5 ms·

This, most people that try and use these legacy editors spend most of their time configuring it get it to be as good as vs code and usually fail. A lot of waste

This, most people that try and use these legacy editors spend most of their time configuring it get it to be as good as vs code and usually fail. A lot of wasted time and frustration when one click gives you a perfectly modern fast editor with a smorgasbord of great extensions that just work. I do use vim for quick editing of files in the terminal but never for serious work.

omnicognate 11mo ago
Not sure where you get "most" from. Personally I've found the exact opposite: Despite having been forced by work constraints to use most major IDE platforms at one point or another, sometimes for years at a time, I always come back to emacs with great relief and find it better in pretty much every way. I know better than to assume my experience is that of "most" people, though.
- roman_soldier 11mo ago
  The data shows VS Code is used by double digit % of developers, whereas Emacs is less than 1%, I think that qualifies for most.
  - iLemming 11mo ago
    That's not the point - McDonald's has 40000 joints - the most popular restaurant in the world. Still doesn't make it the best food option. Yes, Emacs is not popular, but if you look deeper, you may find unsurprisingly that most Emacs coders are strong developers. That correlation isn't coincidental - you don't stick with Emacs unless you're willing to learn; it effectively teaches you about Lisp, extensibility, and programming in general. Yet, they are not talking about general popularity of editors among devs, but about people who ever tried Emacs - the argument is that the majority of them try, fail and abandon it. For which obviously there's no polemical (or otherwise) data points.
- self_awareness 11mo ago
  I've installed emacs now on ArchLinux Wayland system and its window refuses to resize (on purely default settings), and freezes the contents until I move it. Very refreshing indeed. I bet this is some kind of a known issue, but that just reinforces my original point above. edit: yeah, here it is: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509871 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509871 I mean, how it's not an Emacs issue if it only happens with emacs?
  - iLemming 11mo ago
    > I've installed emacs now on I never had what you describe. The variability there could be almost random - which version of Emacs you're installing? How are you installing it? Are you trying to build it from source? What renderer are you using - there are several: Lucid, Motif, GTK, NS, W32, Haiku, Android, Cairo, Pgtk. Perhaps it's installing different renderer instead of using pgtk. Maybe it's not a bug with Emacs but with the package that bundles it for your distro? > how it's not an Emacs issue if it only happens with emacs? It does seem to be an Emacs issue. But it is a specific issue that happens on the combination of your hardware and your OS configuration.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - self_awareness 11mo ago
      Yes, I'm always having "special" problems. It's probably due to the fact that I jump around platforms a lot between Linux, macOS and Windows, mixed GUI and ssh. For example, macOS emacs always starting at the bottom of the window stack instead of the top. macOS emacs having different font notation than Linux emacs, so maintaining common config is hard. Terminal emacs -nw having its own set of rules, and M-x needs to be addressed with ESC x. Etc, etc.
      - iLemming 11mo ago
