Post B1mbE8jzpZjMoVYNvs by Sdowney@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by Sdowney@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B1mWsJ7y8KEWq86Iam by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-30T17:59:34Z
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#Irreal: Never try #Emacs 😲 https://irreal.org/blog/?p=13507#PIM
(DIR) Post #B1mYNx4VltI7ej8WHI by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2025-12-30T18:16:26Z
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@publicvoit I have tried it, repeatedly, on multiple OSes, ever since Neal Stephenson published "In The Beginning Was The Command Line" in 1999.https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt(You should read this, if you haven't. Over a quarter of a century later it remains highly relevant.)My conclusion was that it's ugly, extremely hard to learn, has a poor and Byzantine user interface that hasn't advanced in 45 years, and it gives me nothing I want or need.Which, after that essay, makes me very sad.I really wish the user community was willing to accept that it is in extremely dire need of modernisation, but they won't, and I predict you won't either.
(DIR) Post #B1mZcwHf5CqLVgzuvw by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-30T18:30:24Z
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@lproven Wow, that's a long read. I quickly searched for the part where he wrote about #Emacs. Well, that's hardly the Emacs experience we've got now. Now, we've got much more font stuff, images, mouse interaction if you want, and so forth. So I'd be cautious to extrapolate this very old point of view to nowadays Emacs environments.The sad thing about Emacs is that it's almost impossible to explain it to somebody who hasn't embraced Emacs for a couple of months or so. 😔 Is so different from any piece of software you know. Well, at least you're aware of Plan9 and nuggets like Acme. So you one of the few people who should have a chance to understand the power of Emacs even from outside.No, it absolutely has no need of modernization. BTDT.That would result in another hipster tool that will be long forgotten in a few decades when Emacs will be still around in a small but beautiful bubble of users. We don't need that at all and this is not based on ignorance but on experience.YMMV
(DIR) Post #B1maGILaz9nNETbVp2 by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-30T18:37:31Z
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@lproven Actually, #Emacs is constantly modernized. Maybe not in the same way you might think or wish for.We've got important stuff like built-in package management, LSP, performance optimizations, ... which might not seem much but this resembles a constant level of bringing this golden nugget into modern times as well.Of course, Emacs is not everybody's darling and never wanted to be something like that.You'd need a certain amount of openness in terms of changing point of views and behavior such that you'll find your personal path to this platform. Until you truly understand that one of the least important aspects of Emacs is the part that resembles a text editor.I don't know you well enough to understand where your disappointment is rooted.However, I met people who came from the Apple way of life, who expected mouse-first UX, drag&drop, OOTB experience with visual accommodation, ... For those people, Emacs won't be a suitable companion unless they rethink priorities.
(DIR) Post #B1mapEK3wPZIsxXs9I by sysedit@mastodon.social
2025-12-30T18:43:49Z
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@publicvoit I pitty the computer users that want their OS and applications to be "babies first PC". Even among developers we have people with that mindset. Everything worthwhile to use comes with a 600 page manual.
(DIR) Post #B1mbE8jzpZjMoVYNvs by Sdowney@mastodon.social
2025-12-30T18:48:19Z
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@publicvoit @lproven Lexical scope! Dynamic scope is useful and the implementation is straightforward, passing an environment, but it's so difficult to reason about. So even elisp itself is getting modernization, not just the ecosystem parts.
(DIR) Post #B1mc09smtAe0FrYwRk by Sdowney@mastodon.social
2025-12-30T18:57:00Z
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@publicvoit @lproven From a UI perspective, emacs has been extensively modernized. The problem is that none of those modernizations can be the defaults. Compatibility is a *core* value of emacs, and changing the default will break peoples's workflows, and there is never a good time to force a change on someone in a tool they use to do a real task. This is very much not the state of most software or websites.
(DIR) Post #B1me0C5QtW1SzyccnQ by ashiisbest@miruku.cafe
2025-12-30T18:46:04.077Z
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@publicvoit@graz.social @sysedit@mastodon.social The problem is that this is the AVERAGE user.Note: I don't think it would make much sense to go through a 700 pg manual on how to control a computer if you just simply wanna browse or do something completely unrelated to the computational field.
