6 ms·

So happy to see my favorite IDE for the last 30 years being actively developed and maintained. Multiple IDEs have come and gone over those 30 years, and I waved

by jwr 3y ago

So happy to see my favorite IDE for the last 30 years being actively developed and maintained. Multiple IDEs have come and gone over those 30 years, and I waved to them on their way as they arrived and then as they passed away into nothingness. Every time a new IDE arrived, crowds cheered, and it was all the rage and fashion, while my Emacs was called "obsolete", "hard to use", "bizarre", and other things. I spent some time over those 30 years looking at new IDEs, trying them out, configuring them, and each and every time this was time wasted, because the IDE was discontinued, abandoned, or otherwise became useless. If I could tell something to my younger self, it would be: keep faith in solutions that are open and have been around for a while, you will save a lot of time over the years.

ramblerman 3y ago
The lindy effect applies to lots of things in life 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
pjmlp 3y ago
As someone whose daily code editor was XEmacs during the heyday of UNIX wars, because Emacs wasn't as a friendly for GUI users, I really wouldn't call it an IDE, those were the things IBM, Borland and Microsoft were giving me on PC side. I doubt if Emacs was a commercial product, that many people would bother to use it, same applies to VI derivatives. If the experiece is above anything else out there, certainly it is worth paying for.
hiepph 3y ago
> Emacs was called "obsolete", "hard to use", "bizarre", and other things. Well, Emacs isn't designed for a common user, but for a power user. From my experience, first time using Emacs was really frustrated. In contrary, VSCode, Atom, Sublime Text etc. were usable right from the start. But these IDEs didn't stick for me. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Emacs and Vim, although took a lot of effort to configure them into usable text editors/IDEs, stick with me 'til these days and I'm continuing to use them in the future. The power of configurations are astounding and I can shape them into whatever I want.
- jwr 3y ago
  > Well, Emacs isn't designed for a common user, but for a power user. From my experience, first time using Emacs was really frustrated. That's not different from a piano. Musical instruments are not designed for "common users" or "beginners". The ones that are, are not good for playing good music.
Dobiasd 3y ago
> I spent some time over those 30 years looking at new IDEs, trying them out, configuring them, and each and every time this was time wasted, because the IDE was discontinued, abandoned, or otherwise became useless. "wasted" sounds a bit too hard to me. If you learn and use some tool productively for some years, even if this stops, the years were not wasted. Ephemeral things can also have value.
xyproto 3y ago
This is an emacs-centric world view and many of the same arguments applies to open source software in general.
- jwr 3y ago
  Most definitely not. In fact, much of open source is haphazardly developed without regard for backwards compatibility, often also introducing change for no good reason (the word "cleaner" should always raise red flags). Source: a certain developer/admin/netadmin with >30 years of experience using open source software.
rdtsc 3y ago
Same here. It's the oldest continuously used piece of software for me. I tried it first on a Sun Unix workstation at the university around the late 90s. I've tried komodo, vscode, sublime, vi and many others and still use emacs. The funny thing I don't even know that many key combinations and use only a few customizations. I was pleasantly surprised when I was issued a mac at work that most of the basic editing commands on macos text widgets support emacs key bindings (ctrl+a/e/k/p/n).
- krylon 3y ago
  Those keybindings are one of the very few features of macOS I missed after going back to GNU/Linux. It's such a nice thought, especially with macOS using the command key for most, uh, commands - it doesn't impose any burden on non-emacs-users, but for those who are used to those keybindings, it's bliss.
