Emacs users a dying breed?

Emacs users a dying breed?

[S Boucher]

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I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.

However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work, I'm in the minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.

I learned Lisp because of Emacs and it's a cool language, but almost no one cares to learn Lisp.

I can't live without Emacs, but in some areas Emacs tend to be lacking.

As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that there's still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of isolation as an Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.

Since this is a help group, am I required to end with a question mark? :-)

Regards,

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Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Jeremiah Dodds]

S Boucher <stbya@yahoo.com> writes:

> I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.
>
> However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work, I'm in the
> minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.
>
> I learned Lisp because of Emacs and it's a cool language, but almost no one
> cares to learn Lisp.
>
> I can't live without Emacs, but in some areas Emacs tend to be lacking.
>
> As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that there's
> still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of isolation as an
> Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.
>
> Since this is a help group, am I required to end with a question mark? :-)
>
> Regards,


I have never worked anywhere where anyone else used Emacs. I've also
never worked anywhere where people were not pretty impressed with the
level of efficiency I had while editing, particularly for things like JS
frameworks that don't have widespread editor support.

There are definitely things that could use improvement in Emacs, but so
far, for the type of stuff I do, it's *by far* the most versatile tool
in my toolbox.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Henri-Paul Indiogine]

I do not know many people (not on-line), and as far as I can tell, I
am the only one using Emacs.

Still, I could not function without it.   I just wish that the setup
of GNU for email were easier.

Best,
Henri-Paul


-- 
Henri-Paul Indiogine

Curriculum & Instruction
Texas A&M University
TutorFind Learning Centre
http://www.tutorfind.ca

Email: hindiogine@gmail.com
Skype: hindiogine

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Jai Dayal]

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In the research community, Emacs and VIM are going strong.  I think most
users use Vim, but it's not by a devastating margin.

On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Henri-Paul Indiogine
<hindiogine@gmail.com>wrote:

> I do not know many people (not on-line), and as far as I can tell, I
> am the only one using Emacs.
>
> Still, I could not function without it.   I just wish that the setup
> of GNU for email were easier.
>
> Best,
> Henri-Paul
>
>
> --
> Henri-Paul Indiogine
>
> Curriculum & Instruction
> Texas A&M University
> TutorFind Learning Centre
> http://www.tutorfind.ca
>
> Email: hindiogine@gmail.com
> Skype: hindiogine
>
>

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Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Laurent Hoeltgen]

On 06/18/2012 04:32 AM, S Boucher wrote:
> I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.
> 
> However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work, I'm in the minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.
> 
> I learned Lisp because of Emacs and it's a cool language, but almost no one cares to learn Lisp.
> 
> I can't live without Emacs, but in some areas Emacs tend to be lacking.
> 
> As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that there's still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of isolation as an Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.
> 
> Since this is a help group, am I required to end with a question mark? :-)
> 
> Regards,
> 


Hi,

at my job there are about 4 Emacs (and roughly 6 vi) users (out of 12).
Also, while being at the university, I was recommended Emacs in several
courses. Considering the sheer amount of text editors that actually
exist, I'd say, that the frequency at which you encounter emacs, is a
good sign for its popularity and large user-base.

Regards,
Laurent

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Dan Espen]

Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds@gmail.com> writes:

> S Boucher <stbya@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.
>>
>> However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work, I'm in the
>> minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.
>>
>> I learned Lisp because of Emacs and it's a cool language, but almost no one
>> cares to learn Lisp.
>>
>> I can't live without Emacs, but in some areas Emacs tend to be lacking.
>>
>> As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that there's
>> still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of isolation as an
>> Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.
>>
>> Since this is a help group, am I required to end with a question mark? :-)
>>
>> Regards,
>
>
> I have never worked anywhere where anyone else used Emacs. I've also
> never worked anywhere where people were not pretty impressed with the
> level of efficiency I had while editing, particularly for things like JS
> frameworks that don't have widespread editor support.

Emacs often spreads quietly.

Lots of people I've worked with have seen the light.

-- 
Dan Espen

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Henri-Paul Indiogine]

I myself changed from vi and other editors to emacs a couple of years ago.

2012/6/17 Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net>:
> Emacs often spreads quietly.
>
> Lots of people I've worked with have seen the light.



-- 
Henri-Paul Indiogine

Curriculum & Instruction
Texas A&M University
TutorFind Learning Centre
http://www.tutorfind.ca

Email: hindiogine@gmail.com
Skype: hindiogine

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[notbob]

On 2012-06-18, Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> wrote:

> Emacs often spreads quietly.
>
> Lots of people I've worked with have seen the light.

Then there are users like myself.  Real lazy ppl who find it
unacceptably annoying to have to add an extra keystroke each time they
move from one mode to the other, like all things vi.  I probably
learned vi first, but kept wondering WTF! is it with this constantly
changing modes nightmare.  This is insane!  So, because of slrn, I
discovered jed.  Later I discovered bash and many other linux
utilities use emacs keystrokes.  Finally, I took the plunge and got
THE BOOK.  The rest is history, as they say.  I don't particularly
like a lot of things about emacs, I suck as a progrmmer so don't do
LISP, I don't use gnus, and am not a developer, and jed has better txt
highlighting already enabled.  Even as I struggle to learn C, I still
don't understand how to compile a simple C program from inside emacs.
Regardless, it's the coolest bestest file mgr and txt editor I know
and I will always use it on the command line and would rather use M$
Windows notepad than vi.

</rant>


nb


-- 
vi --the heart of evil!
Support labeling GMOs
<http://www.labelgmos.org/>

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

notbob <notbob@nothome.com> writes:

> On 2012-06-18, Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Emacs often spreads quietly.
>>
>> Lots of people I've worked with have seen the light.
>
> Then there are users like myself.  Real lazy ppl who find it
> unacceptably annoying to have to add an extra keystroke each time they
> move from one mode to the other, like all things vi.  I probably
> learned vi first, but kept wondering WTF! is it with this constantly
> changing modes nightmare.  This is insane!  So, because of slrn, I
> discovered jed.  Later I discovered bash and many other linux
> utilities use emacs keystrokes.  Finally, I took the plunge and got
> THE BOOK.  The rest is history, as they say.  I don't particularly
> like a lot of things about emacs, I suck as a progrmmer so don't do
> LISP, I don't use gnus, and am not a developer, and jed has better txt
> highlighting already enabled.  Even as I struggle to learn C, I still
> don't understand how to compile a simple C program from inside emacs.

