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IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs

(codeberg.org)
301 points nogajun | 3 comments | 16 Nov 25 00:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.484s | source
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giancarlostoro ◴[16 Nov 25 04:06 UTC] No.45942664[source]▶
I would love to see a project that rebuilds the Emacs UI but keeps the underlying core to give it a modern facelift, some things in emacs blend together and are a pain for my eyes to figure out whats what. It would be nice if the UI was modernized but the core was left as-is. I'm reminded of some of my favorite editors that are niche being Lisp related ones, where if you held down ctrl it would show you shortcuts in the UI itself and what they lead to. I also always enjoyed Racket's import arrows and other small things that are visually amazingly impressive despite being so simple.
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koiueo ◴[16 Nov 25 06:54 UTC] No.45943289[source]▶
I'd argue the opposite. UI is ok, it can be configured to look timeless (not modern).

But the core with its single thread processing and constant hangs, requiring you to repeatedly hit C-g at least once a day, is first in line for "facelift".

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Myrmornis ◴[16 Nov 25 11:00 UTC] No.45944147[source]▶
You can make it look modern: get rid of all menus and bars so that there is nothing on screen except for the text you're editing. (e.g. search for minimal.el) It looks indistinguishable from any other modern editor / IDE in zen mode. Menus and bars are not necessary in these sorts of applications if you use then daily -- more efficient and powerful to use the command palette and key bindings.
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1. koiueo ◴[16 Nov 25 11:21 UTC] No.45944235[source]▶
> nothing on screen except for the text you're editing

Just wanted to clarify, to me that's timeless. Modern would be having modern menus, pop-up configuration screen et al.. All the candy that appeals to a less experienced user, who worked with Idea, Sublime of VS code before.

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2. Myrmornis ◴[16 Nov 25 11:59 UTC] No.45944436[source]▶
I guess I'm not really sure that menus are modern. But anyway I hate the stubbornness over the vanilla emacs UI. The nonsense in the menus and the stupid pixelated pictures of scissors or whatever.

But I've never really got the idea of why emacs should appeal to less experienced users. I think that's misguided: the entire point of Emacs is that you write some emacs lisp. If you're not interested in writing any lisp, then you definitely shouldn't bother with emacs (I used emacs intensively for 20 years and am the author of Emacs packages). And if you're less experienced and looking for Idea/Sublime experience then at this point in your life there's a good chance you aren't interested in writing lisp.

3. skydhash ◴[16 Nov 25 12:47 UTC] No.45944715[source]▶
There's a reason there's no beginner car, no beginner guitar, and no beginner drill. Those are either tools or toys. If all you want is to type some text, notepad (or the equivalent in other OS) is enough. But programmers do more with text. So they should know what tools provide those and how to use those tools. But then you'll find a lot of programmers barely go one level up from notepad with their tools.