the most popular text editor and the greatest reach for sharing your work if you desire that. - JavaScript is *fast*, Emacs is slow ; there are many other language problems that, shockingly, JavaScript is just better with. - Waste less time debugging your text editor; not all of us (especially myself) have time to sink into becoming experts at Emacs. Emacs documentation is a bit esoteric and not that easy to grok, unless you already know ELisp. - Need an off-the-shelf solution? VS Code most likely has that, and it's probably going to work - Don't waste your time with dogma. EMacsers get in a tizzy fit over this and that, the right way to do things, to RTFM, etc. It's a community that has almost the same level of toxicity as Linux users. I am someone who went all-in with Emacs for around 6 months. It is really an interesting piece of software and no one will deny that it can ostensibly do alot. One of the biggest issues I had was writing any form of prose - which made it lag so badly, it was nearly impossible to scroll. The collective solution, after posting on Reddit and searching via Google, was simply to use search - rather than scrolling to find what you're looking for. I find manipulating buffers in Emacs fairly tedious, and I still believe that the mouse is a great invaluable tool not to be shunned. Some things are just easier and faster to manipulate with a pointer. I don't have a problem reaching for my mouse and returning to the keyboard without looking. I tried to use it for journalling, and learning the ins-and-outs of Org-mode was fun. I liked org-capture. Then I realized, Obsidian was a better piece of tool. It handles prose just fine, and Markdown is much easier to remember (due to its ubiquitiness) than org-mode. And guess what languages extensions are written in? JavaScript. Other comments: > Writing functions in elisp is much easier than having to write JS for electron-based editors, and the elisp you write will usually work for a long time without being modified. Old JS code still work. JS has a reputation for being backwards compatible and taking a very long time to break any type of ABI. In the case of Electron, you are informed when things break - and you have time to update it. It's not like code changes happen under your feet, and things are breaking all of the time. [0] On top of that, Electron-based applications are almost guaranteed to work similarly on Windows, Mac and Linux. The same can't be said for Emacs, which suffer some fairly extreme performance issues on Windows. > VS Code looks so boring in comparison. It's just a tool. I can use themes, and syntax highlighting is great. > but nvim and the like still suffer from being just text editors And this is what makes it perfectly suited for its task. > In Emacs, this is all very easy. What makes emacs very easy? Every time I see anyone say Emacs is easy - they gush about writing code in ELisp, it's almost dogmatic. It's not about Emacs, it's about *ELisp*. I do believe the majority of Emacsers suffer from the IKEA effect[1] because the learning curve is so high that by the time they're able to build something in ELisp - they're also hit over the head with the Stockholm Syndrome[2]. My preferred solution would be to use an SQLite plugin in VS Code because that allows me to browse and query any code, rather than a fixed string. I don't need to write a new function, or try to manipulate Emacs buffers. > Alternately, spend a weekend learning VS.Code and get on with doing real work. Exactly my perspective. [0] https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/breaking-changes https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/breaking-changes [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Capricorn2481 4y ago
Some may read your comment negatively, but as someone that has bounced off emacs many times, I really appreciate it. It took me days just to figure out how to navigate through files in emacs. I felt really stupid trying to learn it, mainly because of the attitude of its biggest fans. It seems emacs users have a combination of implying you're lazy/unintelligent if you don't grok the tool quickly, as well as greatly underestimating how easy it is to work in VSCode. There are people in this thread claiming their colleagues will spend "many hours" configuring VSCode to get it to work, or are constantly "churning" through IDEs. I have no idea what they are on about, because emacs users would be the first to tell you how often they are reconfiguring their environment and how difficult of a journey that is, and this is a source of pride for them. I have no problem with owning your tools, but not everyone has the time to do this. I also think senior devs holding onto emacs has actually hurt the popularity of some languages like CommonLisp, where interest in the language is immediately met with the emacs "brick wall" because the only proper IDE available for CL is outrageously expensive. Meanwhile Clojure works great with VSCode and Calva. VSCode has been around nearly a decade and is going incredibly strong, I don't know why people pretend it's a dumpster fire. And the argument inevitably turns into emacs as a "lifestyle," because it's a text editor, emailer, task manager, etc. But I don't want all my needs to be handled by one tool, and I actually see that as a huge downside. I like being able to swap out one of my tools if I don't like the workflow. So when the argument becomes "You're not using emacs right if you're not using it for everything," I find that really odd. It's weird to me that lispers, which tend to reinforce loose coupling in their coding practices, would tether themselves to such a restrictive ecosystem for really simple everyday tasks. Also the keyboard only approach just doesn't work for mobile. I'm sure there's someone somewhere using emacs on mobile, but it's just not an option. So making your whole organizational life centered around emacs/org-mode is odd to me because you'll need a separate system for your phone. Obsidian, meanwhile, has a mobile app, and javascript runs everywhere now.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  Thanks, it helps to know that someone else has similar sentiments as I do in regards to Emacs. By no means am I saying Emacs is bad software (it's not), but; > claiming their colleagues will spend "many hours" configuring VSCode to get it to work It's been my experience that you can simply install VS Code, open a source file and it will suggest extensions to help you get going. Even going so far as to be helpful in installing Python if you open a .py file one time, on a fresh install, for me. I just search for a dark theme I like (Dracula is one of my goto) and a light one (I switch when it suits me) and I'm off. Meanwhile I'm told it's _SO_ simple and straightforward to set-up treesitter and the language servers. > javascript runs everywhere now Indeed. JavaScript is a far easier language to work with - it may have a quirks and gotchas, but it's fairly straightforward despite it not being my first choice in a language.

