feat(web/blog): Add draft blog post on Emacs
This post is a draft, i.e. not linked from the index. It's not a secret, but if you do find it through this commit before its publication please don't share it too widely yet.
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Vincent Ambo
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# This file defines all the blog posts.
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[
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{
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key = "emacs-is-underrated";
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title = "Emacs is the most underrated tool";
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date = 1581286656;
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content = ./posts/emacs-is-underrated.md;
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draft = true;
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}
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{
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key = "best-tools";
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title = "tazjin's best tools";
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216
web/blog/posts/emacs-is-underrated.md
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216
web/blog/posts/emacs-is-underrated.md
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TODO: Hello, and thanks for offering to review my draft! The intention
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of this post is to convey to people what the point of Emacs is. Not
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with the intention of converting them to use it, but at least with
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opening their minds to the possibility that it might contain valuable
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things. I don't know if I'm on track in the right direction and your
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input will help me figure it out. Thanks!
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There are two kinds of people: Those who use Emacs, and those who
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think it is a text editor. This post is aimed at those in the second
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category.
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Emacs is the most important piece of software I run. My [Emacs
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configuration][emacs-config] has steadily evolved for almost a decade.
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Emacs is my window manager, mail client, terminal, git client,
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information management system and - perhaps unsurprisingly - text
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editor.
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Before going into why I chose to invest so much into this program,
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follow me along on a little thought experiment:
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----------
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Imagine you have a computer running a standard, proprietary operating
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system.
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On it, you use a proprietary spreadsheet program. You find that there
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are features in it that *almost, but not quite* do what you want.
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What can you do about this? You can file a feature request to the
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company that makes it and hope they listen, but for the likes of Apple
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and Microsoft chances are they won't and there is nothing you can do.
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Let's say you are also running an open-source program for image
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manipulation. You again find that some of its features are subtly
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different from what you would want them to do.
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Things look a bit different this time - after all, the program is
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open-source! You can go and fetch its source code, figure out its
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internal structure and wrangle various layers of code into submission
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until you find the piece that implements the functionality you want to
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change. If you know the language it is written in, you can modify the
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feature.
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Now all that's left is figuring out its build system[^1], building and
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installing it and moving over to the new version.
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Realistically you are not going to do this much in the real world. The
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friction to contributing to projects, especially complex ones, is
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often quite high. For minor inconveniences, you might often find
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yourself just shrugging and working around them.
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What if it didn't have to be this way?
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-------------
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One of the core properties of Emacs is that it is *introspective* and
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*self-documenting*.
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For a simple example: A few years ago, I had just switched over to
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using [EXWM][], the Emacs X Window Manager. To launch applications I
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was using a program called Helm, which is similar in spirit to dmenu,
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that let me select installed programs interactively and press
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<kbd>RET</kbd> to execute them.
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This was very useful - until I discovered that if I tried to open a
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second terminal emulator while one was already running it would
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display an error:
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Error: urxvt is already running
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Now if this had been dmenu, I might have had to go through the whole
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process described above to fix the issue. But it wasn't dmenu - it was
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an Emacs program, and I did the following things:
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1. I pressed <kbd>C-h k</kbd>[^2] (which means "please tell me what
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the following key does"), followed by <kbd>s-d</kbd> (which was my
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key binding for launching programs).
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2. Emacs displayed a new buffer saying, roughly:
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```
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s-d runs the command helm-run-external-command (found in global-map),
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which is an interactive autoloaded compiled Lisp function in
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‘.../helm-external.el’.
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It is bound to s-d.
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```
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I clicked on the filename.
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3. Emacs opened the file and jumped to the definition of
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`helm-run-external-command`. After a few seconds of reading through
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the code, I found this snippet:
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```lisp
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(if (get-process proc)
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(if helm-raise-command
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(shell-command (format helm-raise-command real-com))
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(error "Error: %s is already running" real-com))
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;; ... the actual code to launch programs followed below ...
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)
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```
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4. I deleted the outer if-expression which implemented the behaviour I
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didn't want, pressed <kbd>C-M-x</kbd> to reload the code and saved
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the file.
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The whole process took maybe a minute, and the problem was now gone.
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For those to whom this means something: Emacs is the closest we can
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get to the experience of Lisp machines on modern hardware.
