[DISCUSSION] Why emacs is so attractive for Mac users?

Disclaimer: I want to avoid addressing stereotypes. As an academic, I know that the use of each of the tools and technologies has its own reasons. Still, the question remains for me. Why do so many influential emacs users come from the Apple ecosystem? One theory I guess is that the advent of Apple computers and the popularity of emacs coincided. In addition, the similarity of the philosophical origin of these two products can be another reason. What is your opinion?

I suspect that macs are more popular that Linux machines for developers these days. Of course there's an influence in the opposite direction in that the person who enjoys hacking on their .emacs forever is more likely to want to hack on their OS forever, but it doesn't beat the numbers.

Really not sure the premise is backed up by data...

I can only answer for myself (a non-influential emacs user), and don't know why others would be using this combination. I first learned Emacs on Unix (SunOS and AIX), then used it on Linux and Windows, and now use Mac/Linux/Windows. But I *prefer* the Emacs+Mac combination: 1. Mac reserves Ctrl for terminal and emacs. On Windows, Ctrl is used for other functions like Ctrl+C being copy and Ctrl+S being save. On Linux, Gnome/KDE/etc. use Ctrl similar to Windows. But on Mac … other apps use Cmd+C for copy, Cmd+S for save, and then Ctrl can be for emacs's use. You get consistency across apps — Cmd+C is copy in terminal, emacs, and everywhere else. Whereas in Windows I'm using Ctrl+Shift+C in terminal, Meta+W in emacs, Ctrl+C everywhere else. 2. Basic emacs keybindings are used in other Mac apps — C-a, C-e, C-b, C-d, C-f, C-p, C-n, and many others (and you can add more). So when I do go outside of Emacs, I can keep using my familiar keybindings in other apps. I really enjoy the consistency. It's really frustrating being in emacs using Ctrl+P for previous-line and then I switch to the browser and Ctrl+P tries to print the page :-( That never happens to me on Mac. Minor: - Emacs came *preinstalled* on Mac for many years, whereas on some Linux and all Windows systems I had to install it. (but I always install my own because I want the latest version) - Mac has ctrl/caps swap as a *standard* option in the keyboard settings, whereas on Windows and Gnome I have to install something extra (ctrl2caps, gnome-tweaks) (not sure about KDE) These are all little things. But it made me *feel* like Mac was more welcoming of Emacs than Windows or Linux/Gnome. I'm still trying to get my Linux/Gnome setup to be more Emacs-friendly (kinto.sh is the latest find) but I haven't quite gotten there yet.

While I have no data on this, I seriously doubt the majority of emacs users are on Apple. I suspect most are on Linux. You have to provide more explanation on what you mean by "so many influential users." > One theory I guess is that the advent of Apple computers and the popularity of emacs coincided I'm pretty sure none of the early apple computers could run emacs. MacOS based on unix was introduced in the late 90s, by which time emacs was already popular (in the CS space). I'm not sure if there were version of emacs that could run on previous versions of MacOS > In addition, the similarity of the philosophical origin of these two products can be another reason. Also not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean the original emacs line editor ("E with Macros") or the current GNU Emacs. I'm not sure what Apple shares with either of those, but I certainly don't think its philosophy shares anything with GNU emacs.

>Mac has ctrl/caps swap as a > >standard > > option in the keyboard settings, whereas on Windows and Gnome I have to install something extra (ctrl2caps, gnome-tweaks) (not sure about KDE) KDE, Cinnamon and LXQT, but I don't know about other DE's, have the possibility to change that in the their keyboard settings applet in the configuration screen. No need to Install something.

