[HN Gopher] EmacsConf 2024 Notes
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EmacsConf 2024 Notes
Author : JNRowe
Score : 218 points
Date : 2024-12-28 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sachachua.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sachachua.com)
| duozerk wrote:
| As someone who exclusively uses emacs for all their editing, some
| nice topics there; though a bit miffed it's all video only.
|
| Although this, from the page linked, was pretty fun:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc
| sctb wrote:
| On the main page for this year there are all kinds of media
| available, audio, video, slides, transcripts, Q&A:
| https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/.
| duozerk wrote:
| My bad, thank you !
| uludag wrote:
| > EmacsConf feels like a nice, cozy get-together where people
| share the cool things they've been working on and thinking about.
|
| Emacsconf was indeed executed great this year, and nice and cozy
| were my feelings too. It's interesting to compare and contrast
| the ambience between Emacsconf and that of the other editors'
| like neovim conf and the release "parties" of Visual Studio Code
| and Jetbrains.
| Handprint4469 wrote:
| What was different about it compared to the neovim conf?
| Keyframe wrote:
| People can't seem to find an exit.
| sitkack wrote:
| I wouldn't believe how well it was run if I wasn't there. Sacha
| is a powerhouse, the amount of code she wrote in elisp to make
| this conference happen with the quality it did is just amazing.
|
| Thanks Sacha!
| JadeNB wrote:
| I had no idea that there was a NeovimConf! It's kind of a shame
| that it's so low in the search rankings that searching directly
| for it seemed to turn up only hits for Neovim configuration
| files, so I hope that I may be forgiven for linking here:
| https://neovimconf.live .
| dingnuts wrote:
| honestly the community Emacs has really sets it apart, and it's
| a piece of software where the GPL makes sense and shines and
| this is super clear in the Emacs community.
|
| It gives me hope for the longevity of the editor, and indeed,
| in the short ten years I've been a casual user it has only
| gotten better.
|
| Long live the Emacs community
| ajbt200128 wrote:
| Amazing work again! EmacsConf was as fun as ever this year
| krylon wrote:
| There was supposed to be one talk about an attempt to re-vitalize
| a Guile-powered Emacs. I am not sure if it's in there somewhere
| or not (but I haven't looked yet).
|
| I imagine Emacs gaining native compilation capability took some
| pressure off that. But the appeal of scripting Emacs in languages
| other than Elisp still has some appeal, I think. Scheme or Lua
| would very nice for that purpose.
|
| EDIT: There it is - https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/guile/
| bjoli wrote:
| I think just having a proper runtime for elisp would be
| great...
|
| I am a guile person, but even if the Emacs folks would only
| allow elisp on guile it would still be a win.
| lysace wrote:
| I wonder how many users Emacs has lost to VS Code over the past
| few years. I'm one of them.
|
| Feels sad. And also potentially shortsighted.
| f1shy wrote:
| Is a matter of time until it will be enshitified, and they come
| back...
| lysace wrote:
| I guess there are two aspects to the the typical process of
| MSFT enshittification:
|
| a) lack of regular revenue leading to bizarre product
| management choices (probably not a case, because of GH
| Copilot subs)
|
| b) initial really talented team members gradually being
| replaced by bozos because of entropy and/or management (work
| on something new/important)
|
| I suppose b) is the most obvious risk.
| devjab wrote:
| I think option A is actually part of their problem. Not
| because they lack revenue but because they are successful
| with it. You mention Copilot but VSC integrates with a lot
| of Microsoft owned cloud services as the "default" or
| "first class citizen". I'm not sure why people would use
| the Azure extensions over the AZ cli, but they are
| obviously rather popular. It's a lot like how Google search
| became the default search in a lot of products, except here
| it's GitHub, Azure and so on.
|
| On top of that they get some wild telemetry. Your privacy
| data is obviously safe, but the metadata they collect goes
| right down to your project structure. So Microsoft knows
| what sort of projects and in what sort of languages
| everyone uses. They know what you're putting into your
| Azure cloud and they know if you're not using Azure. I
| imagine these things are rather valuable to the biggest
| tech company in the world.