Assuming you have the current buffer pgm.c,
you just type M-x compile RET pgm RET

M-x compile RET will present you a minibuffer with "make -k " in it.
Typing pgm RET will make it run: make -k pgm
Since you probably don't have a Makefile in the same directory as pgm.c,
the default rules will be used, so pgm will be built from pgm.c using
the C compiler.

If your program doesn't take any stdin input, you can even run it at the
same time: M-x compile RET pgm && ./pgm RET


> Regardless, it's the coolest bestest file mgr and txt editor I know
> and I will always use it on the command line and would rather use M$
> Windows notepad than vi.
>
> </rant>
>
>
> nb

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[notbob]

On 2012-06-18, Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote:

> Since you probably don't have a Makefile in the same directory as pgm.c,
> the default rules will be used, so pgm will be built from pgm.c using
> the C compiler.

Thanks, Pascal.  Since I use Slackware, which has jes about everything
needed for compiling from source, I'll give it a try.  Both make and gcc are in
the same /usr/bin/ dir.

nb

-- 
vi --the heart of evil!
Support labeling GMOs
<http://www.labelgmos.org/>

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Ken Goldman]

On 6/18/2012 3:25 PM, notbob wrote:
> On 2012-06-18, Pascal J. Bourguignon<pjb@informatimago.com>  wrote:
>
>> Since you probably don't have a Makefile in the same directory as pgm.c,
>> the default rules will be used, so pgm will be built from pgm.c using
>> the C compiler.
>
> Thanks, Pascal.  Since I use Slackware, which has jes about everything
> needed for compiling from source, I'll give it a try.  Both make and gcc are in
> the same /usr/bin/ dir.

I think Pascal was saying that you Makefile (not /usr/bin/make) might
not be in the same directory as your code.

If you don't have a makefile there, you can also do 'make -f 
pathtomakefile' and emacs will remember it for the next time.

If you don't have a makefile at all, it's time to create one.

Bonus:  Check out M-x next-error.  I have both compile and next-error 
bound to Fn keys since I use them constantly.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[rusi]

On Jun 22, 12:34 am, Ken Goldman <kgold...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> On 6/18/2012 3:25 PM, notbob wrote:
>
> > On 2012-06-18, Pascal J. Bourguignon<p...@informatimago.com>  wrote:
>
> >> Since you probably don't have a Makefile in the same directory as pgm.c,
> >> the default rules will be used, so pgm will be built from pgm.c using
> >> the C compiler.
>
> > Thanks, Pascal.  Since I use Slackware, which has jes about everything
> > needed for compiling from source, I'll give it a try.  Both make and gcc are in
> > the same /usr/bin/ dir.
>
> I think Pascal was saying that you Makefile (not /usr/bin/make) might
> not be in the same directory as your code.
>
> If you don't have a makefile there, you can also do 'make -f
> pathtomakefile' and emacs will remember it for the next time.

Or simply backspace over the make -k and type gcc for one-off
compilations where a makefile is overkill.  If you keep doing that you
can set the emacs variable compile-command but then writing a makefile
is probably a better idea.

>
> If you don't have a makefile at all, it's time to create one.
>
> Bonus:  Check out M-x next-error.  I have both compile and next-error
> bound to Fn keys since I use them constantly.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[notbob]

On 2012-06-21, Ken Goldman <kgoldman@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> I think Pascal was saying that you Makefile (not /usr/bin/make) might
> not be in the same directory as your code.
>
> If you don't have a makefile there, you can also do 'make -f 
> pathtomakefile' and emacs will remember it for the next time.
>
> If you don't have a makefile at all, it's time to create one.
>
> Bonus:  Check out M-x next-error.  I have both compile and next-error 
> bound to Fn keys since I use them constantly.

OK.  I'll risk looking stupid one more time.  ;)

What, exactly, is this "Makefile"?

nb

-- 
vi --the heart of evil!
Support labeling GMOs
<http://www.labelgmos.org/>

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Dan Espen]

notbob <notbob@nothome.com> writes:

> On 2012-06-21, Ken Goldman <kgoldman@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>> I think Pascal was saying that you Makefile (not /usr/bin/make) might
>> not be in the same directory as your code.
>>
>> If you don't have a makefile there, you can also do 'make -f 
>> pathtomakefile' and emacs will remember it for the next time.
>>
>> If you don't have a makefile at all, it's time to create one.
>>
>> Bonus:  Check out M-x next-error.  I have both compile and next-error 
>> bound to Fn keys since I use them constantly.
>
> OK.  I'll risk looking stupid one more time.  ;)
>
> What, exactly, is this "Makefile"?

A Makefile is  a file using that name (Makefile)  that you normally keep
in the  same directory as your source  code.  In that file  you keep the
rules it takes to build your source code.

Start here for documentation:

http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/

The basic idea is to list your files, show how they inter-relate and are
used to build your project.


A simple example of a Makefile:

SRC:=hello.c
TARG:=$(subst .c,,$(SRC))

all: $(TARG)

%: %.c
	cc $< $@

test:	$(TARG)
	./$(TARG)


Anything starting in column 1 and ending in a ":" is a target.
(Something you want to make.)

Things listed after the colon (":") are things you need to make
the target.

Things following a TAB in column 1 are rules.  The rules you need
to make the target.

Makefiles can get a lot more elaborate and can do a lot of things
for you.  If you need to compile 3 subroutines for a main before
you link the main, the makefile can ensure that you do that.

Anyway, it's definitely worth the time to learn and a great
productivity booster.  It's also not only for building programs.
I use them to upload web pages to a server.