(DIR) Post #B1me0DVLceLXOdkppQ by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-30T19:19:25Z
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@ashiisbest @sysedit FYI, @lproven is far from being an average user. 😉 I think it would be interesting to analyze why he actually does think that way about Emacs. I'm not always on the same page as Liam but he's a clever person with lots(!) of (historic) IT experience. Therefore, he would be one of the people where I would have bet real money that this person is using Emacs for decades already. 😜
(DIR) Post #B1mxG4eWCTTbhkJp2G by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2025-12-30T22:55:00Z
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@publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit Here is something I wrote on the subject about 5 years ago. https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/81798.html
(DIR) Post #B1mxTHhgzHePwl6QBk by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2025-12-30T22:57:29Z
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@publicvoit You disappoint me very badly, but you do not surprise me. Read it. Read all of it. You will not find a better written discussion of the weaknesses of FOSS in any language or any other medium anywhere. Anyone trying to do FOSS advocacy should be able to quote from ITBWTCL from memory without effort. And *NOTHING* it said about Emacs is sufficiently different today.
(DIR) Post #B1o65pmhiYNpRTIdU0 by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-31T12:08:53Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit OK, went through it.You're right for the most part.However, I don't think that Emacs should compete with tech that is currently hyped & gone in a couple of years.I don't think that Emacs should even adapt to UI standards as you ask for.Not because those standards are bad. I like them as well as you & they did make tech much more #userfriendly for ordinary people.Emacs should not adapt because it would fundamentally change the Emacs universe which is working pretty well (nothing in your article seems to reflect that notion) if you accept to be in a totally different universe when your window focus is within #Emacs. Yes, it may look ancient when you start it in default settings. Yes, the OOTB experience is not for non-tech people.However, if you can convince yourself to dive into that completely different world (it predates almost all those standards you're mentioning), you will be rewarded with something nothing(!) can provide you elsewhere.
(DIR) Post #B1oAwMJuObkhDy8F0a by sysedit@mastodon.social
2025-12-31T13:03:12Z
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@publicvoit The weakest part about emacs are the default settings. Like out of the box I could do a small C project or Elisp project. But even there company mode is disabled by default.Default color scheme and font size hurts my eyes.These defaults lead to people creating Emacs distributions. I really like Spacemacs but I think they've butchered it. It is too slow for no good reason. But I've just rolled my own and it is fine.
(DIR) Post #B1oBZyZm5xkvAORaiW by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-31T13:10:22Z
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@sysedit Well, after curating my config for decades, I'm probably in no good position to comment on that.However, I think that the potential of #Emacs distributions is fairly underused up until now.Similar to the Linux kernel, which is of no use if downloaded a source without a proper distribution, Emacs could focus on the platform. In addition to that, Emacs distributions should focus on the customized OOTB experience + UX in general.In that sense, the Emacs OOTB experience might be actually too good so that there is no more variety with Emacs distros. 😜
(DIR) Post #B1oCprPSbhoRWnl2Zc by sysedit@mastodon.social
2025-12-31T13:24:22Z
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@publicvoit Me, too. So I had a taste with Emacs -q. There should be a command line flag to populate an init.el with some reasonable defaults like company mode enabled for every programming mode and LSPs enabled for the top 4 programming languages or at least tree sitter for the top languages and a dark mode theme maybe org-mode enabled, too.Both of us wouldn't use it because we have our own distribution.I should create that tool instead of complaining every other week.
(DIR) Post #B1oDbqcQqmsiyXhuKG by hendrik@sciences.social
2025-12-31T13:33:06Z
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@publicvoit @sysedit Isn't a distribution what #spacemacs and #doomemacs effectively provide? It is just one command line away after installing emacs.
(DIR) Post #B1oHGtA8b7YWbFja6K by publicvoit@graz.social
2025-12-31T14:14:09Z
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@hendrik @sysedit Absolutely.However, I did not spot any Emacs distro according to my personal preferences. (Maybe there is but I haven't looked around too intensive.)I, too, got the impression that there are only two really good distros. I think we are lacking a few more for different use-cases and target audience.
