4 ms·

The power of emacs is not the default keybindings.

wiz21c 3y ago
Which can be made CUA (ctrl-S, ctrl-C, ctrl-V, etc.) easily if one's on Windows...
pastage 3y ago
The same has been said about VS code. I.e it is just a husk that you need to modify to something useful. This makes them useless to many. Sane defaults is important and should be there.
roenxi 3y ago
I don't know (or care) if Emacs is dying, but that is a point suggesting death is on the way. We have in Emacs an editor where the default keybindings aren't great (literally designed for keyboards that no longer exist). The configuration language is Elisp, which is not a great language (being a lisp is great, but by lisp standards it is eclipsed by Common lisp or Clojure depending on personal preferences). The overall feel of the editor with lots of extensions is a bit patchwork and unprofessional. The model of editing text is a relic from a time when multiple threads didn't exist and window managers were not yet a thing. I love Emacs to death and it isn't leaving my hands until they are cold and dead; but for the life of me I don't see why anyone should invest the time to learn Emacs. The greater programming community would be better off letting it die then rebuilding something similar with different defaults. All Emacs is good for is as a platform for building a completely different text editor out of extensions.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  >All Emacs is good for is as a platform for building a completely different text editor out of extensions. Yes, we call those modes.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    They can't make effective decisions about the modes without understanding base Emacs. And base Emacs is pretty awful. New users are better off using a text editor with sane defaults. Then they don't even need to build their own text editor. A lot of what makes Emacs good to use are modes that bring it up to parity with things like vim and Visual Studio.
    - llm_trw 3y ago
      No, a lot of what makes idiots quit emacs is trying to bring it up to parity with vim and Visual Studio. What makes emacs great are modes like tramp, dried, magit and org-mode which turn it into a portable operating system from the year 3000.
- agumonkey 3y ago
  I've walked around editors / IDE etc and the flaws of emacs still don't overcome the benefits. I'd be curious to see some deep improvements though, but it won't matter much if not.
sureglymop 3y ago
I would argue it is. Not because of Emacs itself though, but because they are the default gnu readline keybindings. This means that by learning these, one can use them in almost every application on every platform that has a "text input field" type component. Browsers, Adobe software, most native macOS software, any REPL such as python, etc. Even in the shell, ones workflow is just so much better after learning these. (Yes, I am aware that vim input mode exists). But then again, that's as much of emacs that I bothered to learn... I do see emacs often used in competitive programming, mostly by undergrads too. But of course, that is already a very small subset of all undergrads.

Which can be made CUA (ctrl-S, ctrl-C, ctrl-V, etc.) easily if one's on Windows...

The same has been said about VS code. I.e it is just a husk that you need to modify to something useful. This makes them useless to many. Sane defaults is important and should be there.

roenxi 3y ago

I don't know (or care) if Emacs is dying, but that is a point suggesting death is on the way. We have in Emacs an editor where the default keybindings aren't great (literally designed for keyboards that no longer exist). The configuration language is Elisp, which is not a great language (being a lisp is great, but by lisp standards it is eclipsed by Common lisp or Clojure depending on personal preferences). The overall feel of the editor with lots of extensions is a bit patchwork and unprofessional. The model of editing text is a relic from a time when multiple threads didn't exist and window managers were not yet a thing. I love Emacs to death and it isn't leaving my hands until they are cold and dead; but for the life of me I don't see why anyone should invest the time to learn Emacs. The greater programming community would be better off letting it die then rebuilding something similar with different defaults. All Emacs is good for is as a platform for building a completely different text editor out of extensions.

llm_trw 3y ago
>All Emacs is good for is as a platform for building a completely different text editor out of extensions. Yes, we call those modes.
- roenxi 3y ago
  They can't make effective decisions about the modes without understanding base Emacs. And base Emacs is pretty awful. New users are better off using a text editor with sane defaults. Then they don't even need to build their own text editor. A lot of what makes Emacs good to use are modes that bring it up to parity with things like vim and Visual Studio.
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    No, a lot of what makes idiots quit emacs is trying to bring it up to parity with vim and Visual Studio. What makes emacs great are modes like tramp, dried, magit and org-mode which turn it into a portable operating system from the year 3000.
agumonkey 3y ago
I've walked around editors / IDE etc and the flaws of emacs still don't overcome the benefits. I'd be curious to see some deep improvements though, but it won't matter much if not.

sureglymop 3y ago

I would argue it is. Not because of Emacs itself though, but because they are the default gnu readline keybindings. This means that by learning these, one can use them in almost every application on every platform that has a "text input field" type component. Browsers, Adobe software, most native macOS software, any REPL such as python, etc. Even in the shell, ones workflow is just so much better after learning these. (Yes, I am aware that vim input mode exists). But then again, that's as much of emacs that I bothered to learn... I do see emacs often used in competitive programming, mostly by undergrads too. But of course, that is already a very small subset of all undergrads.