[pjmlp]

I sure do understand what makes Emacs Emacs.

It was the only thing that I somehow could use to try to get an IDE like experience during university days (comparing with my usual Amiga/Mac/Windows tools), on our UNIX environments, initially AIX and DG/UX workstations.

Eventually coupled with DDD for a sane debugging experience.

So VI vs Emacs? Definitely Emacs.

Emacs vs IDE? Only when I have to.

[qwertyuiop924]

...Which I could tell from how you phrased your comment. I was merely speaking generally, I assure you.

However, I must say that if I was asked the question "Emacs or IDE?" The answer would be "EMACS!" said rapidly and with great force. I never really understood why people like IDEs. Maybe I've just been using the wrong ones. It might have something to do with the fact that most of my IDE experiences is tied to Java, a language I find so unpleasant that I have to cleanse myself with Lisp, Python, Ruby, Haskell, Rust, or some other, equally pleasant language to get the bad taste out of my mouth after using it.

It also could be that the support for the Lisps in Emacs in unbelievably good. It's not as good as the Lispms or some of the proprietary IDEs, or so I've been told, but I can't afford either, and those only work with one dialect of Lisp, whereas Emacs works with all the popular ones and a few that aren't.

[pjmlp]

I got to use Turbo Pascal (MS-DOS and Windows), Delphi, Borland/Turbo C++, C++ Builder, Smalltalk, Oberon, Hypercard, Visual Basic, DevPac, Visual Objects, and a few others before Java was announced to the world.

The thing, is that Emacs doesn't offer many of the tools Lisp environments offer, is like trying to judge Smalltalk developer experience by using GNU Smalltalk instead of Squeak or Pharo.

[qwertyuiop924]

Well, then, that would explain it. We have our tastes: there's nothing wrong with yours.

Your last sentence was a bit scrambled, but I gather you're saying that other Lisp development environments are superior to Emacs. That may be true, but most other Lisp environments are either in the Emacs family (Edwin, Hemlock), not superior to Emacs in any way (Dr Racket), or really expensive, so I know nothing about them (LispWorks, etc.).

So in conclusion, I'll take arguably inferior but really really good over allegedly superior but very very expensive.

[lispm]

Symbolics Genera is so far ahead Emacs, it's not even funny. Even though it is unmaintained since 20 years.

Xerox Interlisp-D was similar mind-blowing.

[qwertyuiop924]

So, are we talking about far ahead of emacs's default (which I can see), or heavily ahead of the heavily extended emacs most emacs users actually run (which I'm having trouble seeing, honestly). Either way, how so?

Regardless, I don't see myself using either or their descendants any time soon: Emacs is a very good environment, and I don't have several grand to spare.

[lispm]

YOu can extend GNU Emacs as much as you want, it is always single threaded. For a start. The UI is interestng, but fucked in many ways. That's how it is.

[qwertyuiop924]

If that's really your major issue with it...

Yes, the UI is awkward, but I've never really had any issues with it. It's functional.

Yes, Emacs isn't multithreaded. And yes, this can sometimes get annoying, although it's quite rare for me to actually have trouble with it. And slave processes, while expensive, are cheap enough.

In any case, threading support is on the todo list, so it may be done sometime this century.

[lispm]

> If that's really your major issue with it...

You seem to be misinterpreting me quite often. It's ONE issue. A development environment which is not multithreaded, is not very advanced.

> it's quite rare for me to actually have trouble with it.

No surprise: Blub paradox at work. Your tools limit your thought.

If my Lisp Machine would be single threaded, it would suck.

> Yes, the UI is awkward, but I've never really had any issues with it. It's functional.

Most Lisp-based development environment have much better UIs. For example in LispWorks or on a Lisp Machine the keychords are shorter. The Dynamic Windows UI of the Lisp Machine is still light-years ahead of anything GNU Emacs.

Here I made a demo how the documentation system works on the Symbolics. It uses Zmacs (the Emacs editor on the Lisp Machine, which Stallman used before he developed GNU Emacs) a component to write documentation records. This stuff had been developed in the mid-end 80s...

https://vimeo.com/83886950

Here Kalman Reti gives a demo of a Lisp Listener on the Symbolics and debugging mixed Lisp/C code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk