6 ms·

Emacs Is a Lispboard

116 points by andros 3mo ago

behnamoh 3mo ago
It's a matter of philosophy; would you rather have multiple small apps that do only one job or one "super app" that does it all? Ironically, starting from the former, I've now turned my tmux into the latter with so many utility apps integrated into it. But now I can see the benefits of each approach. Maintaining "super apps" is more challenging due to the coupling of so many pieces to each other.
- dietr1ch 3mo ago
  And building a consistent good experience from isolated tools is even harder. The problem is just hard and I think good criteria with the super app approach is the way to go. I really like Spacemacs. It's discoverable, extendable, quite consistent.
  - behnamoh 3mo ago
    > And building a consistent good experience from isolated tools is even harder. Yes, I agree, which is why my tmux slowly devours my numerous small utility apps into itself! I haven't tried Spacemacs yet, too Vim-pilled at the moment..
    - BeetleB 3mo ago
      > I haven't tried Spacemacs yet, too Vim-pilled at the moment.. You do know that Spacemacs defaults to Vim bindings, right?
- kleiba2 3mo ago
  If the "super app" is modular - like Emacs is - you basically get the best of both worlds.
xvilka 3mo ago
Something like Lem[1][2] could go even further because of the richer CommonLisp ecosystem compared to Elisp one. [1] https://lem-project.github.io/ https://lem-project.github.io/ [2] https://github.com/lem-project/lem https://github.com/lem-project/lem
- beepbooptheory 3mo ago
  I am not sure if I would bet one way or another on who has the richer ecosystem here.. They are both great. I would probably wager elpa has more packages in general than quicklisp, but maybe not necessarily richer/higher quality.
- adrian_b 3mo ago
  Having CommonLisp as the extension language would indeed be a great improvement over Elisp. However, I am suspicious about the dependency of Lem on Webkit, which for me is rather associated with inefficiency and low performance than with the instant reactions that I expect from programming text editors, terminal emulators and tiled window managers. The main problem is that it is very difficult for any replacement of Emacs to offer everything that already exists for Emacs. In my opinion, the only way in which such a replacement would succeed would be if it would include an automatic translator from Elisp to CommonLisp scripts executable by it, with equivalent functionality.
  - chiffaa 3mo ago
    Lem can also render via ncurses, which works fairly fine if you don't need mouse support. It used to also have an SDL2 frontend, but it was deprecated for reasons I don't remember
  - anthk 3mo ago
    Emacs has cl-lib and most CL users can get into Emacs in seconds (if they are not already proficient enough, most of them btw).
  - cmrdporcupine 3mo ago
    The WebKit UI is actually snappier and more performant than the previous SDL2 one. I don't think WebKit is slow at all. Browser bloat around it often is.
rbc 3mo ago
GNU Emacs is probably the easiest way to capture the spirit of working on the Lisp machines. Interlisp is an ongoing project that takes you even further down that road.
boscillator 3mo ago
> Suppose I want to work in a single place for all my contexts, both personal and professional. This has always been my problem with adopting Emacs or Obsidian or any other app that purports to do this. Who are y'all working for that you can bring professional stuff onto the same system as personal stuff? I don't want my personal emails on my work computer, and my boss would be rather upset if I brought work emails onto my personal computer. I'd love one of these do everything apps that lets me tag and sync just stuff that ought to be synced.
- skydhash 3mo ago
  Maybe he is a freelancer or a business owner and not an employee. If you’re one of the former, there’s often little separation between work and personal. I only truly enforce separation when I’m an employee, with different devices for each context.
- BeetleB 3mo ago
  I think his secondary point is to show the potential. His primary point is likely that if you set this all up for home use, you can use mostly the same config to use it at work. This way, when you go home or go to work, you're dealing with the same environment and workflows.
- taeric 3mo ago
  Many people that do this are almost certainly freelance contractors in some facility? Probably, though, many are just using personal as not strictly personal, but the kind of personal things you might do while at a desk job.
- kreyenborgi 3mo ago
  You don't have to combine work and personal stuff in Emacs. You can for example set it up to just connect to work email and work jira and work slack and work clankers etc.
- amrit3128 3mo ago
  I assume it was not to use same profile but the same environment of all text related tasks. Like I write blogs and research papers in org mode, and then simply export the necessary file format. I can perform text operations easily in mail, i can have elisp snippets generate mail for me depending on the sender, I can use calc to add numbers inside the buffer, I can have latex previews.
jiehong 3mo ago
If we take a browser, and add things to make it a super app, we would basically get an extensible electron app, right? Maybe, why not?
hatsumisen 3mo ago
Can someone define "lispboard" for me? The article calls the browser a lispboard, which breaks every guess at a definition I have.
- slowmovintarget 3mo ago
  The author defines it: > Like an electronics breadboard, a board where every module you plug in shares a bus with all the others, except here the modules are written in Lisp. The bit about the browser seems to simply be a strained metaphor: "The browser is a rented Lispboard, with a landlord. Emacs is the only one you can own."
  - hatsumisen 3mo ago
    Thanks! I missed that.
nonfamous 3mo ago
I learned “real” programming in the early 90’s by learning Elisp to customize Emacs. (Before that the only languages I’d written in by choice were C64 Basic and Assembler.) Like the OP, I used Elisp for everything - scripts to bulk-edit files, manage the file system, format posts, etc. etc. Unlike the OP I hated the scratch buffer for running Elisp, so I created a REPL for Elisp that behaved more (in my naive eyes) as a real language. I was very excited when RMS emailed me to ask to include it in Emacs. Last I checked (a few years ago now) it was still there as M-x ielm (Inferior Emacs Lisp Mode).
- jkubic 3mo ago
  Very cool story thank you. I still use ielm regularly.
viccater 3mo ago
[dead]

