Opinion: RMS Does Not See the Future of Emacs | Hacker News Reader

Opinion: RMS Does Not See the Future of Emacs

lambdaland.org

7 pointsashton3148 comments

His problem is that he is so blinded by his ideology, nothing else matters. He is optimizing for this ideology (freedom of code) and not making it easier for new users or even the growth of the community.

I stopped using Emacs long ago for things that make my life much easier as a developer, like VSCode. Now, with the ability to remotely save code over SSH, I don't even need to edit anything directly on the server.

For you, as for many, convenience trumps liberty. Don't try to force everyone else to act the same way.

Well, VSCode is open source. You can also emulate many of the same features as EMACS.

https://code.visualstudio.com/license is most definitely not an open source license.

I quote:

Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You may not

    * reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the software except and solely to the extent required by third party licensing terms governing use of certain open source components that may be included in the software;
    * remove, minimize, block or modify any notices of Microsoft or its suppliers in the software;
    * use the software in any way that is against the law;
    * share, publish, rent or lease the software, or provide the software as a stand-alone offering for others to use.

I did that using emacs 25 years ago, and it wasn't even a new feature at the time.

Back then the package was called ange-ftp. It was superseded by something called efs (same author), then later by something else, which I still use occasionally.

I was doing that years before VSCode was even a thing. In tramp-mode. In Emacs.

Emacs is an editor construction kit.

Someone should build a modern Elisp engine that also supports a modern Lisp or Scheme.

You can take C to many different compilers. Emacs Lisp only runs in Emacs. A modern Lisp with legacy support for Elisp would provide a way forward.

There was a plan to do this 25 years ago but 25 years later...

Well, I'm pretty sure rms still makes the source available; so take it and make YourEmacs, and make it better. No harm can come from the effort.

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