For example:

UP_SITE:=ftpmysite.somewhere.net
uploads:=$(wildcard *.jpg *.html *.gif *.css )
targets:=$(addprefix .upload/,$(uploads))

all: $(targets)

define install_html
(\
echo -e "binary\n"\
 "cd deck\n"\
 "put $(subst .upload/,,$@)\n"\
 "close\n"\
 "quit\n"\
 ) | ftp $(UP_SITE)
endef

.upload/%: %
	$(install_html)
	echo "`date`" > $@
clean:
	rm .upload/*


-- 
Dan Espen

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Dvorak Hemialgia]

"Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> writes:

> Assuming you have the current buffer pgm.c,
> you just type M-x compile RET pgm RET
>
> M-x compile RET will present you a minibuffer with "make -k " in it.
> Typing pgm RET will make it run: make -k pgm
> Since you probably don't have a Makefile in the same directory as pgm.c,
> the default rules will be used, so pgm will be built from pgm.c using
> the C compiler.
>
> If your program doesn't take any stdin input, you can even run it at the
> same time: M-x compile RET pgm && ./pgm RET

Wow, Pascal, this is becoming very useful to me as I learn C.  Thank you
for sharing.  I'll have to read up on how to do this with Java code,
which would have saved me a lot of time over the last couple semesters.

dkh.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() S Boucher <stbya@yahoo.com>
() Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:32:26 -0700 (PDT)

   impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.

everybody dies, even those who dance in fingered trees.
so much pollen unhoarded, unhonied, awaiting next breeze!

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 18.06.2012 13:54, schrieb Thien-Thi Nguyen:
> () S Boucher<stbya@yahoo.com>
> () Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:32:26 -0700 (PDT)
>
>     impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.
>
> everybody dies, even those who dance in fingered trees.
> so much pollen unhoarded, unhonied, awaiting next breeze!
>
>

if Emacs is the front-door, who might be interested in it's backyard, who cares?
if Emacs is the back-door, who might sit inside, awaiting it's servants?

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Sivaram Neelakantan]

On Mon, Jun 18 2012,S Boucher wrote:

> I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.
>
> However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work,
> I'm in the minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.

and it still is, after a decade of using it in my office space.


[snipped 5 lines]

> As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that
> there's still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of
> isolation as an Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a
> dying breed.
>

With the features it already has, I wouldn't even mind if development
stopped, it still beats other editors hands down.  If anything, I've
pretty much stopped checking out every new editor that comes out every
few years; they seem to implement something that is obvious or trivial
to summon up in Emacs(not that the actual development of said feature
was trivial in Emacs). 

[snipped 4 lines]


 sivaram
 -- 

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

S Boucher <stbya@yahoo.com> writes:

> I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.
>
> However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work,
> I'm in the minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.
>
> I learned Lisp because of Emacs and it's a cool language, but almost
> no one cares to learn Lisp.
>
> I can't live without Emacs, but in some areas Emacs tend to be
> lacking.
>
> As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that
> there's still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of
> isolation as an Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a
> dying breed.
>
> Since this is a help group, am I required to end with a question mark?
> :-)

All the people who matter do use emacs.

It's not so much that there are not a lot of emacs users, as that there
are a lot of computer users in general.   When you increase the number
of computer users up to the population of the planet, you cannot expect
emacs users to increase proportionnaly.   So yes, in a random
group of people, it's almost certain you will be the only emacs user.
But in absolute number there are a lot of emacs users, and enough to
feed its continuing develpment.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[djc]

Using emacs for more than 30 years.  The emacs users I know are among the 
most imaginative and competent people I know.  Like many who read this 
list, they *use* the things that distinguish emacs from other editors: 
extensibility, macros, network access, subshells, process control, and the 
many available environments (by which I mean to include mail, Usenet, IDEs, 
etc.).

I'm deeply appreciative of the people who continue to work on emacs.  I 
couldn't live without it, and if development ever comes to a halt, I'll 
probably just keep using the last version forever.

djc

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

djc <newsg@resiak.org> writes:

> Using emacs for more than 30 years.  The emacs users I know are among
> the most imaginative and competent people I know.  Like many who read
> this list, they *use* the things that distinguish emacs from other
> editors: extensibility, macros, network access, subshells, process
> control, and the many available environments (by which I mean to
> include mail, Usenet, IDEs, etc.).
>
> I'm deeply appreciative of the people who continue to work on emacs.
> I couldn't live without it, and if development ever comes to a halt,
> I'll probably just keep using the last version forever.

We'll just keep maintaining it ourselves.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Ken Goldman]

On 6/18/2012 5:32 AM, djc wrote:
>
> I'm deeply appreciative of the people who continue to work on emacs.
> I couldn't live without it, and if development ever comes to a halt,
> I'll probably just keep using the last version forever.

I agree.  It's been stable for as long as I can remember.

For me, the big change came at 19 (X windows support and colors).  I 
think that was when the Windows version came along as well.  Everything 
after that was polish, since I don't use international character sets or 
images.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[rusi]

Thanks for asking this question -- its of much concern to me also.

On Jun 18, 7:32 am, S Boucher <st...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I've been using emacs since as far back as 18.59.  Still use it daily.


I started gnu-emacs in 93 or so (must have been version
19.something).  Earlier ('88) with pc-scheme I used edwin which was
like a cut-down emacs.

>
> However, I often wonder where Emacs is heading.  Most places I work, I'm in the minority - and that's an understatement - as an Emacs user.
>
> I learned Lisp because of Emacs and it's a cool language, but almost no one cares to learn Lisp.
>
> I can't live without Emacs, but in some areas Emacs tend to be lacking.
>
> As I just noticed that Emacs 24 is now stable it still amazes me that there's still a lot of development going on, considering my sense of isolation as an Emacs user, and the impression that Emacs users is a dying breed.
>
> Since this is a help group, am I required to end with a question mark? :-)
>
> Regards,

Do you think it may be good to trifurcate your 'question-mark' into
these 3?
1. Revitalizing the emacs user base
2. Revitalizing the developer base
3. In the light of the huge changes in technology and 'demographic
profile' of computers and their usage from 1980s to now, rethinking
the priorities/direction of emacs

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Tom]

rusi <rustompmody <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> Do you think it may be good to trifurcate your 'question-mark' into
> these 3?
> 1. Revitalizing the emacs user base
> 2. Revitalizing the developer base
> 3. In the light of the huge changes in technology and 'demographic
> profile' of computers and their usage from 1980s to now, rethinking
> the priorities/direction of emacs
> 
> 

There were discussions about this in the past. Apparently, the emacs
developers consider attracting more users/developers less of a priority
than keeping emacs as it is, that is they are not willing to overhaul 
emacs just to attract users who are used to modern IDEs.