116 points by andros 3mo ago

It's a matter of philosophy; would you rather have multiple small apps that do only one job or one "super app" that does it all? Ironically, starting from the former, I've now turned my tmux into the latter with so many utility apps integrated into it. But now I can see the benefits of each approach. Maintaining "super apps" is more challenging due to the coupling of so many pieces to each other.

dietr1ch 3mo ago
And building a consistent good experience from isolated tools is even harder. The problem is just hard and I think good criteria with the super app approach is the way to go. I really like Spacemacs. It's discoverable, extendable, quite consistent.
- behnamoh 3mo ago
  > And building a consistent good experience from isolated tools is even harder. Yes, I agree, which is why my tmux slowly devours my numerous small utility apps into itself! I haven't tried Spacemacs yet, too Vim-pilled at the moment..
  - BeetleB 3mo ago
    > I haven't tried Spacemacs yet, too Vim-pilled at the moment.. You do know that Spacemacs defaults to Vim bindings, right?
kleiba2 3mo ago
If the "super app" is modular - like Emacs is - you basically get the best of both worlds.

xvilka 3mo ago

Something like Lem[1][2] could go even further because of the richer CommonLisp ecosystem compared to Elisp one. [1] https://lem-project.github.io/ https://lem-project.github.io/ [2] https://github.com/lem-project/lem https://github.com/lem-project/lem

beepbooptheory 3mo ago
I am not sure if I would bet one way or another on who has the richer ecosystem here.. They are both great. I would probably wager elpa has more packages in general than quicklisp, but maybe not necessarily richer/higher quality.
adrian_b 3mo ago
Having CommonLisp as the extension language would indeed be a great improvement over Elisp. However, I am suspicious about the dependency of Lem on Webkit, which for me is rather associated with inefficiency and low performance than with the instant reactions that I expect from programming text editors, terminal emulators and tiled window managers. The main problem is that it is very difficult for any replacement of Emacs to offer everything that already exists for Emacs. In my opinion, the only way in which such a replacement would succeed would be if it would include an automatic translator from Elisp to CommonLisp scripts executable by it, with equivalent functionality.
- chiffaa 3mo ago
  Lem can also render via ncurses, which works fairly fine if you don't need mouse support. It used to also have an SDL2 frontend, but it was deprecated for reasons I don't remember
- anthk 3mo ago
  Emacs has cl-lib and most CL users can get into Emacs in seconds (if they are not already proficient enough, most of them btw).
- cmrdporcupine 3mo ago
  The WebKit UI is actually snappier and more performant than the previous SDL2 one. I don't think WebKit is slow at all. Browser bloat around it often is.

rbc 3mo ago

GNU Emacs is probably the easiest way to capture the spirit of working on the Lisp machines. Interlisp is an ongoing project that takes you even further down that road.

boscillator 3mo ago

> Suppose I want to work in a single place for all my contexts, both personal and professional. This has always been my problem with adopting Emacs or Obsidian or any other app that purports to do this. Who are y'all working for that you can bring professional stuff onto the same system as personal stuff? I don't want my personal emails on my work computer, and my boss would be rather upset if I brought work emails onto my personal computer. I'd love one of these do everything apps that lets me tag and sync just stuff that ought to be synced.

skydhash 3mo ago
Maybe he is a freelancer or a business owner and not an employee. If you’re one of the former, there’s often little separation between work and personal. I only truly enforce separation when I’m an employee, with different devices for each context.
BeetleB 3mo ago
I think his secondary point is to show the potential. His primary point is likely that if you set this all up for home use, you can use mostly the same config to use it at work. This way, when you go home or go to work, you're dealing with the same environment and workflows.
taeric 3mo ago
Many people that do this are almost certainly freelance contractors in some facility? Probably, though, many are just using personal as not strictly personal, but the kind of personal things you might do while at a desk job.
kreyenborgi 3mo ago
You don't have to combine work and personal stuff in Emacs. You can for example set it up to just connect to work email and work jira and work slack and work clankers etc.
amrit3128 3mo ago
I assume it was not to use same profile but the same environment of all text related tasks. Like I write blogs and research papers in org mode, and then simply export the necessary file format. I can perform text operations easily in mail, i can have elisp snippets generate mail for me depending on the sender, I can use calc to add numbers inside the buffer, I can have latex previews.

jiehong 3mo ago

If we take a browser, and add things to make it a super app, we would basically get an extensible electron app, right? Maybe, why not?

hatsumisen 3mo ago

Can someone define "lispboard" for me? The article calls the browser a lispboard, which breaks every guess at a definition I have.

slowmovintarget 3mo ago
The author defines it: > Like an electronics breadboard, a board where every module you plug in shares a bus with all the others, except here the modules are written in Lisp. The bit about the browser seems to simply be a strained metaphor: "The browser is a rented Lispboard, with a landlord. Emacs is the only one you can own."
- hatsumisen 3mo ago
  Thanks! I missed that.

nonfamous 3mo ago

I learned “real” programming in the early 90’s by learning Elisp to customize Emacs. (Before that the only languages I’d written in by choice were C64 Basic and Assembler.) Like the OP, I used Elisp for everything - scripts to bulk-edit files, manage the file system, format posts, etc. etc. Unlike the OP I hated the scratch buffer for running Elisp, so I created a REPL for Elisp that behaved more (in my naive eyes) as a real language. I was very excited when RMS emailed me to ask to include it in Emacs. Last I checked (a few years ago now) it was still there as M-x ielm (Inferior Emacs Lisp Mode).

jkubic 3mo ago
Very cool story thank you. I still use ielm regularly.

viccater 3mo ago

[dead]