Let's just use Emacs

http://beastwithin.org/users/wwwwolf/fantasy/avarthrel/blog/2011/05/lets-just-use-emacs.html

by codeup • 15 years ago

220 160 15 years ago

beastwithin.org

swah2• 15 years ago

He's talking about Emacs 23.

kennu• 15 years ago

There's something fishy about an emacs article that doesn't mention vim at all.

arnorhs• 15 years ago

He mentioned being affected by cognitive dissonance when referencing other editors - he was probably thinking of vim :)

to3m2• 15 years ago

A lot of modern IDEs provide features that are pretty close to magic, compared to what emacs sports. The emacs user response to this generally seems to be something like, "Code navigation can't be as good as M-x rgrep", and "How can refactoring ever be as good as C-M-%?"

This reminds me of various people I have worked with in the past who have wondered why I ever bothered with the complexity of searching and replacing with regular expressions, when you can just do a normal search and replace, watch for matches that match the more complicated thing you're actually looking for, then replace them by hand...

Goladus6• 15 years ago

Why should an emacs article mention vim? The author probably isn't qualified to fairly compare them and so doesn't bother trying. The focus is also writing prose rather than coding or basic text-editing.

The differences between vim and emacs are so fundamental that once someone goes down the emacs path it's not uncommon to never turn back.

evangineer4• 15 years ago

tl;dr

Use Emacs 23 to create a distraction-free writing environment using org-mode, darkroom-mode & markdown-mode.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

I'm not directing this at you personally, even though I am responding to your comment, but do we really need "tl;dr" type comments here on Hacker News?

forkandwait• 15 years ago

I am ashamed, but part of the reason I read HN is for the tl;dr comments...

dpatru• 15 years ago

> do we really need "tl;dr" type comments here on Hacker News

Yes we do. They serve to save people time.

dsmithn2• 15 years ago

I can't speak for HN, but I appreciate them. It's nice to see what other people get out of the articles. Usually the discussions here are more interesting than the article so it also allows me to understand what everyone is talking about without having to read sometimes lengthy articles.

raganwald9• 15 years ago

IMO, "tl;dr" is a misnomer. Or at least, I don't value such a thing as an alternative to reading the post. There's no way that one line captures the whole article, it captures that one person's main takeaway. Rather than assuming that such a thing tells me everything I need to know, or thinking it can help me understand the nuänces of the discussion, I take it as one reader's executive summary which will help me decide whether to read the entire post.

In this case, I read it as "A good read if you want to know how/why/whether to use Emacs-23 as a distraction-free writing environment."

The post has other value, of course, and I wouldn't object if someone else were to write something like:

tl;dr: Emacs continues to evolve, e.g. It's now as good a tool for writers as Scrivener or dedicated distraction-free editors.

That would give me another reason to read the post if I wasn't persuaded by the first. Summaries (including the title, natch) provide some value that a simple upvote score does not capture.

jordan0day• 15 years ago

It really depends. evangineer's tl;dr comment was a decently accurate summarization of the content of the article. If you're meaning the typical "tl;dr [witty/sarcastic comment about TFA's author's shortcomings]", sure, those don't belong on hn. evangineer's comment seemed genuinely useful, though.

swah2• 15 years ago

Everyone is already using a filter (HN) to avoid doing some work: reading everything that is posted on the web.

For me, tldr is a favor folks more interested than me in some subject do, and I should do the same when I subject I really care turns up.

tldr is an act of love.

brewski• 15 years ago

For linux environments, instead of darkroom-mode you can put this in your .emacs file to toggle fullscreen:

  ;;; Fullscreen
  (defun switch-full-screen ()
    (interactive)
    (shell-command "wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -btoggle,fullscreen"))

  (global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'switch-full-screen)

wallrat• 15 years ago

Alternative if you don't have wmctrl installed (not default in Ubuntu for example):

