
Emacs 26.3 - Anon84
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2019-08/msg00577.html
======
dragonsh
Great job a very good example of programmable editor.

Emacs had been my work horse since 2002 and never disappointed. In the
meantime tried many ide only vim and emacs stayed with me. Sometimes do use
nano and sublime text but then back to either emacs or vi.

All those shiny IDE based on electron, Java or C++ are just too slow to be
productive be it VScode, atom or eclipse or visual studio or kdevelop. I am
forced to use them due to tooling support for some framework. But I avoid them
as much as possible once I have configured emacs to work with the language or
sdk or framework or library in question.

~~~
non-entity
The one thing that keeps me from moving lightweight editors like vim or emacs
from the bloated IDE stuff if the ability to easily find definitions, etc. If
I have hundreds or thousands of source files and I want to find the definition
of say a struct or function, being able to _right click- >go to definition_ or
similar is a godsend. Maybe emacs or vim have similar features via plugins
though? I'm not sure.

~~~
jacktasia
My package dumb-jump might be what you want:

[https://github.com/jacktasia/dumb-jump](https://github.com/jacktasia/dumb-
jump)

~~~
dleslie
It's easily the best zero-configuration, nigh any language symbol locator, for
_any_ editor or IDE.

------
nickysielicki
I'm sick of managing 5-6 different installs of language server protocol
servers. A couple are installed with my package manager (clangd), some are
installed with pip (pyls), some I just have symlinked into ~/.local/bin
(microsoft/python-language-server). It's overly difficult to get right.

If anyone is aware of a better way, especially for emacs users, I'd appreciate
it. Is this something where docker or snapd might fit in well?

~~~
dragonsh
For python just use Elpy [1] or anaconda-mode. Microsoft Language Server is
nice but use it for things you can not find a package in elpa or melpa.

Obviously you can use emacs-prelude [2] or spacemacs [3] in the beginning and
as you get familiar write your own init.el or packages to make it work the way
you want.

I have yet to see anything like tramp allowing seemless work on file over ssh,
org-mode, ledger-mode, ERC in any other editor except may be some in vi.

Indeed magit is better than any tool you will find for managing git
repository. I can go on and on. You have to give it a try to see it for
yourself, it pays for its learning curve over the time you use it.

Initially those parentheses looks awkward, but once you get around it with
understanding lisp, you will not want to go back.

[1]
[https://github.com/jorgenschaefer/elpy](https://github.com/jorgenschaefer/elpy)

[2] [https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude](https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude)

[3]
[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs)

~~~
nickysielicki
I have my configs where I want them, packages installed with straight.el,
managed with use-package, I'm not confused on how to set up the emacs side of
things. I just want a unified mechanism to install dependencies.

> Microsoft Language Server is nice but use it for things you can not find a
> package in elpa or melpa.

That's overly restrictive. I use company as my capf provider and hook company
into lsp, it's a nice unified interface and it never gets in my way.

What I'm looking for is a mechanism to manage the dependencies of extensions.
For example, the elpy readme clearly says, "pip install jedi rope flake8
autopep8 yapf black".

~~~
jimmyvalmer
Ask yourself the number of ways packages might get installed on a given system
(apt, chocolatey, homebrew, pip, pacman, nix, guix), and recalibrate how smart
you want humble emacs to be.

------
michaelhoffman
NEWS:
[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/news/NEWS.26.3](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/news/NEWS.26.3)

~~~
rhabarba
So ... only two relevant changes this time?

~~~
gnufied
for many of us this fixes a show stopper bug while downloading packages from
MELPA/ELPA. I was just trying to setup on a new Fedora box (emacs-26.2) and my
setup kept failing on "Failed to download archive...".

~~~
sambe
Which change fixes that?

~~~
rhabarba
The new certificate mentioned in the announcement, probably.

~~~
sambe
Am I blind? I can’t see a certificate mentioned in the link or the parent’s
NEWS link...