(DIR) Post #B1oeow56Y9iERaaGUy by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2025-12-31T18:37:53Z
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@publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit Thanks for reading it. Bad news. There's more. 😅The next step is to read this:https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/rise_and_fall_of_cua/There's a standard UI for x86 software. It's based indirectly on the standard UI for Apple platforms, which came first.(Just as Windows was modelled on Mac OS, just changed enough to avoid being get sued, Android is modelled upon iOS.)This is a crucial element of the success of macOS *and* Windows. Most of the industry has forgotten these standards exist, but they still do and they still apply.The UNIX industry never learned this vital lesson. As a direct result, it's never standardised its UI. Or, more to the point, and as tragic evidence of this, its UIs *plural,* because there are dozens.And while there's a little standardisation at the GUI level, it never reached the shell level. The result is that it's a broken mess. And UNIX folks have learned to like it that way. They defend it. You're defending it to me in this thread, and so are others.
(DIR) Post #B1qI3zJAvQ8AANIGEy by nucholab@genomic.social
2025-12-31T19:02:08Z
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@lproven @publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit You sweet summer children…http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/religion/
(DIR) Post #B1qI40I9Giu5DToxHM by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T13:26:23Z
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@nucholab @publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit Dead link...
(DIR) Post #B1qI417YBc1Jmts0Om by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T13:32:22Z
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@lproven @nucholab @ashiisbest @sysedit Dead link since at least 2013 😆 I've found an old copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20110617101100/http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/religion/However, you can spare yourself: it's just the old Emacs-as-religion meme. 😔
(DIR) Post #B1qIzxHKd69EfQ4XL6 by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T13:42:49Z
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@publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit Then our fundamental disagreement is right there.KV: "This book is great! It's the best book ever written! You should read it -- you will love it!"LP: "But it's written in Voitish. I don't speak Voitish."KV: "But learn it and then you can read the greatest book ever."LP: "I already speak the world's most widely-spoken language, plus a little bit of 6 others. Will learning Voitish let me speak to anyone else? Where is Voitish spoken?"KV: "Oh, nobody else speaks Voitish. But it's worth it for this book."LP: "So if the book is that good, then translate it. If I love it as much as you, then maybe I'll learn Voitish."KV: "NO! It must not be translated. You must learn Voitish!"LP: *points to my own private library of 5000 books in 10 languages.* Look, sorry, but no: life is too short.In the 1980s I mastered 15+ different text editor and word processor UIs. I taught training courses in them. I helped people with dozens of different apps. I was fluent in Displaywrite, Multimate, Wordstar, Wordstar 2000, Wordstar Express (all different!), Wordperfect, MS Word, VolksWriter, Writenow, Macwrite, Locoscript, The Last Word, and more. It was a bloody nightmare. It was horrible.
(DIR) Post #B1qMrBX6f7gI5RWZ7o by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T13:44:15Z
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@publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit But the nightmare faded away. In 1984, Apple published the Mac HIG, and the idea of a single standard enforced UI started to spread. By 1987 IBM published CUA.Wordperfect, the #1 best-selling WP on every OS platform in the world, completely rewrote its UI to be CUA-compliant as well as its own F-key UI.MS rewrote all its DOS apps, or discontinued them. MS Word, MS Works, DOS Edit, QuickBASIC, all the Professional Development System IDEs. Borland rewrote all its, too.Everyone added a CUA front-end, and the ones that didn't went extinct. Good riddance. They were pains in the @r$€. CUA triumphed. All the DOS apps adapted. OS/2 and Windows 3 were CUA from the start. As a result, all the main FOSS GUIs were too: Xfce was the first (before it was FOSS), then KDE, then GNOME 1/2, and dozens of others. All CUA, and so are most of the apps. THERE IS A STANDARD USER INTERFACE. There are a thousand other text editors out there, and 99% of them are CUA compliant.I do not write code. I do not care about programming language support. I only write English. (And occasionally French, German, Czech, Norwegian, and things.)I will not learn any new editor that is not ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CUA compatible.
