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