Why Isn't Emacs More Popular? DistroTube
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Date: 2022-03-30
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Comments and reviews: 10
insidetrip101
I think another reason why emacs isn't popular is because its not just a text editor and has a bunch of applications that overlap with other applications. You've recently said that its not actually a text editor, but instead an -elisp interpreter,- which goes against what the GNU webpage says about it: -GNU Emacs An extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor - and more.- So that's where people get the -idea- that its a text editor. But lets assume for the sake of argument that you're right: its an elisp interpreter.
If that's true, what other applications does elisp have? Oh, that's right, only Emacs. Elisp is literally a programming language DESIGNED to be used in emacs. So why am I going to go to the trouble of learning elisp only to not be able to use it anywhere but emacs? Sure, elisp is probably (I don't know because I haven't used emacs and therefore not elisp) very similar to other versions of lisp, but even lisp isn't that widely used. The number of people that know lisp is very small, so its already targeting a very small user base.
So ultimately, they're asking the wrong question. Why won't I use emacs? I'd reply, why would I? I'm sure its a great program for people who are in love with lisp, but I don't understand why I wouldn't use a bunch of smaller applications instead of a monolithic -elisp interpreter- (which is actually not what it is described as being).
Not trying to be a dick, I've just not seen any compelling reason as to why I should use emacs. That doesn't mean that I think that emacs users are dumb, it just means that I don't understand what the purpose of it is. Emacs is/does whatever I want? Well so can a myriad of other interpreted programming languages. I don't see anything special about it.
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I think another reason why emacs isn't popular is because its not just a text editor and has a bunch of applications that overlap with other applications. You've recently said that its not actually a text editor, but instead an -elisp interpreter,- which goes against what the GNU webpage says about it: -GNU Emacs An extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor - and more.- So that's where people get the -idea- that its a text editor. But lets assume for the sake of argument that you're right: its an elisp interpreter.
If that's true, what other applications does elisp have? Oh, that's right, only Emacs. Elisp is literally a programming language DESIGNED to be used in emacs. So why am I going to go to the trouble of learning elisp only to not be able to use it anywhere but emacs? Sure, elisp is probably (I don't know because I haven't used emacs and therefore not elisp) very similar to other versions of lisp, but even lisp isn't that widely used. The number of people that know lisp is very small, so its already targeting a very small user base.
So ultimately, they're asking the wrong question. Why won't I use emacs? I'd reply, why would I? I'm sure its a great program for people who are in love with lisp, but I don't understand why I wouldn't use a bunch of smaller applications instead of a monolithic -elisp interpreter- (which is actually not what it is described as being).
Not trying to be a dick, I've just not seen any compelling reason as to why I should use emacs. That doesn't mean that I think that emacs users are dumb, it just means that I don't understand what the purpose of it is. Emacs is/does whatever I want? Well so can a myriad of other interpreted programming languages. I don't see anything special about it.
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Chuck
I think everyone is missing the point. It is useless to compare emacs and vim, they are two completely different animals. Everyone keeps calling emacs a text editor (which, at it's heart, it is. All of your files are text files) but it is so much more. If all you want is a text editor vim is a more obvious choice though I think there are better choices if that's all you want. On the other hand if you want a complete integrated work environment that you never have to leave in order to accomplish pretty much everything emacs is the only game in town. It's not the text editor that makes emacs special, it's all of the other stuff it can do. When emacs really shines is when you start using org-mode (a complete PIM) and its ability to handle tables and folding text (ala XML), mail/news, and even web browsing and spreadsheets.
People say emacs is bloated, but try to put together a package of programs to do all of this stuff and emacs is usually MUCH smaller. Then, if you're on the command line, you have to learn all of the individual keybindings for all of those different programs, but if you're in emacs they are all consistent.
Could emacs use a facelift? Sure! As long as it doesn't change it's functionality or mess up the people who use it on a regular basis. The only people who are going to use emacs are the people willing to put the time into learning to use their software, making it a bit prettier isn't going to change that.
