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> GUIs and proprietary protocols have killed Emacs I have been using Emacs since 2010. What started as this 'what do I do' white screen has evolved into a powe

> GUIs and proprietary protocols have killed Emacs I have been using Emacs since 2010. What started as this 'what do I do' white screen has evolved into a powerful tool. During this time, I have seen various other editors or IDEs all considered to be "better" but are eventually tossed aside in favour of something else. Visual Studio (the IDE) has gone through some changes. Some for the better. However, there is also worse. It is slow and bloated. Now we have Visual Studio Code which a lot of people seem to use, even those that judged me for using emacs a few years back. But... IDEs are better, right? We also have Sublime Text 2 which was all the rage around 2013. Even they were laughing at me for using emacs. Now, I hardly see anyone using it. Once in a while (in the last 15 years) I see the odd vi or vim user. They continue to exist like me with emacs. While I cannot confirm, I would not be surprised if most of these have moved to neovim or gone elsewhere. Point is - emacs will be around for many years to come. It may never be the "best" in term of numbers but I would not be surprised if, in the next 10 years, Visual Studio Code or Neovim have moved on to some other new editor or IDE (or another vi variant, respectivelt) yet emacs is still there. I have been using Slack properly in the last few months and I am not really that impressed with it. Sure, I am not using Emacs and I would not be surprised if there is emacs support for it. I would not be surprised is Slack is replaced by something else in 10 years. No different to other "management" tools that come and go. So heres to Emacs. For me, it is worth it - and while things always change... emacs is likely to be about for some time.

