How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Bastien]

Hi all,

I recently received an e-mail from a friend (no matter what was the
discussion about) saying that he wanted his views to reach a lot of
users, not only the "niche" of Emacs users.

Then I started to figure out how large is this "niche".

Of course, the word "niche" implies that we are able to define something
like the ecological "competitors" (what are the softwares around Emacs?)
which might not be trivial given Emacs is so versatile.

Anyway, I've found Xah Lee's list here:

  http://xahlee.org/emacs/text_editor_trends.html

But I don't know exactly how it was produced: how did he use Google
Trends to get it?  Other request: where could I possibly find absolute
numbers?  Is it possible to infer them somehow?  

Thanks for any hint,

-- 
Bastien

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[roodwriter]

I can't imagine how you'd figure out usable numbers of
users. Emacs is a free program as and such is copied and
recopied from machine to machine. How hard would it be to
download one copy and then put it on 5,000 machines? The
server with the original copy would only count one download.

I do remember that the owner of O'Reilly Publishing says his
Vi book outsells the Emacs book two to one. But I also
understand that he says that Emacs' built-in tutorial may
affect those numbers.

I'm the only one I know personally who uses Emacs, but I'm a
writer, not a programmer. The only other person I know that
used to use it is a nephew. But he works as a programmer and
told me that peer-pressure forced him to go to Vi.

Not much help.

--Rod
______________________
Author of "Linux for Non-Geeks--Clear-eyed Answers for
Practical
Consumers" and "Boring Stories from Uncle Rod." To reply by
e-mail
take the second "o" out of the e-mail address.

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Sven Bretfeld]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

Hi Bastien

> Then I started to figure out how large is this "niche".

I don't know how large it is. But we had an interesting thread some 10
months ago. It was named "How old are Emacs users" or something like
that. Many people answered and told us how they came to use Emacs and
for what purposes. It doesn't seem a small nice to me after this
thread. It must still be in the archive.

Bye,

Sven

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

roodwriter@ureach.com wrote:
> I'm the only one I know personally who uses Emacs, but I'm a
> writer, not a programmer. The only other person I know that
> used to use it is a nephew. But he works as a programmer and
> told me that peer-pressure forced him to go to Vi.

Tell your poor nephew that he can use Emacs Viper mode.

> Not much help.

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[weber]

On Oct 18, 4:54 pm, "Lennart Borgman (gmail)"
<lennart.borg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> roodwri...@ureach.com wrote:
> > I'm the only one I know personally who uses Emacs, but I'm a
> > writer, not a programmer. The only other person I know that
> > used to use it is a nephew. But he works as a programmer and
> > told me that peer-pressure forced him to go to Vi.
>
> Tell your poor nephew that he can use Emacs Viper mode.
>
> > Not much help.

I also do not know anyone in person that uses emacs..
There are a bunch of VI users though, the Linux crowd. I guess it's
because when you first meet Linux you use VI to edit the configuration
files (because it's always there) and then it just sticks.. people
don't go looking for something better (or different). The most skilled
Ultraedit users are those who use Column-mode and maybe search-replace
(once a day).

"Look, my editor has generated the headers. Yeah, i just coded it..."
"Look, these window shows matches on all buffers. I can just move with
n/p and they show on the other window..."
"Look, I can just send code to the lua process with C-x C-e"


The following kind of dialog is also common:
"Coworker: Ok, can you go back to somefile.x ?"
"Me: Yeah"
"Coworker: What is that?"
"Me: somefile.x"
"Coworker: Oh, ok, I didn't saw you switching"

I love emacs.

-Weber

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Richard G Riley]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

> Sven Bretfeld <sven.bretfeld@gmx.ch> writes:
>
>>> Then I started to figure out how large is this "niche".
>>
>> I don't know how large it is. But we had an interesting thread some 10
>> months ago. It was named "How old are Emacs users" or something like
>> that. Many people answered and told us how they came to use Emacs and
>> for what purposes. It doesn't seem a small nice to me after this
>> thread. It must still be in the archive.
>
> Thanks, I'll check this.

I do wonder how many are actively using it for development of C/PHP etc
though. I can just about get by with it using a few add ons like ecb and
php-mode, but they are pretty poor by the standards of IDEs like Eclipse
I'm sorry to say. Of course what they lack in features is made up for in
the power given to other peripheral tasks by emacs in the development
phase. In particular I have found any form of mixed mode programming to
be very patchy indeed (e.g html and php in one file).