|
| Obviously they're going to focus their development on
| upselling Microsoft products to you. Which will only get
| worse as they succeed more and more. Because why wouldn't
| an enterprise company do that?
| devjab wrote:
| I'm genuinely wondering why you would chose VSC over emacs.
| Granted, I'm on doom emacs and it's mainly because I'm too lazy
| to config Neovim, so it's not like I'm really a purist. I even
| use VSC occasionally when I'm in a context on my lovely windows
| work computers where I don't have access to WSL, but it's such
| a horrible experience. It's slow, the plugins are ass and the
| LSPs are horrible for basically anything which isn't
| Typescript.
|
| I don't even think VSC is "that" bad despite what I made it
| sound like, but it's probably as temporary as any other modern
| IDE. In a few years "every" VSC user will probably have moved
| on to Zed. Meanwhile your emacs (or vim) dot files will setup
| the only IDE you've ever used on any machine.
| lysace wrote:
| I started using GNU Emacs in the mid 1990s. I like the
| ergonomics of the interface. It's muscle memory since long. I
| _tolerated_ the LISP aspect.
|
| In VS Code I use the "Awesome Emacs Keymap" extension by
| Yuichiro Tachibana (Tsuchiya):
|
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tuttieee.
| ..
|
| What won me over? GH Copilot + the overall packaging. It just
| works. Good, polished UX. Emacs needs to catch up on this
| front.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Copilot is available on Emacs, but yes, a lot less
| polished.
| arrsingh wrote:
| I've been using emacs for 30 years and have tried VS code
| several times but the muscle memory on Emacs has prevented
| me for switching. I've gotten LSP on emacs working well
| enough but the performance just isn't there. So today
| thanks to your suggestion I tried it once more with the
| Awesome Emacs Keymap extension and right away I ran into
| not having dired mode to switch files.
|
| A quick google search got me vscode-dired (incase anyone
| else runs into it):
|
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rrudi.v
| s...
|
| Quick Tip: I set C-x C-d, C-x C-b and C-xb all to call
| extension.dired.open per this stackoverflow:
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62235792/how-to-add-
| mult...
|
| that seems to satisfy the muscle memory... and it seems at
| first glance that this time the switch to vscode might
| actually stick. (thanks for the link to the emacs keymap
| extension)
|
| We'll see how it goes!
|
| edit: After even 5 minutes of building some rust code I ran
| into too many issues! I love the syntax highlighting in VS
| Code and everything else but I have way too much custom
| elisp to build and debug Rust/Go/C++ and recreating all
| that in VSCode or learning the new bindings is a bridge too
| far! I would pay real money to someone who would build an
| amazing performant experience for emacs. Sigh.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Depending on the language you use VScode might not be any
| more performant because it probably uses the same LSP on
| top of electron instead of elisp. I write Rust/C++ on a
| sizable project and since everyone depends on rust-
| analyzer* all IDEs are just unbearably slow and mostly
| useless in language integration beyond basic refactors
| and click to go to definition.
|
| * except RustRover but that comes with its own set of
| issues
| arrsingh wrote:
| yes its rust. Looks like you're right. Well is back to
| good old emacs for me!
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> I have way too much custom elisp to build and debug
| Rust /Go/C++_
|
| What kind of emacs scripts do you write to help debug
| Rust?
| sgillen wrote:
| I switched because all my coworkers use VSC, just easier to
| have extensions like linters and goto definitions synced, we
| can help each other with any issues in the workflow.
|
| Still use emacs + org mode for notes though, and spent quite
| a lot of time getting VSC to act like emacs in terms of
| shortcuts etc.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Still use emacs + org mode for notes though,
|
| Sounds like you didn't switch, but rather added another
| tool in your toolbox.
|
| The constant comparisons to VSCode frustrate me because
| they're often presented as "either-or".