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/126892

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Jeremiah Dodds]

Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:

> rusi <rustompmody <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> 
>> Do you think it may be good to trifurcate your 'question-mark' into
>> these 3?
>> 1. Revitalizing the emacs user base
>> 2. Revitalizing the developer base
>> 3. In the light of the huge changes in technology and 'demographic
>> profile' of computers and their usage from 1980s to now, rethinking
>> the priorities/direction of emacs
>> 
>> 
>
> There were discussions about this in the past. Apparently, the emacs
> developers consider attracting more users/developers less of a priority
> than keeping emacs as it is, that is they are not willing to overhaul 
> emacs just to attract users who are used to modern IDEs.
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/126892

I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
development of Emacs going on.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Tom]

Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
> I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
> appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
> development of Emacs going on.
> 

Yes, but if we take Google Trends as an indicator interest in Emacs
is decreasing:

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=emacs

Shouldn't it be a concern? Shouldn't those kinds of improvements
be given more priority which can increase the interest in Emacs?

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Bastien]

Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:

> Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
>> appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
>> development of Emacs going on.
>> 
>
> Yes, but if we take Google Trends as an indicator interest in Emacs
> is decreasing:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends/?q=emacs
>
> Shouldn't it be a concern? 

I don't think so.  The decrease is relative to the rest of available
requests/content, which weight and diversity is rapidly increasing.

BTW "Eclipse IDE" is decreasing too:

  http://www.google.com/trends/?q=eclipse+ide

-- 
 Bastien

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 22.06.2012 13:07, schrieb Bastien:
> Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>> I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
>>> appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
>>> development of Emacs going on.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but if we take Google Trends as an indicator interest in Emacs
>> is decreasing:
>>
>> http://www.google.com/trends/?q=emacs
>>
>> Shouldn't it be a concern?
>
> I don't think so.  The decrease is relative to the rest of available
> requests/content, which weight and diversity is rapidly increasing.
>
> BTW "Eclipse IDE" is decreasing too:
>
>    http://www.google.com/trends/?q=eclipse+ide
>

so what does vim better then Emacs?

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[James Freer]

> so what does vim better then Emacs?

I've just read through this topic's threads. I'd like to make the
following points. Firstly i use a text editor for editing writing text
as an author of several newsletters not as a programmer. Recently i
decided to have a look at emacs and vi/vim as i've been using gedit,
bluefish and one or two other GUI editors.

Several of you have made the point emacs is declining on google
trends... i don't think that's fair. Try vim it is also declining...
yet nvi is level and vi is increasing, bluefish decreasing...gedit i
can't remember now. How has google trends worked out it's statistics?

My uses are different to those of a programmer. I need linebreak [word
line wrapping or softwrap i think it's sometimes called], spell
checking, word count, auto indent, and bookmarking. Basics in fact and
yet few editors that can actually do this. Just Jedit, bluefish,
gedit, vim and emacs. Also use alpine for mail so want to use the
alternative editor rather than pico. Not that i'm knocking pico - it
has a lovely feature that few editors have... when getting towards the
bottom of the screen it automatically scrolls up half a screen - for
writing that's lovely.

Emacs and vim do what i want. Emacs i struggle with as it is still
slow if using with alpine and the VM and Rmail take too long to set up
[for me... bit like trying to set up Mutt - managed to do it and then
forgot what i did and got fed up with it]. For me emacs is large does
a lot well and does a lot badly. mg - a light version of emacs doesn't
do quite enough. The emacs book is still quite hard to follow and that
lets emacs down - i even tried xemacs and it just flickered and it
seems they haven't moved forward with that project. VIm  it has the
vimbook and it's very good - if someone wants to learn they want to
get on with it... that is much in it's favour. But i agree with what
folk have said - a modal editor is an 'odd animal'. Emacs is a bit
like Jedit to many it's impregnable which puts folk off.

I wish a lite version of emacs was available that left out some of the
bloat to be honest. Forget email, calendar etc things which it does
badly. vim/vi gets it's popularity as it's easier to get started on...
albeit with this modal setup. I used to use wordstar and so you could
say my natural choice would be Joe but it doesn't do bookmarks that
well and other things i need. Nano is a very odd set up in that the
linebreak works but then you can't convert a file back to continuous
lines.

What do i use at present while i'm still trying to get used to vim or
emacs - pico for email and bluefish. Both vim and emacs development
have gone down strange routes and yet both are popular.

james

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Tom]

Bastien <bzg <at> gnu.org> writes:
> 
> BTW "Eclipse IDE" is decreasing too:
> 
>   http://www.google.com/trends/?q=eclipse+ide
> 

The search "Eclipse IDE" does not give a good measurement,
because it's unlikely there is generally less interest in
Eclipse than in Emacs:

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=eclipse+ide,emacs&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Jay Belanger]

Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:
...
> The search "Eclipse IDE" does not give a good measurement,
> because it's unlikely there is generally less interest in
> Eclipse than in Emacs:

Perhaps I'm misreading this, but it looks like you disregard this
because you don't like the result?

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Tom]

Jay Belanger <jay.p.belanger <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> Tom <adatgyujto <at> gmail.com> writes:
> ...
> > The search "Eclipse IDE" does not give a good measurement,
> > because it's unlikely there is generally less interest in
> > Eclipse than in Emacs:
> 
> Perhaps I'm misreading this, but it looks like you disregard this
> because you don't like the result?
> 

I would love this result if this were really the case, but this
does not take into account the mentions of Eclipse without the
word IDE.