n4r9 3y ago
> We also have Sublime Text 2 which was all the rage around 2013... Now, I hardly see anyone using it. Maybe they upgraded to Sublime Text 4?
- masfoobar 3y ago
  > Maybe they upgraded to Sublime Text 4? Didn't know it passed version 3, being honest. Says a lot. Point still stands.
  - n4r9 3y ago
    It probably depends a lot on company culture and possibly what OSes the devs are using. Pretty much every dev in our 20+ team has it installed, as there are not many editors on Windows have equivalent editing features and are so snappy to use. However, the free trial version is not strictly permitted for corporate use, so we might be losing it soon.
    - masfoobar 3y ago
      > It probably depends a lot on company... Absolutely. I am not suggesting ST is dead. It's just 10-12 years ago ST2 was big hype online. Hyped to the point that likes of Vi (or even emacs) users were moving over to it! Today, I hardly hear about it online. It is VS Code, even in the office. I am sure if I was in the same room 10 years ago, it would be the same.. just ST2. :-) I wonder what the "cool" thing is in the next 10 years. Likely be saying the same thing about VS Code over the next "cool kid" Maybe other dev culture (php devs, for example) that I have not been part of are mostly using ST2/3/4.
      - n4r9 3y ago
        I'm totally with you insofar as ST isn't used much as a full IDE. But it's a great as a background text editor and I'd be surprised if not many people use it for that. I use it to keep a TODO list, analyse and manipulate log files, record temporary notes, and edit big JSON packets. Tasks like "extract all lines which include this phrase, and then delete the first 10 characters" are straightforward. Also it's minimal, clean and feels spacious out of the box. VS Code probably has similar features, but has a much bigger memory footprint, takes longer to start up, and looks more cluttered. If you're already a dotnet shop with VS Pro/Enterprise subscriptions then it makes more sense to use ST.
softirq 3y ago
I think a lot of people would argue that Emacs is also slow and bloated, but makes you, the user, program most of the functionality you get from VSCode or JB out of the box. Want fuzzing finding? That's a package. Want git integration? That's a package. Want LSP? Also a package. Want to have sane defaults? Go look at 20 different init.els online and cargo cult a bunch of elisp. And after you've made your own Emacs stew spend, the next 14 years stomping out bugs and ignoring the things it still can't do, like run a multi-threaded tramp so a bad connection doesn't freeze your entire editor. I think the people who switch from editor to editor that requires 0 config actually saved time and money by just doing their job rather than configuring their editor, and this is coming from a Vim user. Emacs is a black whole where "free" time gets sucked in never to be seen again. The big difference is as a Vim user I only had to configure my editor, you had to configure your entire operating system including Org mode. I also am not sure about the whole Vim thing. On reddit, Vim has 3x the number of community users as Emacs and Neovim. I think Vim is still by far the most popular text based editor, but nowadays I think VSCode is unfortunately here to stay because Microsoft knows the value of having a captive developer audience.
- taeric 3y ago
  Emacs does do a lot more "out of the box" now than many people realize. You will still have to turn them on, I think; but you don't have to install as many external packages as you are implying there. And the problem with "sane defaults" is that to those of us that have been on Emacs for a long time, the defaults are sane. If you were to switch them on us, that would be frustrating. You /could/ make it so that startup on a vanilla setup has a set of checkboxes for common input schemes that people select between. I'm not sure why that hasn't been done, or what other issues that would have. As for saving time/money by "doing their job" rather than configuring an editor. This is always a tough one. I don't think people should have to spend time getting to know their editors. But, I also don't worry that people don't spend time learning to care for their cars or their plumbing. That is, it makes sense that many people want to outsource that effort to others. It also makes sense that many people like getting into that sort of stuff. And I don't know why it has to be a battle between them?
- masfoobar 3y ago
PurpleRamen 3y ago
> Now we have Visual Studio Code which a lot of people seem to use, even those that judged me for using emacs a few years back. But... IDEs are better, right? VS Code is not an IDE, it's more like the evolved GUI-Version of Emacs. And it's now 9 years old, so I would think it has established itself well for this decade. > We also have Sublime Text 2 It's now at version 4, still in development. But being a commercial app, which is also not that cheap, you will naturally see not too many people using it. But considering they are still developing it, they seem to still make money from it, so enough people are using it I guess. > Once in a while (in the last 15 years) I see the odd vi or vim user. They continue to exist like me with emacs. That's a very strange observation. There are significant more (neo)vim-users than emacs-users around. They are probably the second biggest crowd in text-editor-space, only beaten by VS Code at the moment. It's far more likely for emacs to die, than for vim. > Point is - emacs will be around for many years to come. That's true for all of them. As long as someone maintains them, people will use them. Software will only die when they don't start anymore or the users left them. And at the moment Emacs seems more at the position where users will slowly die of old age, than Emacs not starting anymore. So another 30, 40 years, and Emacs might have a real problem.
- masfoobar 3y ago
  > VS Code is not an IDE... I know. > ...it's more like the evolved GUI-Version of Emacs. And it's now 9 years old, so I would think it has established itself well for this decade. Point I am making is those using Visual Studio (before Visual Studio Code) would criticise me for using Emacs.. a text editor. They mocked me because "IDEs are better" Roll on to more recent times.. many of said people are now using Visual Studio Code. The same people that told me "IDEs are better" > It's now at version 4, still in development. But being a commercial app, which is also not that cheap, you will naturally see not too many people using it. But considering they are still developing it, they seem to still make money from it, so enough people are using it I guess. I will admit I did not know there was a ST v4. I knew about version 3 (I will not get into that). I do not know anyone using it. Not suggesting noone is.. just my personal observation. I would not be surprised if many ST2 users moved to VSCode. > That's a very strange observation. There are significant more (neo)vim-users than emacs-users around I was talking about vi/vim.. not neovim. I made my point with regards to VSCode and NeoVim. They are the current cool kids on the block. Not suggesting they wont be popular in 10 years time. They could be.. but large of their userbase could move onto another cool kid by then. Emacs, on the other hand (like vi/vim) will continue like they normally do.

n4r9 3y ago

> We also have Sublime Text 2 which was all the rage around 2013... Now, I hardly see anyone using it. Maybe they upgraded to Sublime Text 4?

masfoobar 3y ago
> Maybe they upgraded to Sublime Text 4? Didn't know it passed version 3, being honest. Says a lot. Point still stands.
- n4r9 3y ago
  It probably depends a lot on company culture and possibly what OSes the devs are using. Pretty much every dev in our 20+ team has it installed, as there are not many editors on Windows have equivalent editing features and are so snappy to use. However, the free trial version is not strictly permitted for corporate use, so we might be losing it soon.
  - masfoobar 3y ago
    > It probably depends a lot on company... Absolutely. I am not suggesting ST is dead. It's just 10-12 years ago ST2 was big hype online. Hyped to the point that likes of Vi (or even emacs) users were moving over to it! Today, I hardly hear about it online. It is VS Code, even in the office. I am sure if I was in the same room 10 years ago, it would be the same.. just ST2. :-) I wonder what the "cool" thing is in the next 10 years. Likely be saying the same thing about VS Code over the next "cool kid" Maybe other dev culture (php devs, for example) that I have not been part of are mostly using ST2/3/4.
    - n4r9 3y ago
      I'm totally with you insofar as ST isn't used much as a full IDE. But it's a great as a background text editor and I'd be surprised if not many people use it for that. I use it to keep a TODO list, analyse and manipulate log files, record temporary notes, and edit big JSON packets. Tasks like "extract all lines which include this phrase, and then delete the first 10 characters" are straightforward. Also it's minimal, clean and feels spacious out of the box. VS Code probably has similar features, but has a much bigger memory footprint, takes longer to start up, and looks more cluttered. If you're already a dotnet shop with VS Pro/Enterprise subscriptions then it makes more sense to use ST.