(DIR) Post #B1qMrCBsDYI67sb7fU by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T13:50:53Z
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@publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit This does not mean importing `cua-mode` and leaving me to it. This means a complete UI rewrite. I do not have a Meta key. You do not have a Meta key. Nobody has a Meta key, and nobody has since before the IBM PC came out in 1981.The year after that, I got my first computer, and by 1990 I had double-digit numbers of different CPUs and OSes, and not a single one of them had Meta keys.I edit _files_ in _windows_ using the _Ctrl_ and _Alt_ keys. Change the UI and the docs to fit reality. I am perfectly happy for the old UI to stay. All my requirements can be instantly disabled if _any_ config is found. Please do not break anything for existing users. But I am 58 years old and I know more different OSes than I suspect you even suspect ever existed in history, and I am **NOT** learning any new UI now for a task as trivial as a text editor, even if it is _the best text editor in the world ever._ Because I do not want or need a programmers' editor. I don't want LSP. I don't want syntax highlighting. I don't want paren matching. I don't need any of that.I only edit human language text, and my needs are very well met by about 100 existing tools and Emacs offers me nothing I need.
(DIR) Post #B1qMrCsle4bOGufNWi by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T13:53:00Z
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@publicvoit @ashiisbest @sysedit I am perfectly willing to move. I have done so many *many* times over 44 years in using personal computers.But it 100% **MUST** use the standard UI. I will not compromise. There is no imaginable editing feature for plain text that is worth learning yet anothhr new UI.Maybe for coding -- I *really* doubt it because there are *hundreds* of great programmers' editors -- but maybe. But I don't care. I don't write code. The closest I get is Markdown and there is not much I want from Markdown editing. A WYSIWYG preview is good -- that's why I use Panwriter.
(DIR) Post #B1qMrDQ5eBFzwGFzSy by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T14:26:08Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit So sad. Reading lots of your great work, I started to think that you were more open minded than what you showed us here in this thread.I tried to motivate you by mentioning that the Emacs UX is so much more than anything you have experienced yet. It doesn't help mentioning the 5000 other tools you know. You could have assumed that I know also a few tools here and there, have some academic background in the field of HCI/IA/PIM and still try to say to you that Emacs is totally different to the tools you've mentioned despite of not following popular UI standards.And yet, you absolutely ignore almost any of my arguments.The different Emacs UX is not because of ignorance but because of historic and very good reasoning - I already mentioned it but you ignored that completely as well.Furthermore, if you would change Emacs to the standards you're referring to, you would actually kill the UX and most benefits. None of that did came through to you as well.
(DIR) Post #B1qMt0ZUO7jIfYVZ1k by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T14:26:32Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit I also wrote about the notion that for certain use-cases, you should choose software you need to learn to use instead of software that was optimized for easy learning: https://karl-voit.at/2020/06/21/simplified-to-standstill/My typical example is that you should use easy-to-learn tools for stuff you do only on a yearly basis or similar. For stuff you do on a daily basis, almost any learning effort pays off if the tool allows for advanced UX and workflows.You somehow seem to stick to the simple-to-learn patterns only and ignore the tools that allow for advanced workflows but are harder to learn in the initial phase because you *only* see the initial phase and not the benefits of the long run.Such a point of view is very short-sighted.
(DIR) Post #B1qMxTO3C8AVCIHq9g by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T14:27:19Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit Therefore, your funny comparison lacks in most arguments so I won't go into details because it is useless for most parts. However, you've made me chuckle because your story seems to imply that I may be a person responsible for the Emacs platform which I'm not. As a matter of fact, the Emacs is almost exactly the same age as I am and I'm just an advanced user of that platform as it is the only tool available that allows for the workflows I want to use.Apple was famous for its HIG, right. However, at least with the 00s, they started to violate it all the time. In current Apple tools, Apple's HIG is more or less dead except for historical reasons and other projects that took parts from it, which is important not only for simple-to-learn apps. One of the reasons why so many people are complaining these days, I presume.
(DIR) Post #B1qN0Sk62yj84F1Yhc by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T14:27:51Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit Your arguments about CUA is also short-sighted: If your highest tool priority is "easy to learn" (or "CUA compatible"), then you're absolutely right. However, you'll miss the fun of using pro tools where the user needs to adapt a bit on the tool in order to get an amazing UX.For example, I've been working in mechanical engineering a bit and nobody was using CUA interfaces for CAD drawing solutions although it was provided (in most tools). It was much more efficient to learn all the highly-specific and also non-CUA-related keyboard shortcuts and maybe use a special 3D mouse, also far from being any standard.
