Re: 10 problems with Elisp, part 10 (was: Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other)

From: Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>
To: emacs-tangents@gnu.org
Subject: Re: 10 problems with Elisp, part 10 (was: Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2024 23:13:03 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87h692ed5s.fsf@dataswamp.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: ZxlNnJyscy_yALFz@lco2

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Jean Louis wrote:

>> Sure, but we are allowed to discuss how to make
>> Elisp better?
>> 
>> Since Python has had enormous success, and Lisp hasn't - or
>> if it had, it lost it - it might be a good ide to analyze
>> what they (Python) did good.
>
> Do you mean making Elisp better in the eyes of the world, or
> technically for Elisp users?

How nice to hear from you, thanks for helping me out that
other time, so okay, this old and boring discussion tho - I'm
just gonna answer this one message - okay - ... - really,
ONE message, I saying.

First, what I mean "better": as a programming language,
as technology.

> There are obviously many Elisp users, worth enough for
> developing it technically, improving it, that is fine and
> good. And developers are doing it. We are here in society of
> Elisp users.

Unfortunately, in terms of features, we have been falling
behind majorly, and not just compared to powerhouses like
Common Lisp and Python.

We have also not optimized Emacs for speed and convenience, we
did not learn from the smartphone generation.

Yes, The developers have done _a lot_ but they have not been
the type of leaders who use their surroundings to make them
better, and become even better themselves. They want to do
everything themselves and if you are just a few bunch of guys
doing that, that's gonna be a problem.

> For the eyes of the world, does it matter? I do not see how
> it does matter. Last time I checked, there must be millions
> of Emacs users.

Haha :) When did you check Jean, and how, and what was the
exact result please?

There are more Emacs users now than in the 90s and early 00s
but relative speaking Emacs position is way down compared
to then. This was bound to happen, maybe it is healthy even,
it doesn't bug me, but I want to have all the features
everyone else has, or close to it, unfortunately we don't.

> Not all of them are loud and talking.

Rumors has it there is 230 members on this list and they don't
all like Emanuel's messages. But I think everyone likes Jean's
messages so it evens up :)

> I just guess that majority does not even know about Elisp.
> But there is large number of Emacs users, as there is large
> number of GNU/Linux users, and growing.

Elisp is a fringe, fringe sport for the computer elite.
Even Lisp as a whole are a pretty marginalized bunch.

> Comparisons like Python vs Elisp are useless as it is just
> interesting for discussion and some language wars in
> old style.

Impossible to compare, unfortunately (for us). But I still
like Elisp more.

For example, can you do _this_ in Python? (Well, yes! I'm sure
they can.)

Blog post coming up really soon now as the saying goes ...

  https://dataswamp.org/~incal/bad/meta/screenshot/grad.png

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-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

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