  ;; Fullscreen
  (defun switch-full-screen ()
    (interactive)
    (x-send-client-message nil 0 nil "_NET_WM_STATE" 32
                           '(2 "_NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN" 0)))

sambeau• 15 years ago

  sudo apt-get install emacs23-nox

;-)

mziulu• 15 years ago

Another alternative that, AFAICS, doesn't use anything external to emacs

    ;;; Full-screen mode
   (defun toggle-max-window ()
      (interactive)
      (set-frame-parameter nil 'fullscreen
                       (if (frame-parameter nil 'fullscreen)
                           nil
                         'fullboth)))
   (global-set-key (kbd "<C-M-return>") 'toggle-max-window)

eru• 15 years ago

You can also start using xmonad.

hsmyers• 15 years ago

Haven't peeked under the covers in years---this is enough to make me go take a look. Now if someone would write a mode for time-lines then that would pretty much finish up the usual writer (fiction) shopping list.

codeup• 15 years ago

Org Mode's agenda has something like that: http://orgmode.org/manual/Timeline.html

singular4• 15 years ago

I deeply love emacs, but its crustier elements really bite on a regular basis. The amount of effort required to make it non-ugly is just... unpleasant (a problem I've noticed with a lot of gnu ui stuff, both with applications and websites - appearance matters guys), the lack of namespaces in elisp is quite horrid (though it's very nice to have a lisp as the language of choice), the weird annoying regex conventions, and just lots of little things (I'd have to sit down and record them as I go to be able to list 'em) which degrade the experience.

By the way, take that as intended - I love emacs very much, but as with people so with software - the little things a beloved gets wrong can be unbelievably annoying... :)

gecko2• 15 years ago

I'm with you. Making Vim look pretty involves adding ":color <whatever>" to your .vimrc. Making Emacs look pretty involves installing color-theme, hopefully compiling it so it doesn't take forever to load, editing your .emacs.d/init.el since you can't customize that via customize-apropos (AFAIK), and so on. Likewise, I'm with you that the default regex implementation is...surreal, at best. Having reb-re-syntax be 'string should be the default.

On the bright side, look at what we're discussing here: the default regex syntax and pretty colors. Compare that to about five years ago, when we'd be instead discussing how to compile Emacs in a way that had fricking TrueType font support. Emacs has come a long way.

singular4• 15 years ago

Yeah, both 21 -> 22 and especially 22 -> 23 were vast improvements. Appearance issues aside however, emacs is starting to feel a little like windows in a way (uh oh downvotes ahoy), in that it's lumbered by backwards compatibility considerations. Emacs with namespaces + a nicer lisp would be... something very special.

s1rech• 15 years ago

"standard" regex syntax for emacs would make me really happy.

jcromartie2• 15 years ago

YMMV, but I find that the latest Emacs on OS X with a good color theme is quite nice looking. Anti-aliased font rendering is fine with me.

singular4• 15 years ago

Agreed emacs 23 is a vast improvement, however the UI elements i.e. menubar, scrollbars, etc. still suck, as does the initial splash screen. OS X is better than linux for defaults, but no matter what you do have to work hard to get a decent appearance.

pmr_2• 15 years ago

I really don't see what namespaces would achieve. The way it is I can look at something and explicitly see which module it belongs to (e.g. dired-next-line, image-next-line vs. org-agenda-next-line).

In my experience namespaces only introduce notation to distinguish modules but so does a simple convention.

lurker194• 15 years ago

Namespaces are nice when the language lets you name a space at the top of a file or a block and then not repeat the name prefix on every identifier inside. They are not just used to add dots to identifier names, although that would often be NSNice in NSItself.

va_coder• 15 years ago

You think 20 years from now people will still be voting up articles about Emacs and Vim? just curious

dexen2• 15 years ago

Yes. They are bound to be discovered and re-discovered by every generation. They are the kind of tools that get the job done. There's also still a lot to be discovered about those editors themselves.

Besides, to quote Wikipedia:

EMACS: initial release: 1976, 34–35 years ago

Vim: initial release 1991, 19–20 years ago

vi: was written by Bill Joy in 1976 (as extension of `ex' editor)

The debacle's been raging for way longer than 20 years.

