4 ms·

I want to switch to one of those Emacs candy looking setup, but it always ends up being a lot less fun once you have it installed and nothing works as you expec

by keyle 4y ago

I want to switch to one of those Emacs candy looking setup, but it always ends up being a lot less fun once you have it installed and nothing works as you expects, the whole thing looks like grand father software and the UX is beyond bad. Sure, if you put up with the pain of setting it all up, eventually, you have something that works and that only you can use.

all2 4y ago
Spacemacs has decent defaults, is easily extendable, and looks pretty good too.
- jcadam 4y ago
  Yea, I used to maintain a fairly complicated emacs config that I was never quite happy with. Nowadays, I just go with spacemacs. Tired of messing with stuff :)
  - usr1106 4y ago
    Similar experience. Not limited to emacs, I used to spend a lot of time to configure my desktop. Nowadays I go with stock XFCE on machines I use occasionally or shared with others and i3 on my main machine. No configurations. In emacs profile I have very few settings to get the indentation required by company style and avoid trailing whitespace / missing newline at the end. That's all.
    - all2 4y ago
      Your setup sounds exactly like mine. No-config i3 is nice. You might take a look at Regolith Linux, but that's unfortunately built on top of Ubuntu. I run Arch, so this might be useful at some point [0]. I might give it a go on my work laptop. [0] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/regolith-full https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/regolith-full
  - imiric 4y ago
    I went the opposite way. Used Spacemacs to introduce me to Emacs, and then got rid of it once I got the hang of things, and noticed all the extra packages I don't need that were just impacting (the already poor) Emacs performance. A few years later, I'm still using my config and wouldn't go back. It's what allows me to make Emacs _mine_, after all. It requires a minimal amount of maintenance, mostly whenever I decide to upgrade the packages.
    - dan-robertson 4y ago
      Is base Emacs performance actually poor? I’ve generally found it to be pretty quick and it performs well in environments that other programs totally fail in, eg in a terminal or over X forwarding.
      - drbaba 4y ago
        Well, it depends on your system. In my experience, Emacs without native-comp is way snappier on Linux than on Mac and Windows -- and getting native-comp working is also much easier on Linux, which has a big impact. Large numbers of pixels (high-DPI / Retina displays) can increase stuttering and flickering in the GUI version, in which case performance can improve by using `emacs -nw` in a GPU-accelerated terminal (Kitty/Alacritty), or maybe by switching to a different GUI frontend (e.g. the NS Port vs. Mac Port on MacOS, or the X11 vs. PGTK version on Linux).
ngai_aku 4y ago
Is that a criticism of “candy looking setups” or emacs more generally? Your comment feels needlessly derisive. > eventually, you have something that works and that only you can use This criticism doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You do a lot of keyboard sharing? Who else needs to use Your editor?
BeetleB 4y ago
People generally don't pick Emacs to get eye candy. If that's why you went for it, it will be painful ride.
Barrin92 4y ago
You can try Doom Emacs if you want a solid starting point. (https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs). Emacs is so idiosyncratic compared to a lot of modern stuff people are used to, starting with a base like this may be a little easier than trying to do it from the ground up.
- lenkite 4y ago
  Whats the difference between Doom emacs and spacemacs ?
  - lordgrenville 4y ago
    Much faster startup time, for one.
  - vvillena 4y ago
    Both are very opinionated frameworks. Basically, they establish a convention for dealing with packages and custom config code, and build from there. With Spacemacs, the expected default is to use Vim-style editing, with the addition of the Space key (hence the name) to access all of Emacs functionality. It's quite user-friendly and very discoverable. And it's still Emacs, so it offers a lot of customization. Doom Emacs is a more focused approach, it has a clean set of defaults, and the ability to load lots of optional features. One key difference with Spacemacs is the use of an extra CLI utility to manage things such as package installation and config upgrades. Doom also disables customize-mode, which leads to cleaner configs at the cost of some discoverability. Personally, I've been using Spacemacs for years, the key shortcuts just make sense to me, and it includes everything I want. I also love the default theme, the documentation is helpful, and the main drawback, long startup times, is minimized because I never exit Emacs.
    - eldenring 4y ago
      Doom is the same. It uses evil mode by default and SPC as the default leader key. Also in my experience it is a lot faster.
femiagbabiaka 4y ago
The extensibility and customizability of Emacs typically means that bad UX is user error. There is a barrier to entry, but if you don't want to go past that, it's no big deal. I'm not sure that's the editor's fault though.
- illiarian 4y ago
  If you need to overcome a barrier and extend/customize to reach a good UX, that is the program's fault (applies to any program, not just emacs)
  - usr1106 4y ago
    I don't think good UX is a universal concept. People have different preferences. On my desktop I don't want click to type. But still many seem to prefer just that. I want a trackpoint, many are happy with touchpads. (Of course some implementations can be classified as just bad UX...)
    - illiarian 4y ago
      > I don't think good UX is a universal concept. There are some more-or-less objective criteria we can apply. From "how many actions it takes to achieve something" to accessibility.
      - nequo 4y ago
        Emacs is not terrible for accessibility. This is Parham Doustdar talking about how he uses Emacs as a blind developer: https://emacsconf.org/2019/talks/08/ https://emacsconf.org/2019/talks/08/
      - noctuid 4y ago
        > how many actions it takes to achieve something This is not really objective because you also have to take into consideration how intuitive/simple the UX is. Given 100 related actions, clicking through a logically grouped nested menu or multiple pages to do something is going to require more steps but be something anyone can do. Memorizing and using keyboard shortcuts for all those actions will be more efficient, but isn't something someone could immediately do. There is of course an in-between where you can have menus to display available keyboard shortcuts, but some (most?) people will still prefer a GUI/mouse-based approach. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.
littlelady 4y ago
I think it's worth it, if you are a tinkerer and if you look at that kind of software as a "Personal Development Environment" a phrase I first heard in this video[1]. So, yeah the focus is on creating software that is tailored to your requirements. If your requirements are that someone else has to be able to use it, because you do a lot of pair programming, then that's something to consider. I've tried a lot of editors over the years... Currently I'm using neovim. It's been pretty nice--after some major adjustments. I like altering my configs and changing what's not working for me. Would I use it exclusively? No, but it's a nice tool to have in my toolbox. And with some effort it also can look very pretty. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMVIJhC9Veg&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMVIJhC9Veg&embeds_euri=http...