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Martin Rubey]

Richard G Riley <rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> writes:

> In particular I have found any form of mixed mode programming to be very
> patchy indeed (e.g html and php in one file).

mmm-mode is your friend, I think.  (Well, at least I like it, I use it for
aldor/axiom + LaTeX)

Martin

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Joel J. Adamson]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I recently received an e-mail from a friend (no matter what was the
> discussion about) saying that he wanted his views to reach a lot of
> users, not only the "niche" of Emacs users.

My story: I'm one of two people that I know use Emacs, the other one
uses XEmacs.  I don't know many Unix users other than myself, however
the one really devoted one uses vi; he's been using Unix almost
exclusively since middle school (he and I are the same age, so around
1993).  Since he's a mathematician, uses LaTeX, and programs in CAML,
I entirely expected him to use Emacs, but I was wrong.

My favorite "Linux encounter" was at a holiday party I met a sysadmin
from MIT; first he gasped when I said that I love Slackware, then we
started talking about email clients and I said that use Emacs to read
my mail.  His reaction: "Oh, you're one of those."  He used vi vi vi.

This poll from last year shows vi by a large margin; Emacs is actually
third behind
Kate. <http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2006-linuxquestions.org-members-choice-awards-76/text-editor-of-the-year-514955/>

Of course, I must add that I'm always surprised by how much software
caters to Emacs; I had only thought about using Emacs when I saw on
the R FAQ "Should I run R in Emacs?"  I thought "You can do that?  I
should give Emacs another look..."  I'm currently designing some
software to interact through Emacs.  I love it and I think a lot of
other people would if they knew about it.

Joel
http://trashbird1240.blogspot.com
-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Biostatistician
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Research Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA  02114
(617) 643-1432
(303) 880-3109

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Bastien]

Sven Bretfeld <sven.bretfeld@gmx.ch> writes:

>> Then I started to figure out how large is this "niche".
>
> I don't know how large it is. But we had an interesting thread some 10
> months ago. It was named "How old are Emacs users" or something like
> that. Many people answered and told us how they came to use Emacs and
> for what purposes. It doesn't seem a small nice to me after this
> thread. It must still be in the archive.

Thanks, I'll check this.

-- 
Bastien

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Bastien]

roodwriter@ureach.com writes:

> I can't imagine how you'd figure out usable numbers of
> users. Emacs is a free program as and such is copied and
> recopied from machine to machine. How hard would it be to
> download one copy and then put it on 5,000 machines? The
> server with the original copy would only count one download.

Yes.  I'm not interested in how many copies of Emacs live out there, 
but on how many people actually use it.  A few numbers could from :

- people posting on the gnu.emacs.* hierarchy
- people subscribed to the emacs mailing lists
- people switching from M-x doctor to a real therapist

> I do remember that the owner of O'Reilly Publishing says his
> Vi book outsells the Emacs book two to one. But I also
> understand that he says that Emacs' built-in tutorial may
> affect those numbers.

Vi users need to start with a book, and to rely on it lifelong.

> I'm the only one I know personally who uses Emacs, but I'm a
> writer, not a programmer. 

Emacs users have time to actually *write* books. Just joking.

But interestingly enough, it's not rare to hear about people using Emacs
to write books.  I can even remember of a specific tutorial for this.
Maybe it's quite significant about how versatile Emacs can be.

-- 
Bastien

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[William Xu]

jadamson@partners.org (Joel J. Adamson) writes:

> My story: I'm one of two people that I know use Emacs, the other one
> uses XEmacs. 

Okay, I have a somewhat different story.

Once when i was in a small company, the CEO himself uses Emacs, so does
vice CEO. And they both encourge every programmer in the company to use
Emacs. Thus, the result is that a total of nearly ten programmers all
uses Emacs...

-- 
William

http://williamxu.net9.org

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Richard G Riley]

Martin Rubey <axiomize@yahoo.de> writes:

> Richard G Riley <rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> writes:
>
>> In particular I have found any form of mixed mode programming to be very
>> patchy indeed (e.g html and php in one file).
>
> mmm-mode is your friend, I think.  (Well, at least I like it, I use it for
> aldor/axiom + LaTeX)
>
> Martin

I tried it. I couldnt find any "this is the definitive guide to getting
it working" and I have no clue about elisp.

mmm-mode, was: Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Martin Rubey]

Richard G Riley <rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> writes:

> I tried it. I couldnt find any "this is the definitive guide to getting
> it working" and I have no clue about elisp.

Hm.  To be honest, I had somebody else set it up for me.  But maybe somebody
else here can help...  If all fails, I can ask the one who did it for me.

