[complex1314]

Use emacsclient and have a emacs server running at all times. Super fast startup times, you can even use emacsclient -nw (or make an alias 'e' for that) in the terminal for fast edits with instantaneous startup.

You could also make a script that starts emacs as a client only if a server already is running

  #!/bin/sh
  if [ "$#" -eq 0 ]
  then
    echo "Starting new Emacs process ..." >&2
    nohup emacs > /dev/null 2>&1 &
  elif emacsclient -n "$@" 2> /dev/null
  then
    echo "Opened $@ in Emacs server" >&2
  else
    echo "Opening $@ in a new Emacs process ..." >&2
    nohup emacs "$@" > /dev/null 2>&1 &
  fi

(Copied from an emacs starter kit but don't remember which...)

[alex_smart]

You don't need to do all that. Just run emacsclient with `emacsclient -a ""`.

From the man page:

    -a, --alternate-editor=COMMAND
           If  the  Emacs  server  is  not  running, run the specified shell command instead.  This can also be specified via the ALTERNATE_EDITOR environment variable.  If the value of ALTERNATE_EDITOR is the empty string, run
           "emacs --daemon" to start Emacs in daemon mode, and try to connect to it.

[complex1314]

Didn't know that, thanks!

[massysett]

This is really “just leave Emacs running all the time,” which is more of a workaround or an acceptance of “fit your workflow around Emacs” than it is truly a solution, which would be to reduce startup times.

[joseph8th]

Once it starts it does almost nothing unless you're using it, and then it's still a lightweight document editor, not an Electron app

[tom_]

Why do you quit though? I don’t quit other programs... why is Emacs different?

[massysett]

I quit and restart Vim dozens of times daily.

I’m not saying there’s something wrong with leaving Emacs running. But it’s a workaround. When I used Emacs, startup time was not a problem. But I didn’t use a bunch of packages.

[ghosty141]

Emacs is not supposed to be used like vim. The stereotype of living inside emacs doesnt exist for no reason.

Apart from that, without too many paclages stsrtup time is not an issue imo

[tom_]

I never used to quit vim either!

[BeetleB]

A no-config Emacs has a rapid startup time - it's instant on my PC.

> or an acceptance of “fit your workflow around Emacs” than it is truly a solution, which would be to reduce startup times.

I don't see a problem with this. Emacs is a general purpose platform, and it's silly to expect really fast startup times if you're using it as a general purpose platform. People aren't expecting Linux to have an instant startup time if you have a large number of services running - why expect it from Emacs?

[dotancohen]

Actually, reducing OS startup time used to be a goal. I think that stock Ubuntu on run-of-the-mill hardware (spinning rust) was down to 14 seconds bios-to-login at some point when they made an effort on that front.

[BeetleB]

And stock Emacs load time is virtually instant.

[dotancohen]

Acceptable workaround, though. I don't mind when people XY analyze my problems, often those with experience in a field will be mindful of details that I did not know.

For what its worth, I've got at least 23 (service --status-all) daemons already running on this desktop. So leaving things running in the background until they are needed has precedent.

[nurbl]

My fresh emacs startup time is a couple of seconds, not super snappy but then it has a reasonably large config to load. Reducing startup time is nice but I think vanilla emacs actually already starts quickly. How would you even be able to prevent people from adding heavy stuff to their config? It's possible to defer loading of packages until you need them but I think it would be hard to enforce by default, given that Emacs is really just a lisp machine and the config file is a lisp program.

I normally never exit Emacs. This is not because of startup time. To me it's like the web browser; I use it all the time, have a workspace dedicated to it and it's natural to keep lots of buffers open. My muscle memory takes care of jumping between open buffers.

[oh_sigh]

If a process isn't using any resources, is it really running at all?

(Of course it doesn't really use no resources - it consumes a finite PID among other things)

[dotancohen]

Terrific, thank you.