~~~
rhabarba
Right from the link:

> This release is mainly a maintenance release, which contains a new GPG key
> for GNU ELPA packages.

------
roryrjb
I recently tried to seriously use Emacs over my usual Vim. Mainly because I've
got so used to the GNU readline emacs shortcuts in the terminal and quite like
the idea of not having to switch between command and insert mode, but damn
after looking into some configuration options it really is a massively
complicated piece of software, I mean not to start using it, it's probably
easier than Vim but just looking at all the various modes, plugins, the whole
ecosystem behind it. Even emacs lisp doesn't put me off, with some albeit
minor exposure to Scheme and Clojure in the past. Especially now that I have
got comfortable with Vim having no plugins but knowing enough Vimscript to be
productive, I really don't think I'll switch, it's too much of a commitment.

~~~
gumby
Emacs users are often so enthusiastic about all the things emacs can do that
they overcomplicate the experience.

Just open emacs with no customizations.

You can do everything with a tiny handful of commands, many of which you
already know: c-F for forward char, c-B for backwards char, c-P for previous
line, c-N for next line. It's modeless so if you type you'll see your
keystrokes. Run the tutorial to learn a few more (c-H t -- c-H is "help").

One difference in emacs compared to many other editors is that search is so
lightweight that it's trivial to use search to move the cursor around. So
actual "cursor movement" is less common.

I was pair programming with a colleague who's been using Emacs about as long
as I have (since 1978) and the other day he learned a new command. "I can't
believe I survived with this command", he said, but really, he had done just
fine.

~~~
roryrjb
Yeah it's good advice, it's how I treat Vim really, I have a handful of
keybindings to make it easier, but generally just stick to the defaults with
everything and stay away from plugins.

------
declank
The improved js-mode in 27.x is definitely worth checking out, especially if
you use React/JSX. Had many issues wrestling with indentation in previous
setup.
[https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode/blob/master/README.md#react...](https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode/blob/master/README.md#react-
and-jsx)

~~~
Kjeldahl
Consider the poor quality of the existing js modes for 26.x, any idea why this
depends on a future version of Emacs instead of current versions?

Alternatively, could somebody convince the author of the railwaycat port
(Emacs with better macOS integration) to get a version 27 out soon?

~~~
pcr910303
> Consider the poor quality of the existing js modes for 26.x, any idea why
> this depends on a future version of Emacs instead of current versions?

You might as well look at the thread js2-mode was revoked[0] and ergoemacs'
article[1].

> Alternatively, could somebody convince the author of the railwaycat port
> (Emacs with better macOS integration) to get a version 27 out soon?

Er... I would like to point out that it's not 'railwaycat' port but more of
Mitsuharu Yamamoto's port[2], and AFAIK he has claimed that he has no interest
in maintaing an emacs27 version.

[0] [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2009-08/msg00...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2009-08/msg00409.html) [1]
[http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_javascript_mode_war.html](http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_javascript_mode_war.html)
[2] [https://bitbucket.org/mituharu/emacs-
mac](https://bitbucket.org/mituharu/emacs-mac)

~~~
Kjeldahl
Disregarding the history behind js2-mode, if it has been decided that Emacs 27
will feature a much improved js-mode, I was just puzzled that it wasn't put
into 26.x as a package already.

I couldn't remember the name of Yamamoto, which is why I said the author of
the railwaycat port, where the latter is mostly packaging if I understand it
correctly. But Yamamoto is doing most of the heavy lifting yes, and I'm
thankful for it.

------
dmortin
I tried vscode the other day to see what it's about and it's nice, but I found
plugin development convoluted and very limiting compared to emacs.

No chance of quickly writing a script to automate something in the editor,
because it takes so much time that it's not worth it for quick editor code
snippets.

Other editor users simply have no concept of how easy it is to whip up some
quick script to perform some task in emacs.