(DIR) Post #B1qN2ZQo9I8TOM0VKC by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T14:28:15Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit So despite your great knowledge of so many historical and current tools, your line of arguments blocks you from going across a certain level of tool experience, I'm afraid. With all those arguments against any initial Emacs learning phase, you will never experience most workflows so many Emacs users are using to accomplish their daily IT life. That's absolutely OK. Nobody is forced to use Emacs or to even understand the uniqueness of the Emacs platform itself.However, in this case you should refrain from making any judgmental statements about the Emacs platform because you've never even reached its most basic usage levels that distinct this platform from anything else I've came across so far. In context of this part of software history, you're far from being an expert (and you don't have to be one).
(DIR) Post #B1qN4QPMfUJPzBDTXc by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T14:28:35Z
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@lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit I don't have any experience with many historical platforms you have been using. But I try to be aware when I'm in a position of making a judgement, write a profound statement or keep my mouth shut on a particular topic I don't have much clue besides an unqualified outsider's view. At least that's my personal approach for discussions like that.YMMV and it does, obviously. 😔
(DIR) Post #B1qP71xoCybQwwhJRY by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T14:51:25Z
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@publicvoit I think Liam is making a good argument why it is not for him. Even to the point where I feel bad about my initial comments.
(DIR) Post #B1qPv7apYJkkt7poqe by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T15:00:30Z
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@sysedit I would agree if he would have written something like "it is not a solution I want to use for myself because ...".However, he wrote "My conclusion was that it's ugly, extremely hard to learn, has a poor and Byzantine user interface that hasn't advanced in 45 years, and it gives me nothing I want or need." which is an absolute statement and does miss the point IMO.I would never force anybody to use Emacs. But I'm trying to fight misconceptions that are written as facts or statements in particular from people who do have a certain good reputation in other fields.So while Liam might have very good reasons to avoid Emacs himself, he should not write certain things without certain knowledge about the tool he's judging.
(DIR) Post #B1qcVMvhCx1QKQe30K by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T17:21:27Z
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@publicvoit @sysedit The core point here is one that I did not expect you or anybody else in the Emacs world to agree with, but but it is very important all the same:When Emacs and Vi were written, there were no UI standards. But now, there are. Thousands of large, complex apps have been rewritten to change their default UI to comply with the standard. Bigger and more complex apps than Emacs.Apps such as MS Word, which made Charles Simonyi so rich he paid to go to space -- _twice_.The sad thing here is that _this work has been done for Emacs_ and it has been done **TWICE** that I know of.The first is Aquamacs:https://aquamacs.org/The second is Xah Lee's ErgoEmacs:https://ergoemacs.github.io/What I am suggesting is this modest proposal: Incorporate ErgoEmacs and make it the default _if there is no existing Emacs config_. Why? To make what is widely held to be the greatest ever text editor accessible to more people, grow its user community, and thus help ensure its survival.But that idea is so offensive to Emacs people that when I suggest it they get rude and resort to insults. As you have done here, Karl.
(DIR) Post #B1qe2bQKRLZwn8NsQq by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T17:38:33Z
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@lproven @sysedit This is much better criticism IMO. 😉 I, personally, don't have any experience with ErgoEmacs. I took a quick look many years ago and somehow came to the conclusion that this is nothing I want to try out. I'd have to re-read the basic premises to remember the why.It was only a couple days ago when I wrote here that IMO different default configurations should improve OOTB experience. Currently, there seems to be only spacemacs and Doom Emacs for most people. They're offering a very particular setup IMO and much more distros should be around with other users in mind. People that like ErgoEmacs should find Emacs distros as well. This could be improved. But not the Emacs core.Just like it would be no good idea to include something like Window management into the Linux kernel. It's simply the wrong level of abstraction.Keep Emacs as it is (with the usual improvements here and there) and provide UX variations in form of distributions.
(DIR) Post #B1qe3BT4QdA8a3wZhg by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T17:38:51Z
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@lproven @sysedit Ideas are offensive (in this context) when they contradict reality or miss certain aspects that are relevant as I've tried to explain.I'm sorry when I offended you - that was not my intention to get personal. Could you please tell me what statement was an insult from your perspective? 😔
(DIR) Post #B1qfxwMxKyEmDIi9ui by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T18:00:17Z
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@publicvoit Ok that I 100% agree with. I am not offended by either side of the argument. But by now I think I've made my case enough so I don't think I can add anything to the discussion that I haven't already said. I mean the discussion inspired me to create emacs-starter-kit so for me it was constructive/productive/a partial success.