----

On the other hand, if you want something more modern: http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/acme

ajross3• 15 years ago

The EMACS package for TECO on ITS isn't an ancestor of modern GNU emacs, which began as a rewrite (based on Gosling's Unix emacs) in 1984. They are both "emacs" in the sense that they are modeless screen editors that share the same default keystrokes.

Really GNU emacs is related to ITS emacs in the same way that vim is to BSD vi: it's a cleaner and much more powerful reimagining of the original that shares some interface details but no implementation.

sigzero• 15 years ago

We had a programming intern a couple years ago, he was doing some Python stuff for us. One day he comes to me all excited about this awesome editor he found that was x-platform and had syntax highlighting for everything and was scriptable. I like editors so I asked him what it was..."It's called Vim!".

The editor I had been using for years. :)

foenix• 15 years ago

Yeah, I went from Geany to vim for python. And after installing the LaTeX packages, I couldn't go back.

bad_user• 15 years ago

Also, 20 years for now people will still engage in arguments about which is better - it's the ultimate flame war :)

damoncali• 15 years ago

Yes, and the rest of us will still wonder why.

dexen2• 15 years ago

For the fun factor -- emacs page from Section 1 of the plan 9 manual: http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/emacs

nitfol• 15 years ago

Strangely, the vi(1) linked from that page is not for the editor, but for a MIPS emulator http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/vi

raganwald9• 15 years ago

Articles about why anything you can do in a "simpler" text editor can and should be done in emacs strongly resemble articles about why anything you can do in a less powerful programming language can and should be done in Lisp.

I don't think it's a coïncidence.

ajross3• 15 years ago

I think that's a little unfair. Programming languages are tools for your head: you're always thinking when using them. That means that the impedance mismatch of "switching" between languages is fairly low, and scales with the problem. So pick the tool for the job, and don't sweat the simple stuff.

Editors are tools for your fingers. There are huge penalties to being good with an editor if you are forced to use a different one. I use emacs for writing things other than code (email, web forms like this very comment) not just because I think it's better than whatever built-in editor is provided for the task, but because it hurts so badly to use something other than emacs.

The converse point is that there are huge benefits available if you give up all your existing editing tools and spend some time (and yeah, it can be months to years) getting really, really good at just one. Really, that one has to be emacs or vim, which are the only editors out there designed to scale to this level of specialization.

It always makes me sad to watch other people work and see how much time they spend fighting with their editor, moving their hand around to the arrows or mouse or function keys, fighting with the presentation logic of their word processor to get the page break on the right spot on the screen, etc... It doesn't have to be that way.

raganwald9• 15 years ago

What's unfair? That the arguments made by emacs users with respect to less powerful editors resemble the arguments made by Lisp users with respect to less powerful programming languages?

I'm not taking a stand on the argument one way or the other, just pointing out how similar they sound. You said:

"There are huge benefits available if you give up all your existing editing tools and spend some time (and yeah, it can be months to years) getting really, really good at just one. Really, that one has to be emacs or vim, which are the only editors out there designed to scale to this level of specialization."

How does this differ from:

"There are huge benefits available if you give up all your existing languages and spend some time (and yeah, it can be months to years) getting really, really good at just one. Really, that one has to be Lisp, which is the only language out there designed to scale to this level of specialization."

Whether you agree or disagree with the sentiments, haven't you heard people expressing those sentiments in much the same terms?

tedunangst• 15 years ago

I'm not sure if you're making a general point, but I don't think it's universally true. Anything you can do on a netbook can be done faster and more accurately on a supercomputer. Working backwards from why we don't all use supercomputers, we can probably figure out why not everyone uses lisp and emacs.

BrandonM3• 15 years ago

> Anything you can do on a netbook can be done faster and more accurately on a supercomputer.

What about:

  - developing software while on a flight?
  - recording field data for an experiment?
  - using hibernate or sleep to save power?
  - connecting to a projector for a presentation?
  - ...