~~~
bachmeier
> Other editor users simply have no concept of how easy it is to whip up some
> quick script to perform some task in emacs.

I don't want to start a flamewar, but I moved most things I was doing in Emacs
to Textadept a while back because I found Textadept more convenient. That's
not to say TA does everything you can do in Emacs, but it replaced all of the
scripting I was doing with Emacs.

You have the full power of Lua inside TA. Emacs always has a lag when I start
it up, whereas TA is instant. I slowly built up functionality inside TA to the
point that I realized I could replace everything I was doing in Emacs.

It's so small and lightweight that, just for fun, I wrote a "web browser"
inside TA. It calls out to lynx and loads a readable text version of the page.
I use a keyboard shortcut to open links. I have functions for searching the
web, I can search YouTube and open the videos in VLC, and so on. This was a
practical thing to do: I can use TA as a browser on really old laptops.

It maybe isn't for everyone, but in Emacs when I was doing this[1] to
duplicate a line:

C-a C-SPACE C-n M-w C-y

I asked why I wasn't using a better text editor. In TA, it's C-d. Just as
Emacs is an interface for Emacs Lisp, TA is an interface for Lua, and with a
lot less overhead.

[1] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/88399/how-do-i-
duplicate...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/88399/how-do-i-duplicate-a-
whole-line-in-emacs)

~~~
dmortin
Of course I meant editors which I know and tried like vscode. I don't know
Textadept, so it may be easy to write quick scripts in it.

As for your C-d example, it's a trivial function in emacs which I too wrote
many years ago and bound to C-d, so it's not a compelling example, because it
can be added trivially in emacs too.

~~~
bachmeier
> it can be added trivially in emacs too

Agree with everything except "trivially". Emacs is a house of cards. Pretty
much every shortcut is already taken, so then you have to figure out what's
already bound to C-d, and how your change is going to interact with everything
else you do. For one binding it doesn't matter, but doing that kind of
customization over and over gets annoying, causes the init file to balloon,
and slows the startup time.

------
Arubis
From TFA:

> This release is mainly a maintenance release, which contains a new GPG key
> for GNU ELPA packages.

------
davidw
I have been a happy Emacs user for over 20 years. I love that I am _still_
learning new things about it!

------
rurban
I'm running with the emacs version from git for a while, and on the Linux
machines even with the jit, but it's pretty unstable still. The jit causes lot
of memory pressure, and on save it often runs a blocking major GC, which needs
half a minute or such. Or even more. Very annoying. On Mac I'm running some
latest version without jit, which is also very unstable.

Have to test if 26.3 without the jit is more stable.

------
h1d
I treat emacs as the only alternative to vim on the server. On your own GUI
machine there are plenty of alternatives.

Do people recommend the use of emacs over vim on servers? (Mainly editing
server config files and reading long logs) Any good plugins to enhance its use
for this use case?

I have pretty much ignored emacs for the last 15 years when I felt it didn't
act as snappy as vim.

------
aladine
On MacOS, I wish homebrew emacs-plus can be updated with the lastest version
of Emacs quickly.

~~~
m463
I use [https://emacsformacosx.com/](https://emacsformacosx.com/)

what is the "plus" in emacs-plus?

------
longtom
Any improvements for the Windows GUI ? I find it to work better with WSL and
VcXsrv.

~~~
ohithereyou
The Windows version is complete unusable for me because of how slow magit is
on Windows (though that's not the fault of magit or emacs).

I haven't yet tried WSL (I run Windows on a work issued laptop), so my emacs
sessions run in a Linux VM to get acceptable performance.

~~~
krylon
> how slow magit is on Windows

I am relieved, though, that it's not just me.

~~~
favadi
From my experience, Anything that launches subprocesses is slow on Windows.

------
m463
I like [https://emacsformacosx.com/](https://emacsformacosx.com/)

------
jangid
In dired-mode, now you can zip a directory using command 'Z' over the
directory. Wow!