So DT, how about a series on emacs. One for basics, one for org mode, one for mail/news, etc.?
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I think everyone is missing the point. It is useless to compare emacs and vim, they are two completely different animals. Everyone keeps calling emacs a text editor (which, at it's heart, it is. All of your files are text files) but it is so much more. If all you want is a text editor vim is a more obvious choice though I think there are better choices if that's all you want. On the other hand if you want a complete integrated work environment that you never have to leave in order to accomplish pretty much everything emacs is the only game in town. It's not the text editor that makes emacs special, it's all of the other stuff it can do. When emacs really shines is when you start using org-mode (a complete PIM) and its ability to handle tables and folding text (ala XML), mail/news, and even web browsing and spreadsheets.
People say emacs is bloated, but try to put together a package of programs to do all of this stuff and emacs is usually MUCH smaller. Then, if you're on the command line, you have to learn all of the individual keybindings for all of those different programs, but if you're in emacs they are all consistent.
Could emacs use a facelift? Sure! As long as it doesn't change it's functionality or mess up the people who use it on a regular basis. The only people who are going to use emacs are the people willing to put the time into learning to use their software, making it a bit prettier isn't going to change that.
So DT, how about a series on emacs. One for basics, one for org mode, one for mail/news, etc.?
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itech
Not only is it true that a program needn't be -the most popular thing ever- (this attitude is destroying AAA games), but people generally need their attitudes shaken up when it comes to learning -difficult- things.
It takes a few days to get used to Vim. A few days or weeks and a standard user will be as comfortable in Linux as in Windows. It's not hard to get used to the Terminal, takes a day or two to learn the basics. Adults struggle and face embarrassment to learn to drive, but then they do and a year later have no idea what they were so afraid of when they first got behind the wheel - most of this stuff is a comparatively LOW investment in time for a HIGH return on efficiency or customizability. Yet people talk about Vim's learning curve as if it'll take a year before you can write a simple Python script. It'll take a few hours. I sincerely doubt Emacs is much harder. I get that not everyone is techy, but if they can learn to drive or get a trade certificate, they'll find stuff like this so much faster and easier than it seems. Getting your license was 100 times harder than learning Emacs or Vim, you just need to know if it's worth the investment.
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Not only is it true that a program needn't be -the most popular thing ever- (this attitude is destroying AAA games), but people generally need their attitudes shaken up when it comes to learning -difficult- things.
It takes a few days to get used to Vim. A few days or weeks and a standard user will be as comfortable in Linux as in Windows. It's not hard to get used to the Terminal, takes a day or two to learn the basics. Adults struggle and face embarrassment to learn to drive, but then they do and a year later have no idea what they were so afraid of when they first got behind the wheel - most of this stuff is a comparatively LOW investment in time for a HIGH return on efficiency or customizability. Yet people talk about Vim's learning curve as if it'll take a year before you can write a simple Python script. It'll take a few hours. I sincerely doubt Emacs is much harder. I get that not everyone is techy, but if they can learn to drive or get a trade certificate, they'll find stuff like this so much faster and easier than it seems. Getting your license was 100 times harder than learning Emacs or Vim, you just need to know if it's worth the investment.
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Michael
I mean I'd counter your points by saying Linux IS dumbed down for new users. Manjaro, Mint, ElementaryOS is much more friendly to -noobs-. I can safely say most people don't jump into LinuxFromScratch or Void but they get babied into and grow. The same should apply to software. I for one never thought I'd be maintaining AUR packages.
This is an example of the toxic Linux elitism. Why can't the devs focus on adopting more users and allow them to grow into the software? Tutorials, key-bindings, and UI changes would probably take a week from skilled emacs devs and you could turn them off if you like. Isn't that exactly what doom or spacemacs does with EVIL mode? These -noobs- could end up adding functionality into emacs that you could benefit from.