        Yeah, I admit, fair complaints. Emacs can be tricky to render things exactly how you like - I use it on Mac, Linux, GUI and terminal and do have different semantics for each. The tradeoff is that Emacs does let you handle it all - you're not forced to accept platform defaults like in some editors. Most editors have their UI/behavior largely baked in by the platform. You can customize colors and keybindings, but the fundamentals - window management, font rendering, how system keys work, terminal integration - are mostly dictated by whether you're on Mac, Windows, or Linux. So when you have mac Emacs behaving differently than Linux Emacs, it's not because the software forced you into that corner - it's because the underlying systems are different and Emacs exposes that difference rather than hiding it behind a unified abstraction layer. Emacs gives you the rope to make things consistent across platforms, but also the rope to hang yourself. Other editors pre-tie the knot for you.
iLemming 11mo ago
> one click gives you a perfectly modern fast editor with a smorgasbord of great extensions that just work I use over 300 hundred packages in my Emacs setup. I honestly not sure if I can install even half of that number of VSCode extensions and expect it to still run smoothly, maybe people do that, I just don't know. They are called "packages" and not "extensions" for a reason - an extension that e.g., ships with a browser has limitations. In Emacs I can reuse functions of one package in another - in VSCode they have to be explicitly exposed via public API, must be activated in order, they need to be aware of their extension IDs, there's no discovery mechanism - in Elisp, I don't have to deal with any of that. in Emacs I can explore, modify and bend the source code of any package - built-in or third-party. I can do it in a way that is simply impossible anywhere else. I can granularly change selected behavior of any command without having to rewrite it fully. That "just works™" part I don't ever buy it - all software is faulty by nature. In Emacs, when something fails - I know exactly how to troubleshoot it, to the specific line in the specific package code; I can profile; debug and trace it. I can modify code in question in a scratch buffer and immediately check how it affects things. Not only I don't have to restart anything, I don't even have to save that code anywhere. You call it "a legacy editor" without the slightest clue of what Emacs hackers are capable of doing - for what the most "modern" alternatives simply have no answers. I agree, Emacs is not for the faint-hearted - many people (maybe most) lack the patience required to grok it. Yet make no mistake, those who have tamed this beast are not staying in it simply because "they don't know any better". They know - something better is yet to be made, if ever. VSCode is great, yet still not better. Learning Emacs has liberated me from experiencing tool-FOMO ever again - I can switch to VSCode without abandoning Emacs, and I can even probably figure a way to control one from another if I get annoyed enough; I just never found a pragmatic reason to use VSCode more. So really, I have zero envy or crave to even become a full-time VSCode user; if anything, I might be forced into it by circumstances, but that's a different story.
- self_awareness 11mo ago
  > In Emacs I can reuse functions of one package in another You say like it's some kind of feature, but for me it sounds like a potential for name clash, and using private API which is prone to change/break. > You call it "a legacy editor" without the slightest clue of what Emacs hackers are capable of doing The thing is that is was VSCode which has brought us LSP, not "emacs hackers". It was VSCode which has brought us LLM Agent mode. All editors are catching up to VSCode, not the other way around. LSP, LLM, ssh/docker/podman remote development, what's the Emacs answer to those? (I mean, nowadays vim+emacs have their own LSP clients built-in, years after VSCode)