The point is that it's important to use the right tool for the job, and that for many tasks a netbook is vastly preferable to a supercomputer. "Working backwards from" use the right tool for the job seems more instructive than your implication (whatever it was).

akkartik• 15 years ago

The title raised my hackles as well, but it turned out to be a fun, un-dogmatic read with nothing to do with the editor wars. Upvoted.

Or perhaps it was just that he didn't bash my favorite editor :)

raganwald9• 15 years ago

I though the article was fun and informative, but I'll stop short of saying that a post wherein the author questions why people pay for editors that do less than emacs has "nothing to do with the editor wars." I agree that it has nothing to do with the One-True-Editor war between emacs and vim users :-)

swannodette• 15 years ago

  Simple text editor = simple + powerful
  Emacs = complex + powerful
  Lisp = simple + powerful
  Blub = complex + powerful

Given this your association doesn't make much sense.

I think most people prefer simple + powerful. And this isn't black and white - Blub can often be simpler for X simple task. However the real yard stick is whether as your problem domain gets more complex does Blub suddenly lose its veneer of simplicity?

I always bring up Alan Kay in these kind of threads but his observations are always so damn salient - agglutinative PLs (features) vs style PLs (simple principles).

Goladus6• 15 years ago

Most of my emacs customizations are pretty simple. M-x [ and M-x ] start and end macros. f5 runs a macro instead of C-M-x e. f6 copies the entire current line. f7 is line-goto. f9 is replace-string, f10 is replace-regexp. M-x g is whole-buffer-copy. I have a bunch of functions that insert standard shebangs and other script boilerplate, which are easily mapped to function keys if I need them.

I've got some other more complex customizations that I don't use very often, for example a set of functions that let me cycle through various background/text color schemes. For awhile I had that mapped to f8. I've also effectively used hotkeys that generate documentation/comment templates. But those tend to come and go, and when I'm not using them they don't interfere at all.

Beyond a few fundamental things, emacs is only as complex as it needs to be. Yes, it's a fairly large base install compared to vi, or a simple text editor, but so far it's never been big enough to get in my way.

yarian2• 15 years ago

I will argue that simple text editor does not usually equal simple + powerful. Most "simple" text editors (think Notepad) are just plain simple.

Emacs seems quite simple to me, actually. Intimidating at first, sure. Complex to master, but simple to use.

Then again, there's an obvious difference between something that is difficult to learn and something that is difficult to use. In fact most tools require training at first to use them, and Emacs is not any different.

lurker194• 15 years ago

Well, emacs is the most popular Lisp implementation and area of application.

raganwald9• 15 years ago

I was thinking along these lines. Although, the thing that occurred to me is that Lisp is sometimes called a programmable programming language. And emacs is the canonical programmable text editor. It had occurred to me that it was not a coincidence that someone who had embraced a fully programmable tool (language or editor) would feel this way about it. I thought the article was interesting in that the author was pointing out that emacs' programmability could be used to emulate design features like a distraction-free environment and not just "power" features.

parfe4• 15 years ago

I use Emacs for coding, wanderlust mail, rcirc and jabber-el. All which are provided as packages in the distros I run.

I've been trying to get into clojure which entails installing clojure-mode, swank-clojure, leiningen (which brings the pain of maven) and slime. This is where emacs has always broken down for me. Once I step outside the distro provided packages I find broken tutorials, unspecific versions, and instructions written like:

    First install package.el.
    Add to your .emacs: (add-to-list 'package-archives '("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/"))
    C-x C-e to evaluate it, and you're good to go!

http://marmalade-repo.org/

Except that didn't work in two of the three emacs installs I have. Any time I need to download an elisp file I dread reading the instructions. Too often the author forgot that he loads some other required package in his 1000 line .emacs/init.el file. Then you end up with half a set of instructions.