Alternatively, you may die on a ship by yourself on emacs as people who care about emacs die or migrate away. Without -noob- adoption newer software will eventually replace it.
TLDR: as a provider of -noob--friendly Linux content, you're attacking your own viewership and giving Linux AND emacs users a bad name.
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I mean I'd counter your points by saying Linux IS dumbed down for new users. Manjaro, Mint, ElementaryOS is much more friendly to -noobs-. I can safely say most people don't jump into LinuxFromScratch or Void but they get babied into and grow. The same should apply to software. I for one never thought I'd be maintaining AUR packages.
This is an example of the toxic Linux elitism. Why can't the devs focus on adopting more users and allow them to grow into the software? Tutorials, key-bindings, and UI changes would probably take a week from skilled emacs devs and you could turn them off if you like. Isn't that exactly what doom or spacemacs does with EVIL mode? These -noobs- could end up adding functionality into emacs that you could benefit from.
Alternatively, you may die on a ship by yourself on emacs as people who care about emacs die or migrate away. Without -noob- adoption newer software will eventually replace it.
TLDR: as a provider of -noob--friendly Linux content, you're attacking your own viewership and giving Linux AND emacs users a bad name.
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georgH
Uni, 2000, first programming practice class: -To open a file use C-x f, to save C-x s-
That's how I started. I quickly realized we were just using Emacs as an editor with syntax highlighting and it was so much more powerful.
After few few months, everybody would wonder which Editor I was using that was so much different than Emacs :D
That was not the first time that I used Emacs, I remember launching it from fvwm, when it still had the terrible -kitchen sink icon- (literally, it was a kitchen sink, and not being English speaker, didn't know it was a joke). I could never understand what it was used for or why it would be useful to me instead of more simple editors.
As you very well said, it's a blank canvas, and until you know how and what to paint, the painting won't be pretty. Maybe having a default experience closer to what nowadays users expect, like Atom, Sublime, VSCode; as well as easier installation on Windows, would attract more users that stay for its power.
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Uni, 2000, first programming practice class: -To open a file use C-x f, to save C-x s-
That's how I started. I quickly realized we were just using Emacs as an editor with syntax highlighting and it was so much more powerful.
After few few months, everybody would wonder which Editor I was using that was so much different than Emacs :D
That was not the first time that I used Emacs, I remember launching it from fvwm, when it still had the terrible -kitchen sink icon- (literally, it was a kitchen sink, and not being English speaker, didn't know it was a joke). I could never understand what it was used for or why it would be useful to me instead of more simple editors.
As you very well said, it's a blank canvas, and until you know how and what to paint, the painting won't be pretty. Maybe having a default experience closer to what nowadays users expect, like Atom, Sublime, VSCode; as well as easier installation on Windows, would attract more users that stay for its power.
reply
noam65
For me the bottom line was that I could read a few pages in a simple tutorial, and in less than half an hour, create a file by name, insert some text, save and exit. If I then so desired, I could learn more, like how to edit the command line, again, in a short few pages.
I tried emacs about the same time, oh, nobody wrote a simple tutorial, like how to make a file that contained -Hello World!-. I couldn't even write the file or quit the program.
Here's the kicker... on a Sun system that I was learning how to admin, there wasn't a disk yet. The PROM has a minimal OS built in. Care to guess what the editor was? It wasn't emacs.
I've read that it's a wonderful piece of software, but my job wasn't learning emacs, it was learning to become a system administrator, when I had a few minutes break from my real responsibilities.
That's why emacs isn't popular. Coming to minimal competence on your own just takes too long, compared to vim.
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For me the bottom line was that I could read a few pages in a simple tutorial, and in less than half an hour, create a file by name, insert some text, save and exit. If I then so desired, I could learn more, like how to edit the command line, again, in a short few pages.
I tried emacs about the same time, oh, nobody wrote a simple tutorial, like how to make a file that contained -Hello World!-. I couldn't even write the file or quit the program.