> In addition, the similarity of the philosophical origin of these two products can be another reason. What is your opinion? I don't see much similarities between Apple and the GNU philosophy, neither in their day to day applications nor in their origins (up until quite recently, I have been an Apple user for over 30 years). Unless building walled gardens around your users and giving yourself, as the company that build said walls and gardens, aka the user devices and applications, the right to spy on all your users and decide what they can and can not do with it is somewhat akin to fighting for the respect of user freedoms to do whatever they with it, and for the respect of their privacy? I would be curious to better understand what you mean. > One theory I guess is that the advent of Apple computers and the popularity of emacs coincided. Is it a theory? And did they? Beside, coincidence, by its very nature, doesn't mean much. Do you have any data about this advent of Emacs? Beside seeing some influential people using it? If I was to guess, and that would only be my guess, I'd say more people on YouTube (influential or not, but excluding the gamers community were they massively use Windows) than in the outside world use Apple products because, for many years, Macs have come with great out-of-the-box experience for making great videos and create content in general. Windows had and still has nothing that can compete with this out-of-the-box experience. The same goes for other 'creative' endeavors, of course. Then, there is also the hype and aggressive marketing that was and, for the most part, is still associated to the Apple brand — a cool, innovative company that cares for cool, creative, '*Think Different*' persons, and for the '*crazy ones*', Apple is not for a mere user. Against the, errr, much less cool hype and marketing that surrounds Microsoft and its office/business line of products: *Here is to the spreasheet users. The clerks, the sale managers. The accountants...* maybe they should have tried something like that at Microsoft? ;)

I think it works the other way around: Macs are attractive to emacs users. Mac OS has always had a lot of the standard emacs keybindings built into it's standard text widgits: C/M-f, C/M-b, C-p, C-n, M-d, etc. all work globally in Mac OS out of the box, by default... it inherited all of these from NextSTEP, and they've been a part of Mac OS ever since. If you're used to using emacs keybindings, having them work seamlessly in the rest of the operating system is very attractive. Some more of the default keybindings can be found here: https://jblevins.org/log/kbd

I haven't seen any such data, so I don't know if Emacs is popular for Mac users. Nonetheless, Emacs is a mature cross platform application, so it is likely that some experienced Emacs users happen to use Mac, because it is a popular and Just Works™️ platform nowadays. Another explanation is that savvy Linux developers are busy hacking the Linux ecosystem, so they didn't get a time for learning Emacs

The FSF boycotted Apple for a very long time because of the company's software patent litigation. NeXTstep (and Mac OS X) shipped with command-line Emacs as a standard built-in part of the OS until very recently. All Cocoa apps have basic emacs keybinding (C-a, C-e, C-k, C-y, C-t etc) standard as well.

Of course, it's a personal observation and can be biased.

Thank you! It was very informative.

Thank you for your comment. I should correct myself `'s/theory/hypothesis/g'`.

nice point!

I didn't know that. Thanks.

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It's not. You and they are just weird like the rest of us.

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It s because mac users are noisy. They always brag 'look I use emacs on mac'. So we think they are a lot, but no :)

I've been using Unix and Emacs since the 80s. When Apple came out with MacOS I jumped on it because it was Unix with native access to all the Windows/Apple desktop software. The best of both worlds.

My understanding is that those bindings originated in the `readline` lib, which is basically ubiquitous

Nope, the readline lib is only used in the terminal. Mac OS' Cocoa text system implements the key binding system wide, in every GUI application.

I didn't know that, but yah I was more referring to the origin of the bindings convention, not the specific implementation. Bash has the same bindings too thx to readline

Thank you sir. By the way I don't know why people get offended so quickly with a simple question (*eg. down-voting here or insulting others)*.

readline got them from Emacs. readline was written in 1989, and Emacs is quite a lot older than that. And had the same keybinds for ages (I started with μEmacs in 87-ish, with those bindings which are now hardwired in my brain ;-))

Haha. I take it as a compliment.

This is exactly the stereotype I do not want to talk about.

What similarity in philosophical origin do Emacs and Macs share?

- Reductionism: Main UNIX philosophy - Integrity: GNU tries to make software portable, on the other side Apple insist on making integrity in its own ecosystem. They want the same purpose with two completely different approaches. - Minimalism: Read the [Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism_(computing)) - UX Edit: grammar.

iOS/iPhone and iCloud users

Sorry, I didn't understand, can you explain?