  - nextos 3y ago
    GTK used to support a similar thing up to version 2? One needed to enable it with: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-key-theme "Emacs" Sadly, I think support was removed. Part of the problem was that this and other themes were in conflict with preset bindings, e.g C-p for a print dialog.
    - mavit 3y ago
      It wasn't removed. These days, the setting is still exposed in GNOME Tweaks.
    - krylon 3y ago
      Yeah, on macOS it works well, because the Ctrl-based shortcuts don't get in the way of the regular keybindings.
  - adr1an 3y ago
    Those are 'readline' keybindings actually, and available in many term, shells, repls... Sometimes, just a config away. See: https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/keyboard-shortcuts-every-command-line-hacker-should-know-about-gnu-readline https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/keyboard-shortcuts-ev...
jon_adler 3y ago
No an eMacs user myself, but do you ever imagine a time when the software might be considered “done”?
- psd1 3y ago
  Not to jump down your throat, but "eMacs" is hurting my eyes. I blame sTeve jObs.
  - nequo 3y ago
    eMacs is just about the only word that autocorrect refuses to spell correctly, no matter how many times I nudge it to. And they haven't even sold a product called eMac since 2006. It’s a recurring reminder that this phone is owned by Apple, not by me. Frustrating.
- golem14 3y ago
  TeX and LaTeX are pretty close to 'done'
  - nanna 3y ago
    Nah. LaTeX is undergoing major development at the moment to support automatically tagged pdfs, and the latex3 work is still, as far as I understand, still ongoing too.
    - apricot 3y ago
      The race between LaTeX 3 and Half-Life 3 is still as exciting as it ever was.
- knome 3y ago
  "[a program] is never finished, only abandoned"
- jwr 3y ago
  No, I think there is always something you can improve or add. The point, I think, is to do it carefully, though, without breaking things. Python is an example of how not to approach software evolution. Emacs and Clojure are examples of how software can be maintained over the long term without breaking backwards compatibility. When I was young (and, ahem, stupid), I didn't care — I was all gung-ho, shoot from the hip, and if something breaks, tough. As I matured, I learned that backwards compatibility and long-term maintenance should be valued and cherished. Not just because if you're not careful, you have to fix the things that break, but also because as you start doing more and more things in your life, you have less time for each thing and you'd rather move forward rather than spend time fixing things that break.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pama 3y ago
I'm also very happy with Emacs' continued existence. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do without M-x shell plus related hacks, but I think I'd have to reinvent the concept of having arbitrary numbers of named shells with infinite output/input streams attached to them, with searchable histories, etc. Just like the unix concept that everything is a file was super powerful, so is the Emacs concept that everything is text. And of course lisp helps smooth things out whenever there are rough edges.
nvy 3y ago
>Emacs was called "obsolete", "hard to use", "bizarre", and other things. As a daily emacs user, it is all those things. It's just also awesome if you put in the time to get over the hump and learn it. The "out of box" experience for emacs is really, really bad.
- jwr 3y ago
  > The "out of box" experience for emacs is really, really bad. That's not much different from a piano :-). Musical instruments are not designed for "common users" or "beginners". The ones that are, are not good for playing good music.
garfieldnate 3y ago
To be fair, this release supports LSP and TreeSitter (which is super cool), but these are features that were pioneered by other editors and available elsewhere long before emacs. These ideas wouldn't be coming to emacs if it weren't for the experimentation and polishing done elsewhere.

