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vimscript/viml, which is the basis of extending vim, regularly shows up as one of the worst languages to work with. http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-express

vimscript/viml, which is the basis of extending vim, regularly shows up as one of the worst languages to work with. http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-expressions-emotions-github-commit-messages/ http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-expressions-emotions-gi... vim is great, but most of its great features are at the end of a very difficult (but necessary) learning curve. The learning curve for developing plugins is even steeper (and unnecessarily so). In contrast, most people can pick up and use textmate instantly. They can alter the extensions easily, since everything is done in a sane script environment (python/ruby). They can also share/alter/manage their extensions more easily without causing conflicts. Pathogen/vundle are recent vim plugins that finally make this easier for vimmers. In a sense, textmate changed the nature of what an editor was about. I think extensions are a large part of an editor's value now. ST2, vim, and others are now following textmate's approach, and I admit, they're doing a better job of it than textmate. However, you still have to give credit to the originator.

tincholio 14y ago
> In a sense, textmate changed the nature of what an editor was about. I think extensions are a large part of an editor's value now. You've never used Emacs, have you?
jdonaldson 14y ago
> You've never used Emacs, have you? I'm talking about light weight editors that support light weight scripting in a number of different languages. I consider emacs to be more IDE-like. That's admittedly a weak distinction though.
- jasomill 14y ago
  emacsclient is about as lightweight as it gets, and Cocoa Emacs itself (24.1.50.1, built from the Git repository on Savannah this afternoon) starts up in less than 5 seconds on my Mac. As for "scripting in a number of different languages", that's more of an anti-feature for me. Specifically, running Emacs in a Windows, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, ... VM in VMware Fusion, I can symlink the init files and site-lisp directories in my guest OS home directory to the analogous items in my OS X home directory, and, given reasonably comparable fonts and Emacs versions, my Emacs configuration and most extensions work identically in the VMs. If, on the other hand, these extensions were written in a number of scripting languages rather than Emacs Lisp, I'd need to maintain a like number of scripting language runtimes in each guest OS. Given the amount of code I write in Emacs pales in comparison to the amount of contributed third-party code I use, the fact that I have to write it in Emacs Lisp is a vanishingly small price to pay. Besides that, for lightweight scripting at least, I actually like Emacs Lisp.
  - jdonaldson 14y ago
    I agree that emacs is losing its stigma of being/feeling bloated. Also, lisp is finding more practical applications through clojure. It seems like emacs should be on the upswing. So, charts like this (taken with a small grain of salt) are puzzling: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=emacs&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=emacs&cmpt=q
johncoltrane 14y ago
Vim had "extensions" before TextMate even existed. I don't speak Ruby so I've never been able to alter much of anything in TextMate beside creating/customizing snippets in my 4 years of heavy usage (user ID in the lower 4 digits). However, picking up vimscript for my small needs was relatively easy.

tincholio 14y ago

> In a sense, textmate changed the nature of what an editor was about. I think extensions are a large part of an editor's value now. You've never used Emacs, have you?

jdonaldson 14y ago

> You've never used Emacs, have you? I'm talking about light weight editors that support light weight scripting in a number of different languages. I consider emacs to be more IDE-like. That's admittedly a weak distinction though.

jasomill 14y ago
emacsclient is about as lightweight as it gets, and Cocoa Emacs itself (24.1.50.1, built from the Git repository on Savannah this afternoon) starts up in less than 5 seconds on my Mac. As for "scripting in a number of different languages", that's more of an anti-feature for me. Specifically, running Emacs in a Windows, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, ... VM in VMware Fusion, I can symlink the init files and site-lisp directories in my guest OS home directory to the analogous items in my OS X home directory, and, given reasonably comparable fonts and Emacs versions, my Emacs configuration and most extensions work identically in the VMs. If, on the other hand, these extensions were written in a number of scripting languages rather than Emacs Lisp, I'd need to maintain a like number of scripting language runtimes in each guest OS. Given the amount of code I write in Emacs pales in comparison to the amount of contributed third-party code I use, the fact that I have to write it in Emacs Lisp is a vanishingly small price to pay. Besides that, for lightweight scripting at least, I actually like Emacs Lisp.
- jdonaldson 14y ago
  I agree that emacs is losing its stigma of being/feeling bloated. Also, lisp is finding more practical applications through clojure. It seems like emacs should be on the upswing. So, charts like this (taken with a small grain of salt) are puzzling: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=emacs&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=emacs&cmpt=q

johncoltrane 14y ago

Vim had "extensions" before TextMate even existed. I don't speak Ruby so I've never been able to alter much of anything in TextMate beside creating/customizing snippets in my 4 years of heavy usage (user ID in the lower 4 digits). However, picking up vimscript for my small needs was relatively easy.