(DIR) Post #B1qfzThosWNDtWCf7g by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T18:00:33Z
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@publicvoit @sysedit You know what, the things I thought were personal really don't matter.The core point here is this:Across other OSes, mainly but not only DOS, from the late 1980s, there was a wave of consolidation & modernisation in UI. That was a good thing. It resulted in better software, & more people learning more skills.(Yes, true, today, it's being forgotten. Much is. That's life. That doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile, or should be abandoned.)*But* this bypassed the Unix world, right as Linux was taking shape. It affected Linux GUIs, but only the GUIs.In the Unix world, there is a bizarre factionalism: shell people consider GUIs a frippery, unimportant, just lipstick. GUI people try to avoid the shell because it's scary & the people unwelcoming.That is foolish & short-sighted & actively harmful.The wave of UI standardisation was a necessary phase of software maturation. Linux has embraced a little of it -- try a BSD & discover that you can't use Ctrl+cursor keys to navigate the shell, for instance.It's part of growing up. Once, in the infancy of software, having your own weird UI was a matter of pride. But that was childish. Like motor vehicles & household appliances, it got standardised away.Stop fighting it. Embrace standards. They help.
(DIR) Post #B1qh4F8WZe3Y6vWvsu by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-01T18:12:37Z
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@lproven @sysedit You know what? If we're talking about a WYSIWYG tool, I actually would agree. 😉 But we aren't talking about something like that.I got the impression that you think I'm against those very handy standards which I'm not.If the Emacs community provides proposals in form of Emacs distributions with various target audience in mind, that would be the right way to address related issues in this context IMO. ErgoEmacs, advanced mouse-oriented workflows, ... all possible as add-ons.But you can't make a WYSIWYG word processor out of a programming language - if you can follow my comparison here. That would totally destroy the nature of the programming language.Anyway, I'm - again - very sorry if I have used inappropriate wording. I really don't want to offend you personally.I think we've made our points clear enough at this stage of the thread. Have a wonderful 2026! 👋
(DIR) Post #B1qkw23FjuYD1oP9E0 by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-01T18:55:54Z
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@publicvoit @sysedit I don't really think we've come to any conclusion here, no, and I am a bit sad if you want to drop it... but OK.May I suggest a hypothetical compromise?Along with Emacs distros like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs, how about an "Easy Emacs" distro?Bundled ErgoEmacs, on by default. Some tweaking to detect the OS's keyboard layout and set it automatically. (I found that really hard -- indeed I found it very hard to work out how to install and configure ErgoEmacs at all, not being an Emacs guru at all. I don't know how to add MELPA repos. I don't even know what the default config file is called -- there seem to be 2 or 3 different "default" Emacs config files.)Any project which doesn't recruit new users is going to die. That often means compromising ideals.Debian has benefitted from Ubuntu making it easier. Emacs could, too.
(DIR) Post #B1qxdAs01kRCHRTljs by nucholab@genomic.social
2026-01-01T21:18:12Z
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@publicvoit @lproven @ashiisbest @sysedit Sorry. Not the link I meant to send. Meant the old Per Abrahamsen response about emacs not having to follow fashions and now I can’t get back to it as it seems EmacsWiki is down :/
(DIR) Post #B1sJYKr3ruaLww68pM by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-02T12:44:08Z
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@publicvoit @sysedit So, any thoughts or comments?
(DIR) Post #B1sJYMMeFxRidBsshU by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-02T12:58:33Z
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RE: https://social.vivaldi.net/@lproven/115821363508102577@lproven @sysedit Oh sorry, I thought I did reply already.I think that your suggestion from https://graz.social/@lproven@vivaldi.net/115821363756075885 is a brilliant idea.Although I'm not part of the target audience and I lack the knowledge to do that properly, I would be glad when the Emacs ecosystem would have more options in that direction.This could allow for the die-hard Emacs evangelists to stick with their "pure" version as well as provide much better OOTB experiences for newbies.According to my experience, most non-tech people aren't using keyboard shortcuts like C-c/C-v and such at all. They rely on icons and menu entries. Both are available with the Emacs OOTB experience already. In contrast to vi and its variants. Therefore, I tend to think that people might be better off using Emacs compared to the vi(m) editors.I don't have hard evidence though.