Here's the same comparison without using the word IDE, but removing
results with the word SOLAR (solar eclipse), TWILIGHT 
(something to do with the novel), COMICS (Eclipse comics), NASA,
GPS:

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=eclipse+-solar+-twilight+-comics+-nasa+-gps
+,emacs&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Feel free to remove additional words which you feel are irrelevant 
for Eclipse and test the result.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[John Bokma]

Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:

> Jay Belanger <jay.p.belanger <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> 
>> 
>> Tom <adatgyujto <at> gmail.com> writes:
>> ...
>> > The search "Eclipse IDE" does not give a good measurement,
>> > because it's unlikely there is generally less interest in
>> > Eclipse than in Emacs:
>> 
>> Perhaps I'm misreading this, but it looks like you disregard this
>> because you don't like the result?
>> 
>
> I would love this result if this were really the case, but this
> does not take into account the mentions of Eclipse without the
> word IDE.
>
> Here's the same comparison without using the word IDE, but removing
> results with the word SOLAR (solar eclipse), TWILIGHT 
> (something to do with the novel), COMICS (Eclipse comics), NASA,
> GPS:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends/?q=eclipse+-solar+-twilight+-comics+-nasa+-gps
> +,emacs&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
>
> Feel free to remove additional words which you feel are irrelevant 
> for Eclipse and test the result.

https://www.google.com/search?q=eclipse%20ide%20sucks
About 209,000 results (0.11 seconds)

https://www.google.com/search?q=emacs%20sucks
About 237,000 results

Which clearly shows that Emacs is the better editor /and/ you can vacuum
your house with it.

-- 
John Bokma                                                               j3b

Blog: http://johnbokma.com/        Perl Consultancy: http://castleamber.com/
Perl for books:    http://johnbokma.com/perl/help-in-exchange-for-books.html

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Jeremiah Dodds]

Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:

> Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
>> appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
>> development of Emacs going on.
>> 
>
> Yes, but if we take Google Trends as an indicator interest in Emacs
> is decreasing:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends/?q=emacs
>
> Shouldn't it be a concern? Shouldn't those kinds of improvements
> be given more priority which can increase the interest in Emacs?

No, why should Emacs and users and developers of Emacs be concerned with
increasing the interest in Emacs? It's already a name that practically
everyone who writes software has heard of, and the type of people that
like it stick with it.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 22.06.2012 13:17, schrieb Jeremiah Dodds:
> Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>> I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
>>> appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
>>> development of Emacs going on.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but if we take Google Trends as an indicator interest in Emacs
>> is decreasing:
>>
>> http://www.google.com/trends/?q=emacs
>>
>> Shouldn't it be a concern? Shouldn't those kinds of improvements
>> be given more priority which can increase the interest in Emacs?
>
> No, why should Emacs and users and developers of Emacs be concerned with
> increasing the interest in Emacs? [ ... ]

Because it might exists reasons for the decline, which are to discuss before it's to late.
IMO it is late already...

Cheers,

Andreas

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Richard Riley]

Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de> writes:

> Am 22.06.2012 13:17, schrieb Jeremiah Dodds:
>> Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> I think it's more like "attracting more users is less of a priority than
>>>> appealing to what others are used to", there's plenty of improvement and
>>>> development of Emacs going on.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but if we take Google Trends as an indicator interest in Emacs
>>> is decreasing:
>>>
>>> http://www.google.com/trends/?q=emacs
>>>
>>> Shouldn't it be a concern? Shouldn't those kinds of improvements
>>> be given more priority which can increase the interest in Emacs?
>>
>> No, why should Emacs and users and developers of Emacs be concerned with
>> increasing the interest in Emacs? [ ... ]
>
> Because it might exists reasons for the decline, which are to discuss before it's to late.
> IMO it is late already...

Agreed. Some basic tidying and emacs would/might get a new lease of
life. mixed mode, java, auto completion, some tutorial on how to actually
use cedet without a degree in compiler design :)

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Jonathan Groll]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:21:27 +0200, Richard Riley <rileyrg@gmail.com> wrote:
> Agreed. Some basic tidying and emacs would/might get a new lease of
> life. mixed mode, java, auto completion, some tutorial on how to actually
> use cedet without a degree in compiler design :)
> 

Or simply shipping a version with a lot of the elisp packages already
activated and a more pleasant set of defaults. Something like

https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit

Cheers,
Jonathan
--
jjg: Jonathan J. Groll : groll co za
has_one { :blog => "http://bloggroll.com" }
"Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women have a more subtle
 instinct: What they like is to be a man's last romance." ~ Oscar Wilde

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Philipp Haselwarter]

I very much disagree, one of the things emacs is most frequently accused
of is bloat. Overhauling some of the defaults might be worth discussing,
but adding even more code to the core distribution seems to be the wrong
approach. IMO Emacs should focus on providing the core - an editing
engine and a lisp interpreter - and let the user decide which plugins he
wants to run.

I'd even go as far as claiming that currently there's already too much
stuff included by default. 24.1 has package.el included, there's no good
reason to ship every copy of emacs with several mail clients, org-mode,
two irc clients, and many other very domain-specific features. Don't
misinterpret this, I'm glad these packages exist and use them heavily,
but most occasional emacs users I know don't.

The question "what should Emacs be?" has been raised many times, and no
consensus could be reached. So cutting it down to the core and letting
each user decide seems like a reasonable consequence.


-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Teemu Likonen]

Philipp Haselwarter [2012-06-23 13:33:30 +0200] wrote:

> I very much disagree, one of the things emacs is most frequently
> accused of is bloat. Overhauling some of the defaults might be worth
> discussing, but adding even more code to the core distribution seems
> to be the wrong approach. IMO Emacs should focus on providing the core
> - an editing engine and a lisp interpreter - and let the user decide
> which plugins he wants to run.

The Emacs distribution (.tar.gz) contains all bells and whistles but not
everything is loaded into memory. What is loaded by default is pretty
much only the Emacs Lisp interpreter and the editing core and autoload
definitions for other features.

And Emacs is a very light-weight program by today's standards. I think
it was bloated in the 80's.

From the point of view of code maintenance it might be good idea to have
more code on a (semi-)official package repository. If I maintained an
official Emacs package I'd prefer using my own version control system
etc. and just upload releases to official package archive.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Philipp Haselwarter]

On Sat, Jun 23 2012 14:05 (@1340453147), Teemu Likonen wrote:

> Philipp Haselwarter [2012-06-23 13:33:30 +0200] wrote:
>
>> I very much disagree, one of the things emacs is most frequently
>> accused of is bloat. Overhauling some of the defaults might be worth
>> discussing, but adding even more code to the core distribution seems
>> to be the wrong approach. IMO Emacs should focus on providing the core
>> - an editing engine and a lisp interpreter - and let the user decide
>> which plugins he wants to run.
>
> The Emacs distribution (.tar.gz) contains all bells and whistles but not
> everything is loaded into memory. What is loaded by default is pretty
> much only the Emacs Lisp interpreter and the editing core and autoload
> definitions for other features.