by jwr 3y ago

ramblerman 3y ago

The lindy effect applies to lots of things in life 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

pjmlp 3y ago

As someone whose daily code editor was XEmacs during the heyday of UNIX wars, because Emacs wasn't as a friendly for GUI users, I really wouldn't call it an IDE, those were the things IBM, Borland and Microsoft were giving me on PC side. I doubt if Emacs was a commercial product, that many people would bother to use it, same applies to VI derivatives. If the experiece is above anything else out there, certainly it is worth paying for.

hiepph 3y ago

> Emacs was called "obsolete", "hard to use", "bizarre", and other things. Well, Emacs isn't designed for a common user, but for a power user. From my experience, first time using Emacs was really frustrated. In contrary, VSCode, Atom, Sublime Text etc. were usable right from the start. But these IDEs didn't stick for me. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Emacs and Vim, although took a lot of effort to configure them into usable text editors/IDEs, stick with me 'til these days and I'm continuing to use them in the future. The power of configurations are astounding and I can shape them into whatever I want.

jwr 3y ago
> Well, Emacs isn't designed for a common user, but for a power user. From my experience, first time using Emacs was really frustrated. That's not different from a piano. Musical instruments are not designed for "common users" or "beginners". The ones that are, are not good for playing good music.

Dobiasd 3y ago

> I spent some time over those 30 years looking at new IDEs, trying them out, configuring them, and each and every time this was time wasted, because the IDE was discontinued, abandoned, or otherwise became useless. "wasted" sounds a bit too hard to me. If you learn and use some tool productively for some years, even if this stops, the years were not wasted. Ephemeral things can also have value.

xyproto 3y ago

This is an emacs-centric world view and many of the same arguments applies to open source software in general.

jwr 3y ago
Most definitely not. In fact, much of open source is haphazardly developed without regard for backwards compatibility, often also introducing change for no good reason (the word "cleaner" should always raise red flags). Source: a certain developer/admin/netadmin with >30 years of experience using open source software.

rdtsc 3y ago

Same here. It's the oldest continuously used piece of software for me. I tried it first on a Sun Unix workstation at the university around the late 90s. I've tried komodo, vscode, sublime, vi and many others and still use emacs. The funny thing I don't even know that many key combinations and use only a few customizations. I was pleasantly surprised when I was issued a mac at work that most of the basic editing commands on macos text widgets support emacs key bindings (ctrl+a/e/k/p/n).

krylon 3y ago
Those keybindings are one of the very few features of macOS I missed after going back to GNU/Linux. It's such a nice thought, especially with macOS using the command key for most, uh, commands - it doesn't impose any burden on non-emacs-users, but for those who are used to those keybindings, it's bliss.
- nextos 3y ago
  GTK used to support a similar thing up to version 2? One needed to enable it with: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-key-theme "Emacs" Sadly, I think support was removed. Part of the problem was that this and other themes were in conflict with preset bindings, e.g C-p for a print dialog.
  - mavit 3y ago
    It wasn't removed. These days, the setting is still exposed in GNOME Tweaks.
  - krylon 3y ago
    Yeah, on macOS it works well, because the Ctrl-based shortcuts don't get in the way of the regular keybindings.
- adr1an 3y ago
  Those are 'readline' keybindings actually, and available in many term, shells, repls... Sometimes, just a config away. See: https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/keyboard-shortcuts-every-command-line-hacker-should-know-about-gnu-readline https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/keyboard-shortcuts-ev...

jon_adler 3y ago

No an eMacs user myself, but do you ever imagine a time when the software might be considered “done”?

psd1 3y ago
Not to jump down your throat, but "eMacs" is hurting my eyes. I blame sTeve jObs.
- nequo 3y ago
  eMacs is just about the only word that autocorrect refuses to spell correctly, no matter how many times I nudge it to. And they haven't even sold a product called eMac since 2006. It’s a recurring reminder that this phone is owned by Apple, not by me. Frustrating.
golem14 3y ago
TeX and LaTeX are pretty close to 'done'
- nanna 3y ago
  Nah. LaTeX is undergoing major development at the moment to support automatically tagged pdfs, and the latex3 work is still, as far as I understand, still ongoing too.
  - apricot 3y ago
    The race between LaTeX 3 and Half-Life 3 is still as exciting as it ever was.
knome 3y ago
"[a program] is never finished, only abandoned"
jwr 3y ago
No, I think there is always something you can improve or add. The point, I think, is to do it carefully, though, without breaking things. Python is an example of how not to approach software evolution. Emacs and Clojure are examples of how software can be maintained over the long term without breaking backwards compatibility. When I was young (and, ahem, stupid), I didn't care — I was all gung-ho, shoot from the hip, and if something breaks, tough. As I matured, I learned that backwards compatibility and long-term maintenance should be valued and cherished. Not just because if you're not careful, you have to fix the things that break, but also because as you start doing more and more things in your life, you have less time for each thing and you'd rather move forward rather than spend time fixing things that break.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pama 3y ago

I'm also very happy with Emacs' continued existence. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do without M-x shell plus related hacks, but I think I'd have to reinvent the concept of having arbitrary numbers of named shells with infinite output/input streams attached to them, with searchable histories, etc. Just like the unix concept that everything is a file was super powerful, so is the Emacs concept that everything is text. And of course lisp helps smooth things out whenever there are rough edges.

nvy 3y ago

>Emacs was called "obsolete", "hard to use", "bizarre", and other things. As a daily emacs user, it is all those things. It's just also awesome if you put in the time to get over the hump and learn it. The "out of box" experience for emacs is really, really bad.

jwr 3y ago
> The "out of box" experience for emacs is really, really bad. That's not much different from a piano :-). Musical instruments are not designed for "common users" or "beginners". The ones that are, are not good for playing good music.

garfieldnate 3y ago

To be fair, this release supports LSP and TreeSitter (which is super cool), but these are features that were pioneered by other editors and available elsewhere long before emacs. These ideas wouldn't be coming to emacs if it weren't for the experimentation and polishing done elsewhere.