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> I wonder how many users Emacs has lost to VS Code over the past few years. I'm one of them. I think Emacs users care more about the total population than one

> I wonder how many users Emacs has lost to VS Code over the past few years. I'm one of them. I think Emacs users care more about the total population than one particular outmigration. I don't have actual data, but if I compare to the amount of activity (blog posts, tweets/toots, packages, etc), then (heavy) Emacs usage seems to be monotonically increasing. Almost everyone I know who switched to VSCode was using Emacs primarily for work, and mostly limited to SW development. That category of users may be large in absolute numbers, but most of the Emacs ecosystem is not driven by that category (i.e. even if that category shrinks to a tenth of its size, it won't have any impact on Emacs development). Just take a look at the talks in the conference. The vast majority are orthogonal to SW development/programming.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lawn 2y ago
I think your analysis applies to Neovim too.
- lysace 2y ago
  Non-programmer usage of neovim outweighs programmer usage?
  - opan 2y ago
    I consider myself a non-programmer and use nvim daily on my PC for config editing, note-taking, anime playlist management, writing emails (inside aerc). Next time I try programming, I'll also use it for that I'm sure.
    - skirge 2y ago
      vimwiki!
lysace 2y ago
Are you saying that most emacs users aren't in "SW development/programming"? Of course not. Would someone not very carefully reading your comment think otherwise? Yes, probably.
- yoyohello13 2y ago
  I’m continually surprised how many non-programmers or occasional programmers use emacs. Writers seem to love it.
  - iLemming 2y ago
    > Writers seem to love it. Of course, how can you not love it? All the tools you need for writing are at your fingertips. You can have a thesaurus, spellchecking, translation and search, dictionaries, etymology lookup, word counter, Flesch-Kincaid reading ease tester, ChatGPT, Anthropic and other models, dictation, formatter, converter, exporter and so much more. Why would anyone ever exposed to that power willingly part with it?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - kragen 2y ago
      Which packages do you recommend for each of these things? I don't have most of them in my Emacs.
      - iLemming 2y ago
        You can simply 'M-x list-packages' and search for things. - Thesaurus - there are a few different packages, powerthesaurus, le-thesaurus, etc. I use mw-thesaurus, at this point mainly out of habit, it's the first Emacs package I ever made and it served me so well, I never had reasons to look for alternatives. - Spellchecking - I suppose flyspell still holds the majority, I prefer jinx.el, it completely replaced flyspell for me - translation - also multiple choices, from translate-mode, org-translate, ob-translate, lingva, immersive-translate, etc. I use google-translate - for no particular good reason, it's just an old habit. - search - consult-omni, it takes some initial tweaking, but then you can simultaneously search on Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, your browser history, etc., while typing the query once. - dictionaries - sdcv - etymology - define-it, wiktionary-bro - word counter - is built-in; reading ease testing - writegood.el - LLMs - multiple choices, gptel and chatgpt-shell are the most popular.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Why would emacs users care what editor anyone else uses? Emacs seems like the sort of thing you use and develop for if it solves a problem for you. It's not a business; it doesn't need to win popularity contests.
- rtpg 2y ago
  I think it's interesting to think about why people choose things. You can then decide "we want these qualities as well", or "we don't want those", or "we want them but haven't figured out how to get there without paying too high of a cost we want in other things". Not a goal in itself to capture everyone, of course. But it's a data point!
  - iLemming 2y ago
    "Data point" is simply this - Emacs and Vim have seen way too many popular editors and IDEs over the years and VSCode is just another thing in a long list of "contenders" - Brief, Wordstar, Borland Sprint/Turbo Pascal/varios 'Builders', QEdit, TextPad, Norton, Delphi, Adobe shit, Macromedia stuff, Microsoft crap, Eclipse, Netbeans, etc. Emacs proceeds strategically, not tactically. Even though it outlived so many different editors it was only a single decade, a point in history when it was considered kinda, sorta mainstream, the rest of its lifetime it wasn't. Emacs is just like Lisp itself - it never dies, and never gets to be hugely popular. Anyone wishing either speedy death or widespread popularity for Lisp (and Emacs) will likely remain disappointed. Those who value Lisp and Emacs will continue using them, even decades from now. Those who never learn to appreciate either - will keep ignoring them.
    - rtpg 2y ago
      I mean Lisp "never dies", but there have been plenty of Lisp flavors that have come and gone. We don't write Lisp, we write some flavor (each with vastly different properties and values). There's nothing wrong with looking at the ecosystem and saying "huh, this is a pretty good idea". Emacs (the community as a whole) didn't ignore the LSP, and thanks to that it gets first-class support for tools that otherwise would have required someone to show up and "do the work" to get it to happen. I do think we're in agreement about "strategically, not tactically". Like Emacs _is_ doing its own thing. It's just that sometimes you can see good ideas from other places.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lawn 2y ago