|
| I use Emacs. And I use VSCode.
| lucasoshiro wrote:
| > The constant comparisons to VSCode frustrate me because
| they're often presented as "either-or"
|
| I can say the same for Vim... My primary editor is Emacs,
| but I use vim if I want to edit something quickly in the
| terminal (config files, git commits, etc). If the
| codebase is bigger then I use the JetBrains IDEs...
|
| I installed VSCode but I just don't like it. Until today
| I didn't find a use case for it being added to toolbelt.
| But I must admit that it almost won the editor wars,
| people just suppose that you use it.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| > It's slow
|
| What?
|
| > the plugins are ass > the LSPs are horrible for basically
| anything which isn't Typescript
|
| _What??_
|
| I need to edit projects on a remote machine nearly every day.
| (I do cross-platform Python dev so I need to run and test
| code on Windows and Linux VMs while working on a Mac.)
| Compare VSC's Remote Edit plugin to TRAMP and let me know
| what you think. For me it's not even a contest. TRAMP just
| simply doesn't work in a majority of use cases and I've only
| had a few small hiccups with the VSC Remote Edit. Getting LSP
| plugins working over TRAMP on another machine is hell. I just
| use Emacs for org-mode and Magit now.
| IceDane wrote:
| Anyone comparing tramp to Vscs remote editing is
| delusional, and I say this as an emacs user.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| VSCode remote editing is a broken piece of shit.
|
| [Yeah, yeah, I know, I shouldn't be running NixOS and I
| should use a Microsoft (c) approved OS instead like all
| the cool kids. Wake me up in 100 years when Microsoft
| ceases to exist.]
| d0mine wrote:
| Most of my work projects require remote machines. But I
| edit local files most of the time (in Emacs). Unit tests
| may be run locally sometimes (docker or even on the
| localhost). Other tasks/tests run remotely and setup may be
| rather involved (VSC would be of little help here) but it
| is easy to use/extend (Python glues together some ssh
| commands and cloud APIs). The code may be synced (non CI
| case) using a customizable wrapper around entr & rsync
| (more efficient, more control, more reliable than VSC
| plugin)-- it helps with the fast feedback loop.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| At the very least it's useful to use the tools that your
| coworkers are using. If you're helping a new grad out you do
| _not_ want to recommend that they use emacs over VS Code.
| And, when they have questions about VS Code, it's useful if
| you can answer them.
|
| Maybe you don't have to use VS Code full-time, but having a
| knowledge of it is useful.
|
| Personally, I started using VS Code because support for
| frontend is much better there than in JetBrains IDEs and it
| has great remote editing capabilities. I would prefer to use
| JetBrains IDEs (I did for many years, and I still go back for
| Java), but VS Code is just better. I would never use Vim for
| editing full-time, though I do use lunarvim when I need to
| quickly edit a remote file.
| golly_ned wrote:
| I use doom too. It's slow vs VSC for me and doesn't have a
| lot of code intelligence actions easily accessible. The LSPs
| are great for languages I code in, Go and Python.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| What do you mean by slow? Like, slow at doing what? I can't
| think of a specific feature that is slower on vscode. Emacs
| is actually rather slow...
| cerved wrote:
| Starting
| parasti wrote:
| I switched from Emacs to VS Code some years ago after being a
| hardcore Emacs user for many years. For me it was
| customization fatigue. Just an endless accumulation of Emacs
| Lisp one liners and functions that I have no use for outside
| of Emacs. In comparison, I don't even know where my VS Code
| dotfiles are. I don't need it to be set up with my
| customizations, I just use it out of the box and add
| extensions when I need to.
| Lyngbakr wrote:
| I was an Emacs user for years, then discovered Helix. I tried
| it on a whim and it turns out that I really enjoyed a modal
| editor that requires minimal config. I'm not sure if it's due
| to my an age, but I no longer want to constantly tweak my setup
| and just want a solid out of the box experience.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Yeah if I'm on a machine that I isn't my primary system, and
| I don't want to spend forever configuring my whole setup, I
| use Helix or (Neo)vim.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I wonder how many users Emacs has lost to VS Code over the
| past few years. I'm one of them.