I think the only solution to the problem would be package maintainers providing instructions for how to install their package in a specific vanilla version of emacs from scratch with no other changes. But if they have to give up their custom emacs configs they won't be able to write up an explanation.

astine2• 15 years ago

Whenever installing software for Emacs, it's usually worth checking ELPA http://tromey.com/elpa/ (which comes installed on Emacs by default now,) to see if the package is there already. The ELPA provide both slime and clojure-mode and they work out of the box with swank-clojure. You'll still need to install Leiningen/Cake with swank-clojure separately, but there isn't much Emacs can do to help there.

parfe4• 15 years ago

Ah, but now you're not following the instructions provided by swank clojure which says to use marmalade (which is an elpa extension/replacement/clone/additional repository?)

The clojure-mode available through elpa ( clojure-mode 1.7.x) is not new enough to deal with swank-clojure which needs 1.9.x (specifically I was after M-x clojure-jack-in)

Plus, the elpa instructions don't include emacs23 because it allegedly comes with 23 (even though the elpa website does not say this). But elpa is not included in emacs 23 on Gentoo.

And thus an evening of mine is lost to trying to get the same emacs environment running on my Gentoo desktop and Ubuntu laptop.

Obviously my problems could be from a lack of experience with Emacs, but I hate that using a text editor is so hard.

And another example is the pain of trying to build wanderlust from scratch which requires apel, flim and semi. Some of which were ONLY hosted on abandoned FTP servers. Luckily Dave Abrahams recently moved those scattered and abandoned packages to a single place https://github.com/wanderlust

technomancy8• 15 years ago

ELPA is no longer accepting new uploads; the maintainer has requested that everyone switch to Marmalade.

cema7• 15 years ago

Regarding Clojure on Emacs, just use the up-to-date stuff by technomancy. The following is based on my notes from a recent talk by Phil Hagelberg at a Boston Clojure Meetup.

1. Download lein from https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/raw/stable/bin/lein

2. Launch lein (self-install) from the command line.

3. Run lein plugin install swank-clojure 1.3.0 on the command line.

4. When you first run swank, it may complain you do not have project.clj or something like that, because it expects to be launched form inside a project directory. You may create a dummy project directory (cd; lein new dummy; cd dummy).

You need to run the above steps once, to install. Run the following at the beginning of a clojure session:

5. Run lein swank on the command line.

6. In emacs, run slime-connect (with the default parameters, most likely).

In case I have garbled the above, I am sure someone will correct me. Although I did it both on Windows and MacOs and it worked. (On Windows, I use bash shell form the MinGW project, but I see no reason for the standard Windows shell not to work.)

Separately, you may want to install clojure-mode from the same repository.

Happy hacking!

technomancy8• 15 years ago

Actually the week after that meetup I realized the process could be simplified dramatically: http://technomancy.us/149 Now once you have Leiningen and clojure-mode installed it's a single M-x clojure-jack-in to get started.

Wish I had thought of that a week earlier! Could have saved us a lot of time at the meetup.

(The way you posted still works fine, so if you've already got it set up there's no need to switch.)

hesitz2• 15 years ago

"org-mode developers, in turn, just ask a relevant big question: 'why use separate files when you can conveniently stick the stuff in one file, dammit?'"

It surprises me that you could come away from org-mode thinking that the developers thought you should stick everything in one file. One of the main strengths of org-mode is the way it frees you to put stuff into separate files, wherever you want, and then use the agenda to consolidate them into a single view.

Having said that, yes, org-mode is freaking awesome.

dsmithn2• 15 years ago

I've spent the last month or so head first learning VIM - I forgot about org-mode before deciding on VIM. There are a number of clones but nothing seems complete. Any recommendations?

losvedir• 15 years ago

Well the orgmode.org homepage calls out one[1] in particular:

"2010-11-25 Thu: Maybe the times where Org mode could change hard-core vi users into honorable Emacs users are coming to an end? A Vim clone of Org mode is be written by Herbert Sitz, and judging by the videos it looks promising."

Haven't used it, though.

[1]https://github.com/hsitz/VimOrganizer

hesitz2• 15 years ago

I'm the author of that clone. I'm making progress, and it's building up to a fairly nice subset of org-mode, but it's not something that would satisfy any truly hardcore org-mode power user. At least not any time in the near future.