Capricorn2481 4y ago

Some may read your comment negatively, but as someone that has bounced off emacs many times, I really appreciate it. It took me days just to figure out how to navigate through files in emacs. I felt really stupid trying to learn it, mainly because of the attitude of its biggest fans. It seems emacs users have a combination of implying you're lazy/unintelligent if you don't grok the tool quickly, as well as greatly underestimating how easy it is to work in VSCode. There are people in this thread claiming their colleagues will spend "many hours" configuring VSCode to get it to work, or are constantly "churning" through IDEs. I have no idea what they are on about, because emacs users would be the first to tell you how often they are reconfiguring their environment and how difficult of a journey that is, and this is a source of pride for them. I have no problem with owning your tools, but not everyone has the time to do this. I also think senior devs holding onto emacs has actually hurt the popularity of some languages like CommonLisp, where interest in the language is immediately met with the emacs "brick wall" because the only proper IDE available for CL is outrageously expensive. Meanwhile Clojure works great with VSCode and Calva. VSCode has been around nearly a decade and is going incredibly strong, I don't know why people pretend it's a dumpster fire. And the argument inevitably turns into emacs as a "lifestyle," because it's a text editor, emailer, task manager, etc. But I don't want all my needs to be handled by one tool, and I actually see that as a huge downside. I like being able to swap out one of my tools if I don't like the workflow. So when the argument becomes "You're not using emacs right if you're not using it for everything," I find that really odd. It's weird to me that lispers, which tend to reinforce loose coupling in their coding practices, would tether themselves to such a restrictive ecosystem for really simple everyday tasks. Also the keyboard only approach just doesn't work for mobile. I'm sure there's someone somewhere using emacs on mobile, but it's just not an option. So making your whole organizational life centered around emacs/org-mode is odd to me because you'll need a separate system for your phone. Obsidian, meanwhile, has a mobile app, and javascript runs everywhere now.

deafpolygon 4y ago
Thanks, it helps to know that someone else has similar sentiments as I do in regards to Emacs. By no means am I saying Emacs is bad software (it's not), but; > claiming their colleagues will spend "many hours" configuring VSCode to get it to work It's been my experience that you can simply install VS Code, open a source file and it will suggest extensions to help you get going. Even going so far as to be helpful in installing Python if you open a .py file one time, on a fresh install, for me. I just search for a dark theme I like (Dracula is one of my goto) and a light one (I switch when it suits me) and I'm off. Meanwhile I'm told it's _SO_ simple and straightforward to set-up treesitter and the language servers. > javascript runs everywhere now Indeed. JavaScript is a far easier language to work with - it may have a quirks and gotchas, but it's fairly straightforward despite it not being my first choice in a language.