[tharne]

> emacs users just live in another world entirely, this whole interaction I find typical of users who evangelize for emacs

It's not that emacs users "live in another world entirely", it's that some things a very difficult to explain to folks who don't have first-hand experience of those things. Try describing what minus 20 degrees Celsius feels like to someone who's spent their entire life in Florida, or Brazil. You can't really, it has to be experienced to be understood.

It's no different with emacs. Emacs doesn't really make any sense until you use it for a while, then all of sudden you "get it" and don't want to use anything else.

[jimmyvalmer]

> You can't really, it has to be experienced to be understood.

No, I'm pretty sure everyone knows what fragile software feels like. Disclaimer: I've been using fragile emacs as long as most HN users have been alive.

[bmitc]

It's surprising to me why people think the "you just don't get it, man" defense or marketing point will ever work.

[tharne]

It wasn't a "defense", so much as a statement of fact. I enjoy using emacs, but I don't go around trying to get the whole world to use it. I know that emacs occupies a very specific niche and is not for everyone. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about how much market share emacs has, it has enough to keep marching on, and that's about the extent of my concern.

But the point remains. You can't really understand emacs (or a lot of other things for that matter) in the abstract, you have to use it. So use it or don't, but you can't really offer meaningful criticism without have it used it a fair amount. There are plenty of warts on emacs, any emacs veteran (which I'm certainly not) will freely acknowledge that. But it does seem that most criticisms of emacs come from folks who haven't used it much.