I think your analysis applies to Neovim too.

lysace 2y ago
Non-programmer usage of neovim outweighs programmer usage?
- opan 2y ago
  I consider myself a non-programmer and use nvim daily on my PC for config editing, note-taking, anime playlist management, writing emails (inside aerc). Next time I try programming, I'll also use it for that I'm sure.
  - skirge 2y ago
    vimwiki!

lysace 2y ago

Are you saying that most emacs users aren't in "SW development/programming"? Of course not. Would someone not very carefully reading your comment think otherwise? Yes, probably.

yoyohello13 2y ago
I’m continually surprised how many non-programmers or occasional programmers use emacs. Writers seem to love it.
- iLemming 2y ago
  > Writers seem to love it. Of course, how can you not love it? All the tools you need for writing are at your fingertips. You can have a thesaurus, spellchecking, translation and search, dictionaries, etymology lookup, word counter, Flesch-Kincaid reading ease tester, ChatGPT, Anthropic and other models, dictation, formatter, converter, exporter and so much more. Why would anyone ever exposed to that power willingly part with it?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - kragen 2y ago
    Which packages do you recommend for each of these things? I don't have most of them in my Emacs.
    - iLemming 2y ago
      You can simply 'M-x list-packages' and search for things. - Thesaurus - there are a few different packages, powerthesaurus, le-thesaurus, etc. I use mw-thesaurus, at this point mainly out of habit, it's the first Emacs package I ever made and it served me so well, I never had reasons to look for alternatives. - Spellchecking - I suppose flyspell still holds the majority, I prefer jinx.el, it completely replaced flyspell for me - translation - also multiple choices, from translate-mode, org-translate, ob-translate, lingva, immersive-translate, etc. I use google-translate - for no particular good reason, it's just an old habit. - search - consult-omni, it takes some initial tweaking, but then you can simultaneously search on Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, your browser history, etc., while typing the query once. - dictionaries - sdcv - etymology - define-it, wiktionary-bro - word counter - is built-in; reading ease testing - writegood.el - LLMs - multiple choices, gptel and chatgpt-shell are the most popular.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Why would emacs users care what editor anyone else uses? Emacs seems like the sort of thing you use and develop for if it solves a problem for you. It's not a business; it doesn't need to win popularity contests.

rtpg 2y ago
I think it's interesting to think about why people choose things. You can then decide "we want these qualities as well", or "we don't want those", or "we want them but haven't figured out how to get there without paying too high of a cost we want in other things". Not a goal in itself to capture everyone, of course. But it's a data point!
- iLemming 2y ago
  "Data point" is simply this - Emacs and Vim have seen way too many popular editors and IDEs over the years and VSCode is just another thing in a long list of "contenders" - Brief, Wordstar, Borland Sprint/Turbo Pascal/varios 'Builders', QEdit, TextPad, Norton, Delphi, Adobe shit, Macromedia stuff, Microsoft crap, Eclipse, Netbeans, etc. Emacs proceeds strategically, not tactically. Even though it outlived so many different editors it was only a single decade, a point in history when it was considered kinda, sorta mainstream, the rest of its lifetime it wasn't. Emacs is just like Lisp itself - it never dies, and never gets to be hugely popular. Anyone wishing either speedy death or widespread popularity for Lisp (and Emacs) will likely remain disappointed. Those who value Lisp and Emacs will continue using them, even decades from now. Those who never learn to appreciate either - will keep ignoring them.
  - rtpg 2y ago
    I mean Lisp "never dies", but there have been plenty of Lisp flavors that have come and gone. We don't write Lisp, we write some flavor (each with vastly different properties and values). There's nothing wrong with looking at the ecosystem and saying "huh, this is a pretty good idea". Emacs (the community as a whole) didn't ignore the LSP, and thanks to that it gets first-class support for tools that otherwise would have required someone to show up and "do the work" to get it to happen. I do think we're in agreement about "strategically, not tactically". Like Emacs _is_ doing its own thing. It's just that sometimes you can see good ideas from other places.