I don't know for a fact what is loaded by default, but the distribution
surely contains a lot of elisp programs that are not of interest for
most users.

> And Emacs is a very light-weight program by today's standards. I think
> it was bloated in the 80's.

On my 64bit linux system the emacs executable weights in at 13M, feel
free to comparing that to any other interpreter.

> From the point of view of code maintenance it might be good idea to have
> more code on a (semi-)official package repository. If I maintained an
> official Emacs package I'd prefer using my own version control system
> etc. and just upload releases to official package archive.

ELPA allows you to do just that. Maybe some of the packages distributed
with emacs would see some more attention and patches if they had their
own repos and communities instead of living in the emacs tree.

-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Philipp Haselwarter <philipp@haselwarter.org>
> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:35:58 +0200
> 
> > The Emacs distribution (.tar.gz) contains all bells and whistles but not
> > everything is loaded into memory. What is loaded by default is pretty
> > much only the Emacs Lisp interpreter and the editing core and autoload
> > definitions for other features.
> 
> I don't know for a fact what is loaded by default

You can see that in loadup.el.

> but the distribution surely contains a lot of elisp programs that
> are not of interest for most users.

So what?  They are just taking some disk space, that's all.

> > And Emacs is a very light-weight program by today's standards. I think
> > it was bloated in the 80's.
> 
> On my 64bit linux system the emacs executable weights in at 13M, feel
> free to comparing that to any other interpreter.

Not because of preloaded packages; those take maybe 30% of the size.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[S Boucher]

>On my 64bit linux system the emacs executable weights in at 13M, feel
>free to comparing that to any other interpreter.


For emacs 23.3, STRIPPED, it weighs in at 10M.  If you look at temacs STRIPPED, then it weighs in at 5M.

So, it all depends what you measure.

But I've always wondered what was so dramatic about that.  What would I gain if Emacs is shrunk to 1M?


I kind of like Emacs helping me with vc (svn, git, p4, rcs, cvs).  I kind of like being able to diff revision without having to use another tool.  Emacs seems the right place to do this.

I wish emacs' gdb ui was better (I haven't checked emacs 24 yet).

It's nice to be able to write some lisp to massage/reformat some log output.  I've done this with a log file that had some unformated xml.  Search for the xml, create an indirect buffer, switch to xml mode, and reindent the (indirect) buffer, and get rid of the indirect buffer, and voila! a readable log file :-) (well, relatively speaking, since xml is not exactly human readable :-))

I've stopped using Emacs for mail and news a long time ago. mail and news have become too multimedia oriented for emacs to do things well.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[suvayu ali]

Hi Teemu,

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
> And Emacs is a very light-weight program by today's standards. I think
> it was bloated in the 80's.
>

That might be true when compared with most of the modern gui editors,
but Vim seems to be much more effective in being light weight.

> From the point of view of code maintenance it might be good idea to have
> more code on a (semi-)official package repository. If I maintained an
> official Emacs package I'd prefer using my own version control system
> etc. and just upload releases to official package archive.

This would be a great change IMO. package.el already provides the
background for it.

Just my 2 cents.

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Ken Goldman]

On 6/23/2012 7:33 AM, Philipp Haselwarter wrote:
> I very much disagree, one of the things emacs is most frequently accused
> of is bloat. ...
> I'd even go as far as claiming that currently there's already too much
> stuff included by default.

Arguments against:

1 - My current emacs lisp directory is about 80 mbytes.  Even if it was 
stripped to zero, it would hardly affect my disk space.

2 - For professionals, the cost to search the web for one package is far 
more than the cost of a 100 gbyte disk.

3 - The risk of installing malware says I want to download software as 
infrequently as possible.

IMHO, include every package that's part of the distro.  If I don't use 
it, it doesn't matter.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[S Boucher]

----- Original Message -----

> Agreed. Some basic tidying and emacs would/might get a new lease of
> life. mixed mode, java, auto completion, some tutorial on how to actually
> use cedet without a degree in compiler design :)

I think the biggest problem with cedet is not cedet itself.

When you create a VisualStudio project, VS controls everything, and therefore it is easy to hook into the compiler to maintain the xref DBs.

When you have an endless number of build systems out there, it's a lost cause for cedet to be tightly integrated with the build system (which is pretty much a requirement to have decent xref facilities).  I don't see how a simple tutorial can be written on how to setup cedet.

You can probably set things up well on your own little project, but try to setup cedet on top of, say, webkit... good luck (heck, webkit itself has more than one build system :-)).

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de>
() Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:03:29 +0200

   Because it might exists reasons for the decline,
   which are to discuss before it's to late.

Emacs is self-documenting, so perhaps that aspect
has improved such that the (IMHO) meaningless metric
of "query term frequency" becomes even more so.

If a day arrives when no one asks Google about Emacs,
i would do a little dance and drink a little water...

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 22.06.2012 14:46, schrieb Thien-Thi Nguyen:
> () Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de>
> () Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:03:29 +0200
>
>     Because it might exists reasons for the decline,
>     which are to discuss before it's to late.
>
> Emacs is self-documenting, so perhaps that aspect
> has improved such that the (IMHO) meaningless metric
> of "query term frequency" becomes even more so.
>
> If a day arrives when no one asks Google about Emacs,
> i would do a little dance and drink a little water...
>


While awaiting the day, let me tell you the sad story of a FUN company's decease, which declared it's code
free while adopting the mistake.

All the tools Eclipse provides existed in Emacs for years before: ECB, CEDET, projects and the like.
What slowed down it's integration?
A shortage of fresh water? :)

Cheers,

Andreas

RE: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Doug Lewan]

No, emacs users are not a dying breed.
Well, emacs is not an endangered species; it exceeds every potential competitor in too many ways.

Here are a few points.

1. It is ubiquitous. (This is largely true of all Free Software.)
   No matter what platform I work on emacs is there.
   In the last 10 years I've had the chance to work on 
       • 3 flavors of Solaris
       • 2 flavors of HP-UX
       • AIX
       • CYGWIN
       • Windows Vista and Windows 7
   About 10 years ago I counted the different OSes and versions thereof
   where emacs ran and I think it was over 200.
   Nothing non-Free can match that.