by keyle 4y ago

all2 4y ago

Spacemacs has decent defaults, is easily extendable, and looks pretty good too.

jcadam 4y ago
Yea, I used to maintain a fairly complicated emacs config that I was never quite happy with. Nowadays, I just go with spacemacs. Tired of messing with stuff :)
- usr1106 4y ago
  Similar experience. Not limited to emacs, I used to spend a lot of time to configure my desktop. Nowadays I go with stock XFCE on machines I use occasionally or shared with others and i3 on my main machine. No configurations. In emacs profile I have very few settings to get the indentation required by company style and avoid trailing whitespace / missing newline at the end. That's all.
  - all2 4y ago
    Your setup sounds exactly like mine. No-config i3 is nice. You might take a look at Regolith Linux, but that's unfortunately built on top of Ubuntu. I run Arch, so this might be useful at some point [0]. I might give it a go on my work laptop. [0] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/regolith-full https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/regolith-full
- imiric 4y ago
  I went the opposite way. Used Spacemacs to introduce me to Emacs, and then got rid of it once I got the hang of things, and noticed all the extra packages I don't need that were just impacting (the already poor) Emacs performance. A few years later, I'm still using my config and wouldn't go back. It's what allows me to make Emacs _mine_, after all. It requires a minimal amount of maintenance, mostly whenever I decide to upgrade the packages.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    Is base Emacs performance actually poor? I’ve generally found it to be pretty quick and it performs well in environments that other programs totally fail in, eg in a terminal or over X forwarding.
    - drbaba 4y ago
      Well, it depends on your system. In my experience, Emacs without native-comp is way snappier on Linux than on Mac and Windows -- and getting native-comp working is also much easier on Linux, which has a big impact. Large numbers of pixels (high-DPI / Retina displays) can increase stuttering and flickering in the GUI version, in which case performance can improve by using `emacs -nw` in a GPU-accelerated terminal (Kitty/Alacritty), or maybe by switching to a different GUI frontend (e.g. the NS Port vs. Mac Port on MacOS, or the X11 vs. PGTK version on Linux).

ngai_aku 4y ago

Is that a criticism of “candy looking setups” or emacs more generally? Your comment feels needlessly derisive. > eventually, you have something that works and that only you can use This criticism doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You do a lot of keyboard sharing? Who else needs to use Your editor?