omnicognate 11mo ago

Not sure where you get "most" from. Personally I've found the exact opposite: Despite having been forced by work constraints to use most major IDE platforms at one point or another, sometimes for years at a time, I always come back to emacs with great relief and find it better in pretty much every way. I know better than to assume my experience is that of "most" people, though.

roman_soldier 11mo ago
The data shows VS Code is used by double digit % of developers, whereas Emacs is less than 1%, I think that qualifies for most.
- iLemming 11mo ago
  That's not the point - McDonald's has 40000 joints - the most popular restaurant in the world. Still doesn't make it the best food option. Yes, Emacs is not popular, but if you look deeper, you may find unsurprisingly that most Emacs coders are strong developers. That correlation isn't coincidental - you don't stick with Emacs unless you're willing to learn; it effectively teaches you about Lisp, extensibility, and programming in general. Yet, they are not talking about general popularity of editors among devs, but about people who ever tried Emacs - the argument is that the majority of them try, fail and abandon it. For which obviously there's no polemical (or otherwise) data points.
self_awareness 11mo ago
I've installed emacs now on ArchLinux Wayland system and its window refuses to resize (on purely default settings), and freezes the contents until I move it. Very refreshing indeed. I bet this is some kind of a known issue, but that just reinforces my original point above. edit: yeah, here it is: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509871 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509871 I mean, how it's not an Emacs issue if it only happens with emacs?
- iLemming 11mo ago
  > I've installed emacs now on I never had what you describe. The variability there could be almost random - which version of Emacs you're installing? How are you installing it? Are you trying to build it from source? What renderer are you using - there are several: Lucid, Motif, GTK, NS, W32, Haiku, Android, Cairo, Pgtk. Perhaps it's installing different renderer instead of using pgtk. Maybe it's not a bug with Emacs but with the package that bundles it for your distro? > how it's not an Emacs issue if it only happens with emacs? It does seem to be an Emacs issue. But it is a specific issue that happens on the combination of your hardware and your OS configuration.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - self_awareness 11mo ago
    Yes, I'm always having "special" problems. It's probably due to the fact that I jump around platforms a lot between Linux, macOS and Windows, mixed GUI and ssh. For example, macOS emacs always starting at the bottom of the window stack instead of the top. macOS emacs having different font notation than Linux emacs, so maintaining common config is hard. Terminal emacs -nw having its own set of rules, and M-x needs to be addressed with ESC x. Etc, etc.
    - iLemming 11mo ago
      Yeah, I admit, fair complaints. Emacs can be tricky to render things exactly how you like - I use it on Mac, Linux, GUI and terminal and do have different semantics for each. The tradeoff is that Emacs does let you handle it all - you're not forced to accept platform defaults like in some editors. Most editors have their UI/behavior largely baked in by the platform. You can customize colors and keybindings, but the fundamentals - window management, font rendering, how system keys work, terminal integration - are mostly dictated by whether you're on Mac, Windows, or Linux. So when you have mac Emacs behaving differently than Linux Emacs, it's not because the software forced you into that corner - it's because the underlying systems are different and Emacs exposes that difference rather than hiding it behind a unified abstraction layer. Emacs gives you the rope to make things consistent across platforms, but also the rope to hang yourself. Other editors pre-tie the knot for you.

iLemming 11mo ago

> one click gives you a perfectly modern fast editor with a smorgasbord of great extensions that just work I use over 300 hundred packages in my Emacs setup. I honestly not sure if I can install even half of that number of VSCode extensions and expect it to still run smoothly, maybe people do that, I just don't know. They are called "packages" and not "extensions" for a reason - an extension that e.g., ships with a browser has limitations. In Emacs I can reuse functions of one package in another - in VSCode they have to be explicitly exposed via public API, must be activated in order, they need to be aware of their extension IDs, there's no discovery mechanism - in Elisp, I don't have to deal with any of that. in Emacs I can explore, modify and bend the source code of any package - built-in or third-party. I can do it in a way that is simply impossible anywhere else. I can granularly change selected behavior of any command without having to rewrite it fully. That "just works™" part I don't ever buy it - all software is faulty by nature. In Emacs, when something fails - I know exactly how to troubleshoot it, to the specific line in the specific package code; I can profile; debug and trace it. I can modify code in question in a scratch buffer and immediately check how it affects things. Not only I don't have to restart anything, I don't even have to save that code anywhere. You call it "a legacy editor" without the slightest clue of what Emacs hackers are capable of doing - for what the most "modern" alternatives simply have no answers. I agree, Emacs is not for the faint-hearted - many people (maybe most) lack the patience required to grok it. Yet make no mistake, those who have tamed this beast are not staying in it simply because "they don't know any better". They know - something better is yet to be made, if ever. VSCode is great, yet still not better. Learning Emacs has liberated me from experiencing tool-FOMO ever again - I can switch to VSCode without abandoning Emacs, and I can even probably figure a way to control one from another if I get annoyed enough; I just never found a pragmatic reason to use VSCode more. So really, I have zero envy or crave to even become a full-time VSCode user; if anything, I might be forced into it by circumstances, but that's a different story.

self_awareness 11mo ago
> In Emacs I can reuse functions of one package in another You say like it's some kind of feature, but for me it sounds like a potential for name clash, and using private API which is prone to change/break. > You call it "a legacy editor" without the slightest clue of what Emacs hackers are capable of doing The thing is that is was VSCode which has brought us LSP, not "emacs hackers". It was VSCode which has brought us LLM Agent mode. All editors are catching up to VSCode, not the other way around. LSP, LLM, ssh/docker/podman remote development, what's the Emacs answer to those? (I mean, nowadays vim+emacs have their own LSP clients built-in, years after VSCode)