2. It's an editor for just about everything you need.
   A quick glance in lisp/progmodes gets about 80 programming languages.
   There's also LaTex, HTML, etc., etc.
   (Even troff! Hey! It's free to ship support code. Why not do it?)

3. It's comes with a zillion application.
   Calendar, organizers, a file manager, etc.

4. There are a zillion more applications freely available too.

5. It's consistent.¹
   If I change version control systems my UI doesn't change.
   When I change debuggers my UI doesn't change.
   When I want help for another Free application, Info works just the same.

6. The help is integrated.
   I don't mean when you click on "Help"
   you get help in a different documentation system.
   (A browser, Word, whatever. That's not integration.)
   You get it right there.
   No change. No moving focus. No distraction with the mouse.

7. It's its own development environment.
   As with Help, it's fully integrated.²

8. And it's the most portable working/development environment ever.
   If you write an application for emacs on Windows,
   it'll still run on AIX.

9. To incorporate all of the above:
   It's hardly just an editor -- it's an operating system.
   Windows, HP-UX, Linux, whatever is your BIOS if you're an emacs user.
   Using it makes you one of the most flexible, adaptable people
   in the computer world by removing the unnecessary distractions
   that our industry calls "innovation" (no matter how trivial they are).

Thank you for your time.

I know I've missed much.
The flexibility and responsiveness of the development community.
International support.
Much, much more. Please add.

________________________________________________________________
¹It's a little clunky, but wildly consistent.
I'd rather have clunky consistency than 10 super-modern variations
all of which are slightly different.
If you're going to do something differently,
then please, /please/, PLEASE do it much, much better.
Give me a big reason to want your difference.

²OK, I admit it. To say that emacs Lisp is integrated with emacs
is not just and understatement, it's upside down.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Tom]

Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
> No, why should Emacs and users and developers of Emacs be concerned with
> increasing the interest in Emacs? It's already a name that practically
> everyone who writes software has heard of, and the type of people that
> like it stick with it.
> 

The problem is the decreasing interest indicates that emacs is a
less useful tool in some areas and people choose the better tool
available. People don't necessarily choose other tools, becasue
they are nice and shiny. I heard lots of time from people that
they would use Emacs if it supported Java development as well as
Eclipse.

If I had to do Android development then I'd also choose Eclipse,
because the support it gives for developing with big Java
libraries is such a big advantage that Emacs' superior text editing
cannot compensate. I've been using Emacs for more than 15 years,
but I don't use it religiously, I use it if it is best tool for
the task.

One can say emacs is still useful for developing in C and stuff
and it's true, but I'd like to use it for Android and other
development, and that's why the decreasing interest is
important, because it says Emacs lags behind the competition in
important areas.

If this lagging behind is not addressed then Emacs will become
more and more a niche tool and less of a generally useful and
capable tool which can be efficienly used for most kinds of
tasks.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Mihamina Rakotomandimby]

On 06/22/2012 04:09 PM, Tom wrote:
> If I had to do Android development then I'd also choose Eclipse,
> because the support it gives for developing with big Java
> libraries is such a big advantage that Emacs' superior text editing
> cannot compensate. I've been using Emacs for more than 15 years,
> but I don't use it religiously, I use it if it is best tool for
> the task.

Yes.

And by the way, developping for Android has some words about Emacs:
http://www.google.com/search?q=android+tutorial+emacs
http://www.google.com/search?q=emacs+android+mode

Unfortunately, I had not time to test how heavy it is compared to using 
Eclipse. The main reason: I dont use Eclipse :-).


-- 
RMA.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Susan Cragin]

Oh, I think the base is increasing slowly, numerically. I'm a non-technical user, non-programmer, and I started using it because of org-mode. I use it for research, for my daily planner, that sort of thing. 
Once I started using it, I couldn't stop. It doesn't take very many keystrokes to make one realize how special it is. 

-----Original Message-----
>From: djc <newsg@resiak.org>
>Sent: Jun 18, 2012 5:32 AM
>To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>Subject: Re: Emacs users a dying breed?
>
>Using emacs for more than 30 years.  The emacs users I know are among the 
>most imaginative and competent people I know.  Like many who read this 
>list, they *use* the things that distinguish emacs from other editors: 
>extensibility, macros, network access, subshells, process control, and the 
>many available environments (by which I mean to include mail, Usenet, IDEs, 
>etc.).
>
>I'm deeply appreciative of the people who continue to work on emacs.  I 
>couldn't live without it, and if development ever comes to a halt, I'll 
>probably just keep using the last version forever.
>
>djc

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[suvayu ali]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Susan Cragin
<susancragin@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Oh, I think the base is increasing slowly, numerically. I'm a non-technical user, non-programmer, and I started using it because of org-mode. I use it for research, for my daily planner, that sort of thing.

I hear this quite often. As a fervent org-mode user myself, it makes me
happy. :)

I am a physics researcher and I use it for almost everything (except for
web browsing, emails and shell).

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[jidanni]

Too late in the game to have me learn a different editor.

RE: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Ugly Sean]

-----Original Message-----
From:  jidanni@jidanni.org
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 14:14
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

>Too late in the game to have me learn a different editor.

If you are capable of learning then it's not too late.
However, if Emacs is the editor you know, why bother changing?

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Philipp Haselwarter]

On Mon, Jun 18 2012 20:53 (@1340045620), Ugly Sean wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From:  jidanni@jidanni.org
> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 14:14
> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs users a dying breed?
>
>>Too late in the game to have me learn a different editor.
>
> If you are capable of learning then it's not too late.
> However, if Emacs is the editor you know, why bother changing?

You can't really know until you've tried, right? I sometimes wonder what
it's like on the other side… for two reasons:

1) Text editing actually seems quite efficient in the land of 666;
vimgolf [1] might or might not be representative, but the challenges and
results [2] are quite interesting. As Mickey Petersen puts it [3]:

> It’s obvious to most of us that to attempt a “fewest possible
> keystrokes” exercise in Emacs will invariably end in tears, as we
> can’t compete against vim in that regard; but with that said, we do
> have a lot of tricks up our sleeve.