BeetleB 4y ago

People generally don't pick Emacs to get eye candy. If that's why you went for it, it will be painful ride.

Barrin92 4y ago

You can try Doom Emacs if you want a solid starting point. (https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs). Emacs is so idiosyncratic compared to a lot of modern stuff people are used to, starting with a base like this may be a little easier than trying to do it from the ground up.

lenkite 4y ago
Whats the difference between Doom emacs and spacemacs ?
- lordgrenville 4y ago
  Much faster startup time, for one.
- vvillena 4y ago
  Both are very opinionated frameworks. Basically, they establish a convention for dealing with packages and custom config code, and build from there. With Spacemacs, the expected default is to use Vim-style editing, with the addition of the Space key (hence the name) to access all of Emacs functionality. It's quite user-friendly and very discoverable. And it's still Emacs, so it offers a lot of customization. Doom Emacs is a more focused approach, it has a clean set of defaults, and the ability to load lots of optional features. One key difference with Spacemacs is the use of an extra CLI utility to manage things such as package installation and config upgrades. Doom also disables customize-mode, which leads to cleaner configs at the cost of some discoverability. Personally, I've been using Spacemacs for years, the key shortcuts just make sense to me, and it includes everything I want. I also love the default theme, the documentation is helpful, and the main drawback, long startup times, is minimized because I never exit Emacs.
  - eldenring 4y ago
    Doom is the same. It uses evil mode by default and SPC as the default leader key. Also in my experience it is a lot faster.

femiagbabiaka 4y ago

The extensibility and customizability of Emacs typically means that bad UX is user error. There is a barrier to entry, but if you don't want to go past that, it's no big deal. I'm not sure that's the editor's fault though.

illiarian 4y ago
If you need to overcome a barrier and extend/customize to reach a good UX, that is the program's fault (applies to any program, not just emacs)
- usr1106 4y ago
  I don't think good UX is a universal concept. People have different preferences. On my desktop I don't want click to type. But still many seem to prefer just that. I want a trackpoint, many are happy with touchpads. (Of course some implementations can be classified as just bad UX...)
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > I don't think good UX is a universal concept. There are some more-or-less objective criteria we can apply. From "how many actions it takes to achieve something" to accessibility.
    - nequo 4y ago
      Emacs is not terrible for accessibility. This is Parham Doustdar talking about how he uses Emacs as a blind developer: https://emacsconf.org/2019/talks/08/ https://emacsconf.org/2019/talks/08/
    - noctuid 4y ago
      > how many actions it takes to achieve something This is not really objective because you also have to take into consideration how intuitive/simple the UX is. Given 100 related actions, clicking through a logically grouped nested menu or multiple pages to do something is going to require more steps but be something anyone can do. Memorizing and using keyboard shortcuts for all those actions will be more efficient, but isn't something someone could immediately do. There is of course an in-between where you can have menus to display available keyboard shortcuts, but some (most?) people will still prefer a GUI/mouse-based approach. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

littlelady 4y ago

I think it's worth it, if you are a tinkerer and if you look at that kind of software as a "Personal Development Environment" a phrase I first heard in this video[1]. So, yeah the focus is on creating software that is tailored to your requirements. If your requirements are that someone else has to be able to use it, because you do a lot of pair programming, then that's something to consider. I've tried a lot of editors over the years... Currently I'm using neovim. It's been pretty nice--after some major adjustments. I like altering my configs and changing what's not working for me. Would I use it exclusively? No, but it's a nice tool to have in my toolbox. And with some effort it also can look very pretty. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMVIJhC9Veg&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMVIJhC9Veg&embeds_euri=http...