Emacs website, Lisp, and other

[Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>]

> Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2024 at 7:09 AM
> From: "Jeremy Bryant" <jb@jeremybryant.net>
> To: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other
>
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
> >> From: Jeremy Bryant <jb@jeremybryant.net>
> >> Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 23:27:39 +0100
> >>
> >> Reviewing the Emacs website, and previous discussions on this list below
> >> (admittedly not recent, but still relevant).  It seems important to add
> >> some text on Lisp which is not currently there, as per ideas of RMS and
> >> Eli summarised below.
> >
> > Why is this important?
>
> It appeared to be an outstanding documentation item to add to the
> website, using the summary text written from RMS.
>
> I personally believe it is important and useful in the context of an
> introduction to Emacs such as the website.  For new users, or indeed
> new contributors, Emacs Lisp may appear an intriguing choice, and that
> summary offers a compelling reason for Lisp.
>
>
> >> What do people think?
> >
> > I think it's a relatively minor issue, not worth arguing about.  But
> > it looks like we are up for such a discussion anyway...
>
> Right, it may not be an issue at all -- up to you -- only a suggestion for
> documentation improvement.
>
> Emacs supports many languages, and on this is getting better thanks to eglot,
> tree-sitter etc.
>
> I thought the thread implicitly related to Emacs Lisp.  As the elisp manual says:
> "The great power of the Lisp language makes it ideal for
> other purposes as well, such as writing editing commands."
>
> I should apologise as my initial thread was in retrospect too short on
> context.  It wasn't meant to start a sort of flamewar, sorry it has
> caused you to respond to many tangents.

Flamewars begin when discussions employ inflated descriptions of a language
For instance, a statement like "The great power of the Lisp language makes it
ideal for other purposes, such as writing editing commands" can be seen as
provocative. Irking those who prefer other languages or who have experienced the
limitations of Lisp in their work.

Understanding the historical context of Emacs Lisp (Elisp) helps mitigate
misunderstandings. Elisp's development was influenced by Richard Stallman's
experiences at MIT, where Lisp was widely used. Stallman chose Lisp for Emacs
because of its flexibility and his familiarity with the language, gained from
working on the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) and the Lisp Machine
Operating System.

Words like "great power" are subjective and can be interpreted differently by
different people. Some might view them as an accurate reflection of Lisp's
capabilities, while others might see them as an overstatement, leading to
disagreements.

To avoid flamewars, documentation should strive for balanced and factual descriptions,
providing historical context.

A balanced documentation example would be

Emacs Lisp (Elisp) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, chosen by
Richard Stallman for its flexibility and his familiarity with it from projects
like the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) and the Lisp Machine Operating
System at MIT.

Emacs's design aimed to be compatible with Unix, enhancing its portability and making it
accessible to Unix users.  While Elisp's power and versatility make it well-suited for
writing editing commands, it's important to recognize that different languages have their
own strengths and may be better suited for other specific tasks.

This approach provides necessary background information without making exaggerated claims,
reducing the likelihood of sparking heated debates among users.