And, more importantly,

2) Unix philosophy, in Doug McIlroy's words [4]:

> This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do
> it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle
> text streams, because that is a universal interface.

Eric Steven Raymond's "The Art of Unix Programming" discusses
editors [5] and the "Emacs question" in particular [6]:

> Emacs could be considered a virtual machine or framework around a
> collection of small, sharp tools (the modes) that happen to be written
> in Lisp.

Emacs does not contradict the philosophy /per se/, but sometimes I wish
Emacs was more of a low level utility. As it stands, Emacs does many
small tasks very well. One aspect that makes the workflow particularly
pleasant is that all these tools work together so well. Take the
kill-ring for example: It is by far the most powerful clipboard facility
I've used. But I'd like to be able to use it in all my applications, not
only those written in elisp. Emacs' entirely customizable key system is
another example of a tool that I'd like to have everywhere on my
desktop.

As it currently stands, all of the (elisp) programs that want to
leverage the power of Emacs' "global facilities" have to run in the same
main process. But there is a price to pay for mixing the core features
with the high-level programs:

 - concurrency/locking
   the classic example being programs that do networking and block the
   whole session

 - shared state ("everything is global")
   - usability: huge buffer lists result in requiring window-manager
     like capabilities
   - configuration: a common look of the GUI
   - stability: one misbehaving program can blow up the whole session
   - task parallelism: most programs are intended to have only one
     running instance per session (ex.: a gnus for work, one for private
     mail; debugging with several instances of gud simultaneously)
   - security: I want my email client to know my IMAP password, but not
     my IRC client

 - auxiliary tasks
   tasks that are already solved on the desktop are duplicated, such as
   window and workspace management

One could say that Emacs doesn't do enough and solve these problems
"inside Emacs" by implementing concurrency, integrating firefox and
essentially becoming the desktop environment.

Or one could say that Emacs already does too much. The core features
could be factored out into a "text editing daemon". Elisp programs could
then connect to this daemon and share as much of their state with the
daemon as makes sense to them. Basically take the current
emacs-server/emacsclient situation a step further and transform the
client from a very thin client into a runtime.

I'm curious to see what emacs.devel is planning for Emacs25, now that 24
is finally released I think we can expect to see some action on
implementing new features. The two approaches are rather complementary
than exclusive; let's hope that both get some love.


[1] http://www.vimgolf.com/
[2] http://vimeo.com/timvisher/videos/page:1/sort:newest
[3] http://www.masteringemacs.org/articles/2011/10/29/fun-with-vimgolf-1-alphabetize-directory/
[4] http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html
[5] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch13s02.html
[6] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch13s03.html#id2967765

-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Philipp Haselwarter <philipp@haselwarter.org> writes:

> Emacs does not contradict the philosophy /per se/, but sometimes I wish
> Emacs was more of a low level utility. As it stands, Emacs does many
> small tasks very well. One aspect that makes the workflow particularly
> pleasant is that all these tools work together so well. Take the
> kill-ring for example: It is by far the most powerful clipboard facility
> I've used. But I'd like to be able to use it in all my applications, not
> only those written in elisp. Emacs' entirely customizable key system is
> another example of a tool that I'd like to have everywhere on my
> desktop.
>
> As it currently stands, all of the (elisp) programs that want to
> leverage the power of Emacs' "global facilities" have to run in the same
> main process. But there is a price to pay for mixing the core features
> with the high-level programs:
>
>  - concurrency/locking
>    the classic example being programs that do networking and block the
>    whole session
>
>  - shared state ("everything is global")
>    - usability: huge buffer lists result in requiring window-manager
>      like capabilities
>    - configuration: a common look of the GUI
>    - stability: one misbehaving program can blow up the whole session
>    - task parallelism: most programs are intended to have only one
>      running instance per session (ex.: a gnus for work, one for private
>      mail; debugging with several instances of gud simultaneously)
>    - security: I want my email client to know my IMAP password, but not
>      my IRC client
>
>  - auxiliary tasks
>    tasks that are already solved on the desktop are duplicated, such as
>    window and workspace management

Common Lisp offers more (potential) solutions to these problems.
See for example Climacs and McClim.
But more work is needed.

That said, nothing prevents you to run several instances of emacs.  I
usually run three: programming, erc, gnus.  

When you use StumpWM, you can define your own window manager key
bindings and have a CL REPL into your window manager available.

I could only encourage you to embed ECL into all the applications you
use.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[notbob]

On 2012-06-19, Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote:

> usually run three: programming, erc, gnus.  

I probably would, but irssi is better than erc and slrn is better than
gnus.  I will use them up on my ubuntu netbook, it having no real
developement base, but on my Slack box emacs is my primary editor,
even for slrn.   

I try to learn something new about emacs every day, if only a
key-stroke.  When I have the time, I read emacs lisp tutorial.  It's
excellent and very well written.  While I'm a rank amateur at emacs, I
can't live without it.  It's the first thing I install on any *nix box.  

nb  

-- 
vi --the heart of evil!
Support labeling GMOs
<http://www.labelgmos.org/>

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Joe Corneli]

Riffing on Conrad Barski's LISP logos:

"Our little town is a hole. It always has been and still is. But now
it is a hole into the future. We’re going to
dump so much through this hole into your lousy world that everything will change
in it. Life will be different. It’ll be fair. Everyone will have
everything that he
needs. Some hole, huh? Knowledge comes through this hole. And when we have
the knowledge, we’ll make everyone rich, and we’ll fly to the stars,
and go anywhere
we want. That’s the kind of hole we have here."

   -- Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

suvayu ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Susan Cragin
> <susancragin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Oh, I think the base is increasing slowly, numerically. I'm a non-technical user, non-programmer, and I started using it because of org-mode. I use it for research, for my daily planner, that sort of thing.
>
> I hear this quite often. As a fervent org-mode user myself, it makes me
> happy. :)
>
> I am a physics researcher and I use it for almost everything (except for
> web browsing, emails and shell).

Give it a try!

M-x w3m-browse-url RET http://google.com RET
M-x mail RET to send one
M-x rmail RET to read your mail (some configuration needed)
M-x shell RET or M-x term RET

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.

Re: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Susan Cragin]

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