5 ms·

All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everyth

All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes, but I also think the ecosystem is more slow moving than other editors which helps. The editor is older than most devs after all.

shevy-java 4mo ago
The irony is that the vim camp can use just the same "argument" here about emacs. So that is a weird comparison to want to make here. > The editor is older than most devs after all. Well, being old does not automatically mean better. Peak human physical performance typically happens, with some exceptions (Justin Gatlin, if we ignore the use of enhancement drugs) in younger years; see Usain Bolt's fastest time achieved when he was young (23 years, in 2009). For mental tasks it is not so limited, but for physical peaks it is often in the younger years. For some software projects it also is the case that older age means more code, which in turn automatically mean smore bugs, all other things being equal. I am not necessarily questioning as to whether emacs has more bugs; my point is that the comparison/analogy does not work as means of quality assessment.
- weinzierl 4mo ago
  If you look at the output of mathematicians and their biggest discoveries it suggests that it is similarly limited for mental tasks.
  - kensai 4mo ago
    Probably this category of mental tasks. For politicians it's the other way around. Prolly you need to have some 'elder statesman' skills as well as wisdom to achieve greatness. Deng Xiaoping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping) started changing China at the venerable age of 70+ moving forward until his death almost two decades later. Do not underestimate wisdom as a cognitive skill, even if in today's world we tend to discredit it because of agism.
    - zelphirkalt 4mo ago
      To bring up politicians, in a discussion about mental peak performances ... yeah, no, it's funny.
- DonHopkins 4mo ago
  It's as wrong to anthroporphize Emacs as it is Larry Ellison.
- sph 4mo ago
  The evidence of younger code being better than old one doesn’t pass the smell test, and it’s hard to prove in a nascent field of technology where the oldest piece of software in continuous use has barely reached middle age. You just cannot compare software robustness to human lifespan. Does software need 3 years at the bare minimum to be self-sufficient? Does it become argumentative and crashes a lot after 13-14 years?
arikrahman 4mo ago
I find that Emacs is actually the first mover on prime technologies. Just look at gptel and org-mode. Nothing else really even comes close. The reason some odd names exist like yank and kill or kill chain is because Emacs was the first and didn't have anything else to use as reference.
- imglorp 4mo ago
  That's right teco/emacs pre-dates xerox gypsy, which coined cut/copy/paste.
- rpdillon 4mo ago
  Kill chain is a military term relating to the sequence of events that lead up to the actual attack. You're probably thinking of kill ring, which I always thought was a neat term.
  - wglb 4mo ago
    It's also used in security defense, where there is a search for how to stop the many steps of attack.
- db48x 4mo ago
  Technically Kill and Yank came from TECO, which is an entirely different visual editor that predates Emacs.
royal__ 4mo ago
Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)
- rjzzleep 4mo ago
  LSPs keep getting reimplemented, package managers keep getting reimplemented. It's a bit like the react version of text editors. I used it more than I use emacs, but I agree with the assessment of doom emacs vs neovim.
  - zelphirkalt 4mo ago
    To be fair, there are also tons of ways to manage packages in Emacs.
  - maleldil 4mo ago
    neovim core has most of what you need for LSPs. The only thing missing is server-specific configuration (e.g. binary name, flags), which you can copy from nvim-lspconfig or write yourself. There's also a native package manager in the core.
    - QwenGlazer9000 4mo ago
      It literally wasn't the case until relatively recently. It's an improvement in stability for the future, but the fact that before we had plug, then lazy, then finally we now have a built in one doesn't support the case necessarily the neovim ecosystem has a lot of churn. I hope with these new built in alternatives that will change.
- sph 4mo ago
  Neovim suffers from the Javascript kids mode of development. Constant change, constant churn, the mirage of stability always behind the corner, you always require third-party packages for functionality that should be core, completely erasing the Lindy effect of vim proper. It’s a bit sad Neovim has stolen the thunder from the original work of Moolenaar & co. My guess is that neovim will splinter itself down the line further again once lua stops being attractive, while vim & Emacs will keep chugging along for another half century.
Alien1Being 4mo ago
I use both Emacs ( have used it for decades ) and began using Neovim recently. Neovim seems fairly reasonable. Using the LazyVim distribution of Neovim and it works quite well for my purposes.
- QwenGlazer9000 4mo ago
  Distros help a lot shielding you from the churn, but lazyvim is maintained by folke who I hear loves breaking changes. Back when I used lazyvim I remember people complaining that he swapped out some major component randomly, I think it was auto complete. Respect where it's due to folke, he's been pushing the neovim ecosystem forward incredibly fast. The bleeding edge just ain't everyone's style though.
quertyrecord74 4mo ago
Use borg package. You'll get rock solid emacs. Worth the effort.
- sph 4mo ago
  Link: https://github.com/emacscollective/borg https://github.com/emacscollective/borg Seems worth a look, simply because it’s from the magit author.
- cvdub 4mo ago
  Don’t think stuff like borg is necessary now that Emacs has built in support for installing packages from git repos (use-package :vc)
bogomog 4mo ago
20 or 25 years ago it almost never crashed. Now I might see a crash or freeze once a week or so. And slowdowns several times a day. Of course I'm running more modes now in a more customized environment. Hopefully this new version with more in it will improve the situation.