softirq 3y ago

I think a lot of people would argue that Emacs is also slow and bloated, but makes you, the user, program most of the functionality you get from VSCode or JB out of the box. Want fuzzing finding? That's a package. Want git integration? That's a package. Want LSP? Also a package. Want to have sane defaults? Go look at 20 different init.els online and cargo cult a bunch of elisp. And after you've made your own Emacs stew spend, the next 14 years stomping out bugs and ignoring the things it still can't do, like run a multi-threaded tramp so a bad connection doesn't freeze your entire editor. I think the people who switch from editor to editor that requires 0 config actually saved time and money by just doing their job rather than configuring their editor, and this is coming from a Vim user. Emacs is a black whole where "free" time gets sucked in never to be seen again. The big difference is as a Vim user I only had to configure my editor, you had to configure your entire operating system including Org mode. I also am not sure about the whole Vim thing. On reddit, Vim has 3x the number of community users as Emacs and Neovim. I think Vim is still by far the most popular text based editor, but nowadays I think VSCode is unfortunately here to stay because Microsoft knows the value of having a captive developer audience.

taeric 3y ago
Emacs does do a lot more "out of the box" now than many people realize. You will still have to turn them on, I think; but you don't have to install as many external packages as you are implying there. And the problem with "sane defaults" is that to those of us that have been on Emacs for a long time, the defaults are sane. If you were to switch them on us, that would be frustrating. You /could/ make it so that startup on a vanilla setup has a set of checkboxes for common input schemes that people select between. I'm not sure why that hasn't been done, or what other issues that would have. As for saving time/money by "doing their job" rather than configuring an editor. This is always a tough one. I don't think people should have to spend time getting to know their editors. But, I also don't worry that people don't spend time learning to care for their cars or their plumbing. That is, it makes sense that many people want to outsource that effort to others. It also makes sense that many people like getting into that sort of stuff. And I don't know why it has to be a battle between them?
masfoobar 3y ago

PurpleRamen 3y ago

> Now we have Visual Studio Code which a lot of people seem to use, even those that judged me for using emacs a few years back. But... IDEs are better, right? VS Code is not an IDE, it's more like the evolved GUI-Version of Emacs. And it's now 9 years old, so I would think it has established itself well for this decade. > We also have Sublime Text 2 It's now at version 4, still in development. But being a commercial app, which is also not that cheap, you will naturally see not too many people using it. But considering they are still developing it, they seem to still make money from it, so enough people are using it I guess. > Once in a while (in the last 15 years) I see the odd vi or vim user. They continue to exist like me with emacs. That's a very strange observation. There are significant more (neo)vim-users than emacs-users around. They are probably the second biggest crowd in text-editor-space, only beaten by VS Code at the moment. It's far more likely for emacs to die, than for vim. > Point is - emacs will be around for many years to come. That's true for all of them. As long as someone maintains them, people will use them. Software will only die when they don't start anymore or the users left them. And at the moment Emacs seems more at the position where users will slowly die of old age, than Emacs not starting anymore. So another 30, 40 years, and Emacs might have a real problem.

masfoobar 3y ago
> VS Code is not an IDE... I know. > ...it's more like the evolved GUI-Version of Emacs. And it's now 9 years old, so I would think it has established itself well for this decade. Point I am making is those using Visual Studio (before Visual Studio Code) would criticise me for using Emacs.. a text editor. They mocked me because "IDEs are better" Roll on to more recent times.. many of said people are now using Visual Studio Code. The same people that told me "IDEs are better" > It's now at version 4, still in development. But being a commercial app, which is also not that cheap, you will naturally see not too many people using it. But considering they are still developing it, they seem to still make money from it, so enough people are using it I guess. I will admit I did not know there was a ST v4. I knew about version 3 (I will not get into that). I do not know anyone using it. Not suggesting noone is.. just my personal observation. I would not be surprised if many ST2 users moved to VSCode. > That's a very strange observation. There are significant more (neo)vim-users than emacs-users around I was talking about vi/vim.. not neovim. I made my point with regards to VSCode and NeoVim. They are the current cool kids on the block. Not suggesting they wont be popular in 10 years time. They could be.. but large of their userbase could move onto another cool kid by then. Emacs, on the other hand (like vi/vim) will continue like they normally do.