Martin

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Leo]

On 2007-10-19 15:20 +0100, William Xu wrote:
> jadamson@partners.org (Joel J. Adamson) writes:
>
>> My story: I'm one of two people that I know use Emacs, the other one
>> uses XEmacs. 
>
> Okay, I have a somewhat different story.
>
> Once when i was in a small company, the CEO himself uses Emacs, so does
> vice CEO. And they both encourge every programmer in the company to use
> Emacs. Thus, the result is that a total of nearly ten programmers all
> uses Emacs...

I just find out many mathematics students use Emacs in my Univ.

-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

       Use the most powerful email client -- http://gnus.org/

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Dieter Wilhelm]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I recently received an e-mail from a friend (no matter what was the
> discussion about) saying that he wanted his views to reach a lot of
> users, not only the "niche" of Emacs users.
>
> Then I started to figure out how large is this "niche".
>
> Of course, the word "niche" implies that we are able to define something
> like the ecological "competitors" (what are the softwares around Emacs?)
> which might not be trivial given Emacs is so versatile.
>
> Anyway, I've found Xah Lee's list here:
>
>   http://xahlee.org/emacs/text_editor_trends.html
>
> But I don't know exactly how it was produced: how did he use Google
> Trends to get it?  Other request: where could I possibly find absolute
> numbers?  Is it possible to infer them somehow?  

I think http://popcon.debian.org/ can be a good quantitative source,
if you know how to supply your queries (unfortunately I don't).

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

Re: How big is the "niche" of Emacs users?

[Bastien]

Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de> writes:

> I think http://popcon.debian.org/ can be a good quantitative source,
> if you know how to supply your queries (unfortunately I don't).

Yes, thanks.

I made a rough gathering of data from the popcon data:
http://popcon.debian.org/source/by_inst

Quoting the webpage:

  "This package sends every week the list of packages installed and the
  access time of relevant files to the server via email. Every day the
  server anonymizes the result and publishes this survey. For more
  information, read the README and the FAQ."

So I gathers information on Emacs and Vim and turned it into a table.
Of course this in inaccurate in many ways:

0. this is only for the last week
1. this is only debian-based
2. there is no "vi" package
4. it's not dependency-aware
3. the list of chosen packages is *very* inconsistent

But still interesting IMHO.

  name                  inst    vote     old   recent   no-files  
 -------------------+--------+-------+-------+--------+----------
  emacspeak-ss            55       0       0        0         55  
  emacspeak              103      14      70       19          0  
  emacs-jabber           120       0       0        1        119  
  qemacs                 209      51     142       16          0  
  emacs-chess            256       0       0        0        256  
  emacs-wiki             310       0       0        0        310  
  emacs-lisp-intro       382       0       0        0        382  
  emacs21-non-dfsg       491       0       0        0        491  
  emacs22-non-dfsg       502       0       0        0        502  
  emacs-goodies-el      4492       1      18        2       4471  
  xemacs21-packages     5235       0       0        0       5235  
  xemacs21             10618    4055    5542      754        267  
  emacs22              11573    4711    1469      761       4632  
  emacsen-common       12782    3247    2980      581       5974  
  emacs21              29628   15534   10609     2022       1463  
 -------------------+--------+-------+-------+--------+----------
  SUM (Emacs)          76756   27613   20830     4156      24157  
 -------------------+--------+-------+-------+--------+----------
  vim                 178257   51439   77299    43706       5813  
  vimacs                  86       0       0        0         86  
  jvim                   105      26      43        6         30  
  vim-syntax-gtk         139       0       0        0        139  
  vimhelp-fr             182       0       0        0        182  
  vimoutliner            385      64     281       40          0  
  vim-addon-manager      765     109     120      536          0  
  vim-latexsuite         952       0       0        0        952  
  vim-scripts           2715     181     919      144       1471  
 -------------------+--------+-------+-------+--------+----------
  SUM (Vim)           183586   51819   78662    44432       8673  

And now this is interesting:

- vote / inst ratio: Emacs: 0.36 | Vim: 0.28
- old / inst ratio : Emacs: 0.27 | Vim: 0.43

... suggesting (to me) that, when installed, Emacs is maybe more likely
to be used than vim.  Again, this doesn't take Vi into accound, which is
a huge bias.

From popcon
~~~~~~~~~~~

<name> is the source package name;

The fields below are the sum for all the binary packages generated by
that source package:

<inst> is the number of people who installed this package;
<vote> is the number of people who use this package regularly;
<old> is the number of people who installed, but don't use this package
      regularly;
<recent> is the number of people who upgraded this package recently;
<no-files> is the number of people whose entry didn't contain enough
           information (atime and ctime were 0).

-- 
Bastien