shevy-java 4mo ago

The irony is that the vim camp can use just the same "argument" here about emacs. So that is a weird comparison to want to make here. > The editor is older than most devs after all. Well, being old does not automatically mean better. Peak human physical performance typically happens, with some exceptions (Justin Gatlin, if we ignore the use of enhancement drugs) in younger years; see Usain Bolt's fastest time achieved when he was young (23 years, in 2009). For mental tasks it is not so limited, but for physical peaks it is often in the younger years. For some software projects it also is the case that older age means more code, which in turn automatically mean smore bugs, all other things being equal. I am not necessarily questioning as to whether emacs has more bugs; my point is that the comparison/analogy does not work as means of quality assessment.

weinzierl 4mo ago
If you look at the output of mathematicians and their biggest discoveries it suggests that it is similarly limited for mental tasks.
- kensai 4mo ago
  Probably this category of mental tasks. For politicians it's the other way around. Prolly you need to have some 'elder statesman' skills as well as wisdom to achieve greatness. Deng Xiaoping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping) started changing China at the venerable age of 70+ moving forward until his death almost two decades later. Do not underestimate wisdom as a cognitive skill, even if in today's world we tend to discredit it because of agism.
  - zelphirkalt 4mo ago
    To bring up politicians, in a discussion about mental peak performances ... yeah, no, it's funny.
DonHopkins 4mo ago
It's as wrong to anthroporphize Emacs as it is Larry Ellison.
sph 4mo ago
The evidence of younger code being better than old one doesn’t pass the smell test, and it’s hard to prove in a nascent field of technology where the oldest piece of software in continuous use has barely reached middle age. You just cannot compare software robustness to human lifespan. Does software need 3 years at the bare minimum to be self-sufficient? Does it become argumentative and crashes a lot after 13-14 years?

arikrahman 4mo ago

I find that Emacs is actually the first mover on prime technologies. Just look at gptel and org-mode. Nothing else really even comes close. The reason some odd names exist like yank and kill or kill chain is because Emacs was the first and didn't have anything else to use as reference.

imglorp 4mo ago
That's right teco/emacs pre-dates xerox gypsy, which coined cut/copy/paste.
rpdillon 4mo ago
Kill chain is a military term relating to the sequence of events that lead up to the actual attack. You're probably thinking of kill ring, which I always thought was a neat term.
- wglb 4mo ago
  It's also used in security defense, where there is a search for how to stop the many steps of attack.
db48x 4mo ago
Technically Kill and Yank came from TECO, which is an entirely different visual editor that predates Emacs.

royal__ 4mo ago

Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)

rjzzleep 4mo ago
LSPs keep getting reimplemented, package managers keep getting reimplemented. It's a bit like the react version of text editors. I used it more than I use emacs, but I agree with the assessment of doom emacs vs neovim.
- zelphirkalt 4mo ago
  To be fair, there are also tons of ways to manage packages in Emacs.
- maleldil 4mo ago
  neovim core has most of what you need for LSPs. The only thing missing is server-specific configuration (e.g. binary name, flags), which you can copy from nvim-lspconfig or write yourself. There's also a native package manager in the core.
  - QwenGlazer9000 4mo ago
    It literally wasn't the case until relatively recently. It's an improvement in stability for the future, but the fact that before we had plug, then lazy, then finally we now have a built in one doesn't support the case necessarily the neovim ecosystem has a lot of churn. I hope with these new built in alternatives that will change.
sph 4mo ago
Neovim suffers from the Javascript kids mode of development. Constant change, constant churn, the mirage of stability always behind the corner, you always require third-party packages for functionality that should be core, completely erasing the Lindy effect of vim proper. It’s a bit sad Neovim has stolen the thunder from the original work of Moolenaar & co. My guess is that neovim will splinter itself down the line further again once lua stops being attractive, while vim & Emacs will keep chugging along for another half century.

Alien1Being 4mo ago

I use both Emacs ( have used it for decades ) and began using Neovim recently. Neovim seems fairly reasonable. Using the LazyVim distribution of Neovim and it works quite well for my purposes.

QwenGlazer9000 4mo ago
Distros help a lot shielding you from the churn, but lazyvim is maintained by folke who I hear loves breaking changes. Back when I used lazyvim I remember people complaining that he swapped out some major component randomly, I think it was auto complete. Respect where it's due to folke, he's been pushing the neovim ecosystem forward incredibly fast. The bleeding edge just ain't everyone's style though.

quertyrecord74 4mo ago

Use borg package. You'll get rock solid emacs. Worth the effort.

sph 4mo ago
Link: https://github.com/emacscollective/borg https://github.com/emacscollective/borg Seems worth a look, simply because it’s from the magit author.
cvdub 4mo ago
Don’t think stuff like borg is necessary now that Emacs has built in support for installing packages from git repos (use-package :vc)

bogomog 4mo ago

20 or 25 years ago it almost never crashed. Now I might see a crash or freeze once a week or so. And slowdowns several times a day. Of course I'm running more modes now in a more customized environment. Hopefully this new version with more in it will improve the situation.