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---------------
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Circling back to my opening statement: If Emacs is not a text editor,
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then what *is* it?
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The Emacs website says this:
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> [Emacs] is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp
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> programming language with extensions to support text editing
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The core of Emacs implements the language and the functionality needed
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to evaluate and run it, as well as various primitives for user
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interface construction such as buffers, windows and frames.
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Everything else that people think of when Emacs is mentioned is
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implemented *in Emacs Lisp*.
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The Emacs distribution ships with rudimentary text editing
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functionality (and some language-specific support for the most popular
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languages), but it also brings with it two IRC clients, a Tetris
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implementation, a text-mode web browser, [org-mode][] and many other
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tools.
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Outside of the core distribution there is a myriad of available
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programs for Emacs: [magit][] (the famous git porcelain), text-based
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[HTTP clients][], even interactive [Kubernetes frontends][k8s].
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What all of these tools have in common is that they gain the
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introspectability and composability of everything else in Emacs.
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If magit does not expose a git flag I need, it's trivial to add. If I
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want a key binding to jump from a buffer showing me a Kubernetes pod
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to a magit buffer for the source code of the container it only takes a
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few lines of Emacs Lisp to implement.
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As proficiency with Emacs Lisp ramps up, the environment becomes
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malleable like clay and evolves along with the user's taste and needs.
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Muscle memory learned for one program translates seamlessly to others,
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and the overall effect is an improvement in *workflow fluidity* that
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is difficult to overstate.
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In addition, workflows based on Emacs are *stable*. Moving my window
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management to Emacs has meant that I'm not subject to some third-party
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developer deciding that my window layouting features will now change
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(as they often do on systems like MacOS).
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To illustrate this: Emacs has development history all the way back to
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the 1970s, continuous git history that survived multiple VCS
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migrations [since 1985][first-commit] (that's 22 years before git
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itself was released!) and there is code[^3] implementing interactive
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functionality that has survived unmodified in Emacs *since then*.
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---------------
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Now, what is the point of this post?
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I decided to write this after a recent [tweet][] by @IanColdwater (in
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the context of todo-management apps):
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> The fact that it's 2020 and the most viable answer to this appears
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> to be Emacs might be the saddest thing I've ever heard
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What bothers me is that people see this as *sad*. Emacs being around
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for this long and still being unparlleled for many of the UX paradigms
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implemented by its programs is, in my book, incredible - and not sad.
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How many other paradigms have survived this long? How many other tools
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still have fervent followers, amazing [developer tooling][] and a
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[vibrant ecosystem][] at this age?
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Steve Yegge [said it best][babel][^5]: Emacs has the Quality Without a
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Name.
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What I wish you, the reader, should take away from this post is the
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following:
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TODO(tazjin): Figure out what people should actually take away from
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this post. I need to sleep on it. It's something about not dismissing
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tools just because of their age, urging them to explore paradigms that
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might seem unfamiliar and so on. Ideas welcome.
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---------------
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[^1]: Wouldn't it be a joy if every project just used Nix? I digress ...
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[^2]: These are keyboard shortcuts written in [Emacs Key Notation][ekn].
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[^3]: For example, [functionality for online memes][studly] that
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wouldn't be invented for decades to come!
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[^4]: ... and some things wrong, but that is an issue for a separate post!
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[^5]: And I really *do* urge you to read that post's section on Emacs.
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[emacs-config]: https://git.tazj.in/tree/tools/emacs
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[EXWM]: https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm
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[helm]: https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm
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[ekn]: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/efaq/Basic-keys.html
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[org-mode]: https://orgmode.org/
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[magit]: https://magit.vc
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[HTTP clients]: https://github.com/pashky/restclient.el
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[k8s]: https://github.com/jypma/kubectl
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[first-commit]: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/commit/?id=ce5584125c44a1a2fbb46e810459c50b227a95e2
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[studly]: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/commit/?id=47bdd84a0a9d20aab934482a64b84d0db63e7532
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[tweet]: https://twitter.com/IanColdwater/status/1220824466525229056
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[developer tooling]: https://github.com/alphapapa/emacs-package-dev-handbook
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[vibrant ecosystem]: https://github.com/emacs-tw/awesome-emacs
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[babel]: https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel#TOC-Lisp
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