Re: Is Elisp really that slow?

[Ergus]

On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 01:05:12PM +0900, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> > On May 17, 2019, at 11:26, �scar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >
> > Jean-Christophe Helary <brandelune@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > If "instant gratification" means finding a common ground on which one
> > > can get started right away, then I'm all for it.
> >
> > "Instant gratification" means wanting things that require no learning
> > nor practicing nor understanding to be effectively used *right* *now*.
>
> There is another word for that (and the earlier wheel metaphor may have escaped you), it 
> is call "standardization".
Agree. 
> > It would be doubleplusgood if Emacs could be one of those things but,
> > alas, it is obvious that text editors still are on the class of things
> > that require certain effort to be used effectively.
>
> Please. Text editing is the most common task by at least an order of magnitude 
> in the IT world. Even for kids.
Also agree 100%.
> > Maybe Emacs requires a bit more effort at the beginning, but it pays off... at 
> > least on text manipulation tasks.
>
> Except that no. Check Eli's list of areas where emacs has fallen way behind. 
> There are all related to advanced text manipulation.
And standardization was mentioned by Stefan as important too.
> > From 1985 to 2010 (give or take a few years and discounting Java and
> > some other modern language) Emacs was the best programmer's editor on
> > the "by hackers, for hackers" category. I suppose that most current
> > users come from that period.
>
> Because they don't fit your narrative ? I've started trying emacs in the mid 
> 90's and the best pro editor I could find then that I could make sense of was 
> BBEdit. I'm still using it when I have no time to uncover emacs' arbitrary 
> idiosyncrasies. In fact, this discussion makes me realize that the only reason 
> I use emacs is because it is a lisp environment and so I don't have to wait for 
> developers to develop something for me and I can write a few lines of lisp 
> myself if needed. Just like I write a few lines of AppleScript to solve trivial 
> issues on my Mac instead of buying a $5 hack (but I could write AppleScript to 
> automate BBEdit, except that it is less elegant than lisp).
That is sadly a very common only reason people use Emacs.

But for new users, lisp looks like ancient Cyrillic. So I don't expect
that in the future it will be a reason many users chose emacs. And there
is also the fact that other editors offer somehow the same flexibility
with Java Script or Python, which are more familiar and popular these
days.
> > > Access to free software should never be the sole privilege of "users
> > > who understand that gains require efforts". Quite the opposite.
> >
> > Free Software is not a factor *today*, because most competitors are Free
> > Software too. Even Visual Studio Code is MIT-licensed.
>
> Ummm. So you agree that emacs sucks until you reach a given yet undefined 
> enlightenment point and that free software is not a factor, so why not plainly 
> declare that emacs is for a self proclaimed elite and then move on?
Better no comment this, but I agree that this is the feeling.
> > OTOH, we have the vim phenomenon. An "old thing" which is way more
> > peculiar than Emacs,
>
> No. Unless "peculiar" means "consistent".
It is actually a prove that being consistent can success, even when not
following the standards in the rest of the world. Also that programmers
prefer to use their logic (compose binding commands) instead of their
memory (memorize bindings) to interact with the editor.
> > but with a growing user base. Those who point out
> > the dificulties of new users to copy and paste or to save text to a file
> > with Emacs, should ponder how vim has no problem requiring training for
> > doing the most basic thing a text editor is supposed to do.
>
> "consistency"
Exactly
> > Maybe, just maybe, having "kill & yank" instead "copy & paste" is not
> > the cause of Emacs' lack of appeal to the new generations.
>
> If that's your conclusion, you must have missed a few mails in the thread. Eli 
> clarified that a long time ago.
>
> Jean-Christophe Helary
> -----------------------------------------------
> http://mac4translators.blogspot.com @brandelune