The previous poster complained that none of the Vim plugins that try to mimic or clone org-mode "seem complete". That is definitely the wrong way to look at things. Org-mode is a huge app that's been heavily developed for six or seven years now. In some ways org-mode is probably like Microsoft Word: probably 75% of its users access only about 25% of its features, although many of them access a different 25%.

Why try to develop an org-mode clone in Vim, then? Mostly as a personal project I started for fun. I tried switching to Emacs just so I could use org-mode. Even with Viper and Vimpulse add-ons Emacs felt too clunky to me. I had previously worked on a Vim outliner and I knew that part wouldn't be too hard to replicate in Vim. I decided not to stop there and I've gone on to a lot of other features, although it's a fledgling project. In particular, I need to get some decent documentation done. There are a ton of features in my clone that users have no idea are even there. I think so far most of them (like most org-mode users?) use it mostly for simple outlining.

The Vim clone uses a file format compatible with org-mode and actually calls out to an Emacs server to have org-mode do exports to LaTeX/PDF, HTML, etc. So pure document authoring (as opposed to PIM/task management stuff), is one task that the Vim clone probably can do a decent job of now. Adding footnote support is on the list (there's already a Vim footnote plugin that I plan to modify to work with the org-clone).

evangineer4• 15 years ago

As a former Vim user, I use viper-mode with emacs. Org-mode really is a mature, powerful killer app for emacs and there is a whole ecosystem of tools and addons that make it even more valuable.

I would accept no substitutes at this stage.

pnathan• 15 years ago

A few years ago I switched to emacs because I needed a cross-platform editor that worked with multiple languages and was available on command-line Linux. vi(m) was (and is) unintuitive.

As you work with emacs and customize it to work with your flow, your hands, and your keyboard, it starts to feel as comfortable as old shoes. Over time, the incremental efficiencies add up, and it becomes clear that a non-customizable editor just isn't as useful.

Contrary to parfe's experience, I've had good experience with Emacs packages, but then again, I don't use very intrusive addons, and keep my emacs pretty up-to-date.

fernandotakai• 15 years ago

Happened to me, on vim – i used to work with TextMate, and I really wanted a text editor that I could easily use on my servers as well as on my local computer.

I started using vim, and at first, it was kind of hard to get used to all the commands and remember everything... but after a while (1~2 weeks) it felt so fluid and easy – everything makes kind of sense, it's easy to install new plugins (pathogen ftw!), it's easy to hack those plugins, themes (most of the time) just works.

frsandstone• 15 years ago

basically

lelele4• 15 years ago

Emacs beats every other editor. Yes, including Vim both because you have a Vim clone inside Emacs and because once you start pushing the limits of Vim, just like the developer of Slim-Vim, you'll find yourself implementing Emacs. Vim's editing model is great - and that's what I use - but it ain't Emacs.

Emacs has its warts, but it's your best choice if you want a serious editor.

Bashing an editor because its support for programming languages whose programmers have chosen other platforms, is not fair. Comparing Emacs to Eclipse or Netbeans when it comes to Java development is not fair, just like comparing Eclipse or Netbeans to Emacs when it comes to Common Lisp development is not fair either.

Using a general-purpose editor instead of a specialized tools means that everything you learn will serve you in every other editing task.

If you are not serious about editing text, then you will be

But, truth to be told, Emacs isn't even an editor: it is an Emacs Lisp interpreter which by default runs a program to edit text.

lelele4• 15 years ago

Continued:

If you are not serious about editing text, then you will be served by many other editors.

lelele4• 15 years ago

Downvoting without explanation? Fine, I love my competitors using lesser tools.

mhd2• 15 years ago

Lots of professional authors use "advanced" text editors for their stuff. And sadly, that often means old editors, because they often tend to have features that modern word processors lack (or make it easier to accept then). And of course once you get used to something...

There was a Salon article about people still using XyWrite[1]. As mentioned in the post, GRRM is one of the people[2] still using WordStar. I know that Steven Brust is using Emacs[3].

