Re: Changes for emacs 28

[TEC]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> That describes how it felt, subjectively, to you.
> That's a consequence of some concrete things about DOOM,
> I am sure -- but I have no idea what those concrete things _are_.

I appreciate the difficulty.
Unfortunately, as you point out this is a single subjective impression
of qualitative factors that are generally hard to pin down.
I welcome any attempt to corral my jumbled thoughts into something
actually useful, and will try my best to communicate which factors had
the most impact on my experience :)

> Can you describe even a few of the concrete differences of DOOM that
> made it so easy for you?  I suggest not aiming for completeness,
> but rather mentioning the ones that are most important.
>
> That would be the information we might perhaps draw concrete lessons
> from.
>
>   > IMO the most significant factor is that Doom allowed me to "just get
>   > started" with the tasks
>
> Could you describe a few of those tasks, and what would have been
> hard about them, which DOOM made easier?

So, the task that got me started was using R, notebook style
 --- i.e. R + Org.

This is what the process was like with Doom:
 - run the one-line install script
 - opening the config dir is prominently listed (with the associated
   keybinding) on the 'home'/init/welcome buffer
 - I find three files, well commented, describing what they are and what
   to do with them
 - I see ESS listed in init.el as a 'statistics' module under :lang
   C-c c k pulls up the documentation on it (as I am told by comments at
   the start of the file) and I see that it does indeed add support for
   R. I uncomment the line and run 'doom refresh'
 - Excluding install time, I think this took me ~5 minutes

At this point I have:
 - Support for R
 - Completion via Company
 - Linting via Flycheck
 - A fuzzy searcher for commands I don't know with Ivy
 - When I pause on keybindings (what was that next part?)
   which-key pops up.
 - An editor that appeals to my 'flashy modern' sensibles
   + A UI/theme more inline with Atom/VS Code/etc.
   + Git status gutters
   + A modeline that tells me nice stuff like

To get here all I needed to know is that I wanted to use R,
notebook-style with Org, hoping to see the 'editor features' that I
missed in JupyterLab.

In order to get to this same point with Vanilla emacs I'd need to:
 - Identify ESS as the package for R (quick search online)
 - Work out how to install packages
   + come across conflicting answers on the web. use-package? straight?
     package-install?
 - I'd try an R block in org, and get told:
   "No org-babel-execute function for R!"
   + what's this? how do I fix it?
 - Once I get that working - where's the completion I was hoping for?
   + another internet trip...
 - Etc.

Unfortunately I can't imagine this taking a comparable length of time,
or being nearly as easy.

I'm not sure that Emacs can embrace the behaviours that people who have
primarily experienced the likes of VS Code/Atom/JetBrains/Sublime/etc.
will be looking for, without compromising the experience that long-time
users have come to expect. Perhaps the way forward may be to treat
standard Emacs as a core and prominently offer 'distributions' of Emacs?

Possibly the best thing about Emacs IMO is its versatility. I suspect
that trying to be all things to all people could be a futile task,
but maybe Emacs can lean into this and say to a new user:
 - if you're looking to use Emacs like X, here you go
 - looking for Y instead? Then just use/do this
 - actually want Z? Here's that option...

This seems like something where some selection of:
 - modules
 - profiles
 - embracing distributions

could improve the situation.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts. Hopefully they're of some interest.

> I'm also curious about how why you decided to change from DOOM
> to standard Emacs?

Erm. I haven't switched from Doom to standard Emacs. Apologies if I
incorrectly implied that somewhere.
My journey was (excluding pre-emacs):
  Spacemacs (for a brief period) → Vanilla (for mere hours) → Doom

[aside: why I'm still on doom, http://ix.io/2wUw]

I feel that for the purposes of this discussion, it would have been nice
if I'd spent longer trying to get vanilla/standard Emacs working --- but
I didn't. However I'll still offer what I can in the hope that it may be
useful.

All the best,

Timothy.