Toward a "modern" Emacs [LWN.net]

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 12:38 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Toward a "modern" Emacs by Sesse
Parent article: Toward a "modern" Emacs

> Well, yes. Emacs has a problem: It can cater to new users, or it can cater to RMS' personal preferences.

s/RMS/existing users/

and also, s/RMS/existing developers/

Granted, that doesn't invalidate your point. However, RMS's point is also valid; it's not wise to alienate the current user (and more importantly, developer) base, in favor of mythical hordes of new users (and developers) that experience shows us aren't likely to ever materialize.

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Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 12:46 UTC (Sat) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link] (7 responses)

No, I really think this is about a much narrower set than “existing users”. Of course, it's not RMS and RMS alone, but I do believe too much weight is put on his opinions compared to the larger group of emacs users who don't care about compatibility with their dotfiles from 1980.

Interestingly enough, since keybindings were discussed; vim has an even higher barrier to entry (I mean, if you think C-k for cut and C-y for paste is bad, how about vim's modes?), yet somehow manages to stay somewhat relevant while emacs is dwindling. (E.g. it ties IntelliJ for #4 in StackOverflow's survey over development tools, with five the popularity of emacs.)

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 17:09 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

> (I mean, if you think C-k for cut and C-y for paste is bad, how about vim's modes?),

I suspect there's a sizable "niche" of users who like a modal editor. Because it's a bit of a niche there's less room for competition so vim is able to fill it completely (and to your point: probably because they listen to all their users too). I don't think there is any another modal _and_ popular editor. Because this niche is not so small, it ends up #4 on stackoverflow.

My 2 cents.

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 20:30 UTC (Sat) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link]

Exactly that. I've been a vim user for the past 20 years but I remember when I switched to Linux and chose between emacs and vim. Emacs seemed just a very complex clone of other editors with different bindings. Vim had a different approach and I could immediately get why it could be considered more attractive.

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 20:26 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (4 responses)

Vim works fine because you need just a handful of commands to get by for regular tasks. And Vim is also present pretty much everywhere, so you kinda eventually have to learn it just to be able to work through SSH.

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 29, 2020 6:42 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

Where's the damn +1 button?

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Oct 1, 2020 19:41 UTC (Thu) by ecree (guest, #95790) [Link] (2 responses)

> And Vim is also present pretty much everywhere, so you kinda eventually have to learn it just to be able to work through SSH.

Well, you don't *have* to. You could do what I did and learn ed instead, which means you don't have to look at ugly Vim, and as an additional bonus you get to be insufferably smug. (Well, until someone shows up with butterflies.)

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Oct 1, 2020 20:47 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.en.html

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Oct 1, 2020 20:58 UTC (Thu) by ecree (guest, #95790) [Link]

Yes, that's a classic. The only problem is that gnu seem to have misclassified it under 'jokes' :P