[1] http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/08/25feature.html/

[2] http://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

[3]: from the front matter of http://dreamcafe.com/firefly.html

autarch• 15 years ago

Steven Brust worked as a programmer before he was a full time novelist, according to his son, who is also a programmer.

cema7• 15 years ago

Another example: Vernor Vinge (sci fi author, and a former math and CS professor at San Diego State) uses emacs [http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/vingeinterview...]

janv• 15 years ago

Yet another example would be Neal Stephenson:

"I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor."

- In the Beginning was the Command Line http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

urlwolf• 15 years ago

For those who prefer a language with namespaces (python) sublime editor is a good modern alternative.

shubble• 15 years ago

I've been using emacs for a few months now (it's surprisingly good), and am starting to run into wanting to do little modifications. Speaking as a non-lisper, I really wish a rewrite existed in a more modern language. I don't wanna start an argument about lisp here but there is a reason people don't use it for major developments, and it's not the performance. But it would be unfair not to point out that you can extend emacs in a variety of languages including python. Its just a bit messier.

aerique2• 15 years ago

First of all, various members of the Lisp family are used for major developments.

Secondly, rewriting Emacs would be a major undertaking and which modern language would it be? My choice would be Common Lisp, for other developers it would be Clojure, Haskell, Python, Ruby, etc. Whatever choice it would be, you'd lose developers who would rather see Emacs rewritten in one of the other languages. Even worse they might spawn forks in their own favourite languages.

jlongster3• 15 years ago

I resonate somewhat with the gripes about Emacs' crustiness. But on the other hand, I don't understand the complaints about it being ugly. I haven't heard that for a while. I'd like to think that my Emacs is quite pretty:

http://jlongster.com/s/emacs.png

There are things Emacs can do which VIM will never do. And vice-versa. They are separate editors embracing separate philosophies.

Lastly, keep in mind that this is 40 year old software, and considering that it's done a great job keeping up with the times.

technomancy8• 15 years ago

I think most of the "ugly" gripes come from people who either don't know how to change the font or haven't bothered to turn the tool bar off.

jlongster3• 15 years ago

That's true. I'm considering making a few screencasts that show how go from nothing to a full Emacs installation/customization on different platforms. I think that would be neat/fun.

mixmax3• 15 years ago

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but if you change the font and turn the toolbar off what's left of the design?

lurker194• 15 years ago

But if one insists in staying on the fence, one has viper and vimpulse: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-es/Vimpulse

forensic• 15 years ago

>They are separate editors embracing separate philosophies.

What are the two different philosophies?

Meai• 15 years ago

From my limited experience with both: Vim is for editing text efficiently, Emacs is an allrounder. This is easily shown when you look at how they do things. In Emacs you have to press ctrl and/or alt for almost every keyboard shortcut. Personally I prefer the Vim way of having different modes, which let me keep my fingers in a comfortable position, while typing at full speed and utilizing all common, easily reached keys for shortcuts.

ndaugherty18• 15 years ago

Try out xiki (http://xiki.org) its a wrapper on top of emacs that adds a bunch of shortcuts, and its built using el4r so all the extensions are ruby based.

cicero2• 15 years ago

I'm pretty excited about this post. I first began using vi in 1983 and Emacs in 1986, and have switched back and forth between the vi/emacs families of editors as my needs have changed and their capabilities have changed. I've been on gvim for the last few years because of it's superior GUI integration, but it is not good for writing prose, which I do more and more of these days. I have not found something I really like for writing, and end up using MS Word by default, which does not make me happy. I had not heard of visual-line-mode, so I'm ready to give emacs a try again. I just installed Aquamacs, and I'm using it to write this comment in full-screen mode. I will also give org-mode a try because I'm always looking for better ways to organize my writing.

cema7• 15 years ago

Keep in mind that while Aquamacs is better visually integrated in MacOs, some features may not work as well as in the standard (gnu) emacs.

sharonpaul• 15 years ago

I'm a beginner at programming, and am wondering which text editor to use. Emacs or TextMate?

Let's just use Emacs

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