Here's the kicker... on a Sun system that I was learning how to admin, there wasn't a disk yet. The PROM has a minimal OS built in. Care to guess what the editor was? It wasn't emacs.
I've read that it's a wonderful piece of software, but my job wasn't learning emacs, it was learning to become a system administrator, when I had a few minutes break from my real responsibilities.
That's why emacs isn't popular. Coming to minimal competence on your own just takes too long, compared to vim.
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pxc
DT, you yourself are a Doom Emacs user! Doom is an Emacs distribution that does so much of the very redesigning you dismiss out of hand here. From the genuinely cosmetic stuff, like hiding that top toolbar and menu bar and switching to a dark theme, to bundling up configurations that add various features and support for various languages, what distros like Doom do is bring that OOTB functionality and ease the introduction for users.
Your own use case, and your own introduction to Emacs, is proof positive that those kinds of changes can make a big difference for people who end up being enthusiastic and long-term users of the software. Come on, dude.
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DT, you yourself are a Doom Emacs user! Doom is an Emacs distribution that does so much of the very redesigning you dismiss out of hand here. From the genuinely cosmetic stuff, like hiding that top toolbar and menu bar and switching to a dark theme, to bundling up configurations that add various features and support for various languages, what distros like Doom do is bring that OOTB functionality and ease the introduction for users.
Your own use case, and your own introduction to Emacs, is proof positive that those kinds of changes can make a big difference for people who end up being enthusiastic and long-term users of the software. Come on, dude.
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eric
Your first question has (at least) one answer -- people have been trained into a Perl worldview -- you can pick up a -Perl for - book and in 10 minutes do -something- useful. Doing a lot more gets very ugly very quickly, but when the first day of effort is so productive, people will bend over backward to keep going, even with diminishing returns. Emacs takes a lot more effort to get the basics going. After that, it's super-awesome, but it's like talking about how super-awesome an airliner is while explaining 175 dials and gauges and 30 levers before you can get off the ground.
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Your first question has (at least) one answer -- people have been trained into a Perl worldview -- you can pick up a -Perl for - book and in 10 minutes do -something- useful. Doing a lot more gets very ugly very quickly, but when the first day of effort is so productive, people will bend over backward to keep going, even with diminishing returns. Emacs takes a lot more effort to get the basics going. After that, it's super-awesome, but it's like talking about how super-awesome an airliner is while explaining 175 dials and gauges and 30 levers before you can get off the ground.
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Imaltont
For anyone having trouble with copy/paste not being the same as what they are used to, there is also cua-mode. I think part of what makes it harder to learn emacs vs learning vim is also context switching. In vim you have to think different and it is obvious from the start because of its modal nature, so you are more ready to adapt. Emacs on the other hand behaves almost like what you're used to, so you reach for the same things as you would normally and have some expectations. When these expectations aren't met you get frustrated and quit.
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For anyone having trouble with copy/paste not being the same as what they are used to, there is also cua-mode. I think part of what makes it harder to learn emacs vs learning vim is also context switching. In vim you have to think different and it is obvious from the start because of its modal nature, so you are more ready to adapt. Emacs on the other hand behaves almost like what you're used to, so you reach for the same things as you would normally and have some expectations. When these expectations aren't met you get frustrated and quit.
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Bruce
One big problem with Emacs is that it looks terrible. If they'd just make it be able to use the system fonts and theme -- e.g Dark Theme -- that alone would be fantastic.
Reorganize the menu system to make modern sense. Take cues from the great IDEs and editors that are available Emacs doesn't need to change entirely. Just make it look pretty and maybe introduce a tabbed interface like Atom or something better.
reply
One big problem with Emacs is that it looks terrible. If they'd just make it be able to use the system fonts and theme -- e.g Dark Theme -- that alone would be fantastic.
Reorganize the menu system to make modern sense. Take cues from the great IDEs and editors that are available Emacs doesn't need to change entirely. Just make it look pretty and maybe introduce a tabbed interface like Atom or something better.
reply
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