|
| I think Emacs users care more about the total population than
| one particular outmigration.
|
| I don't have actual data, but if I compare to the amount of
| activity (blog posts, tweets/toots, packages, etc), then
| (heavy) Emacs usage seems to be monotonically increasing.
|
| Almost everyone I know who switched to VSCode was using Emacs
| primarily for work, and mostly limited to SW development. That
| category of users may be large in absolute numbers, but most of
| the Emacs ecosystem is not driven by that category (i.e. even
| if that category shrinks to a tenth of its size, it won't have
| any impact on Emacs development).
|
| Just take a look at the talks in the conference. The vast
| majority are orthogonal to SW development/programming.
| lawn wrote:
| I think your analysis applies to Neovim too.
| lysace wrote:
| Non-programmer usage of neovim outweighs programmer usage?
| lysace wrote:
| Are you saying that most emacs users aren't in "SW
| development/programming"? Of course not.
|
| Would someone not _very carefully_ reading your comment think
| otherwise? Yes, probably.
| b1476 wrote:
| I've tried twice to make the move to VS Code and keep coming
| back to Emacs. I would often be overwhelmed by my obsession to
| tweak things (ADHD..) but switching to Doom Emacs and sticking
| to the standard config helped with that. Learning some Elisp to
| write custom functions and embracing org-mode has made it near
| impossible to switch to another editor now.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I was one of them but I went back. It's just soooo good, and VS
| Code sits in my uncanny valley of almost-but-not-quite native
| in a way that bugs me.
| zkry wrote:
| I really enjoyed the conference this year! It had a good mix of
| project updates, emacs internals, configuration, Emacs rewrites
| in different languages, org-mode applications, community,
| interesting packages, and things that went over my head.
| amichail wrote:
| Do you think TeXmacs should be included in EmacsConf, even though
| it is based on neither Emacs nor TeX, but merely inspired by
| them?
| nxobject wrote:
| From an entirely armchair commentator, I think so - the
| exchange of ideas and enthusiasm among Emacs-likes can only
| benefit both projects and Lisp-based editors in general. (The
| reason I'm very armchair is because use LyX when I want to
| write technical documents, which does leave out one of
| TeXmacs's really important use cases.)
| Vekz wrote:
| I was really impressed with the online presentation of EmacsConf
| 2024. Everything captured and published in org-mode: Transcripts,
| Comments, QA, Video links. Was really nice to peruse.
| emptybits wrote:
| Wondering if the Lem project is "accepted" (or worth a test
| drive) by the Emacs community. I'm a long time Emacs user,
| occasionally leaving but always returning. Lately, Lem has my
| attention. https://github.com/lem-project/lem
|
| For those not familiar, Lem is very approximately an Emacs,
| natively written and extendable in Common Lisp, multiplatform,
| NCurses & SDL2, etc. LSP. And fast.
| stackghost wrote:
| Lem is really great. I hope it keeps gaining mind share because
| it's superior to emacs in a lot of key ways.
| stragies wrote:
| Sounds nice, how is the ecosystem of plugins/extensions
| compared to Emacs? Are there Debian packaging plans?
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Latest release is of February. Has progress been made?
| djaouen wrote:
| I can't see myself leaving Emacs. _Maybe_ for LunarVim, in an
| extreme case. But otherwise, no.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Ah man, I'm gutted I didn't "attend" this. Been an Emacs user
| more than 15 years and people like Sacha were there at the
| beginning for me and a huge reason why I got into Emacs back
| then. I feel so lucky to have got into it back then. I see
| colleagues struggling with their tools which they can't fix or
| even tweak, but I can't imagine any of them putting in the time
| now to learn Emacs. It's truly the editor of a lifetime.
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