Why Emacs sucks

Out of all the things, i never expected that biggest roadblock in my programming journey, would be finding / sticking to a code editor (for now). For quite some time, I wanted to find a code editor that i am productive in. there are 3 main editors (Vim, VScode, Emacs) that I'm switching between constantly, i try using one editor, I feel annoyed / uncomfortable it, i switch to another editor, and the cycle continues. While i have some critiques for Vim and VScode, I'm only going to talk about Emacs, cause honestly, I don't have time for the other two. I'm sure that some of you won't agree with my points, so feel free to point out Emacs: Because Emacs is basically an elisp interpreter, and is written \~95% in elisp, It has a lot of moving parts, but its very extensible. if theory it should be a powerful system that lets everyone easily script an editor, which is especially good for open source project, since a lot more people around the world can fix/improve it. Since the project started in 1985 people keep adding modern features, but the core still remains the same. Although the editor received a lot of improvements, functionality, it still FEELS old, i mean of course it does, what do you expect from a 1985 project. What do i mean by saying that is feels old? Well here are a few points that i can remember off the top of my head. \- Conflicting and missing modes / packages: There are a lot of same functionality between both external and built-in packages. For example good luck choosing between built-in terminals - shell, eshell, term, ansi-term, shell-command, async-shell-command and one external terminal - vterm. There are 2 commands for listing buffers, list-buffers, ibuffers. There are a LOT of packages that overwrite to improve existing functionality, and there are also more packages that add non existent by default features, that I'm sure at least 95% of users have a use case. For example, It personally annoys me that i need to setup all the lsp and completion stuff, I mean its an editor that is most popular by its ability to configure by code, I'm sure that most of a users will already be programmers and would benefit from this feature. \- Distracting: I constantly feel a need to configure my editor in elisp, there are a lot of small inconsistencies, between UI, major/minor mode functionally, external/built-in packages, and a lot of configuration options to keep track of. Fortunately configuring emacs is pretty fun, but also time-consuming. I think i was one time addicted to the whole tinkering emacs thing. Also Emacs has a some "for fun" features or games. While they are not intrusive, i think that job and entertainment should be separated \- Legacy keybindings: I personally really like emacs keybindings, if i use emacs by itself. The problem is that emacs uses really old keybinding scheme, that conflicts with today's most used conventional keybindings - like C-c is copy, C-v is paste, C-f - find, C-q - quit, and so on. Using emacs alongside any other application just feel cumbersome. \- Community: Its mostly used by old folk. Looking at the community i mostly see in technical people, scientists, professors. So here ends my list, but i still have a few more complains, but i don't feel like writing an essay about it. Someday, I would like to try to create my own code editor, and this post should stand as a reminder of my own frustrations. BTW, sorry for clickbait title, i don't actually think that Emacs sucks, i respect its maintainers, and i think its a very interesting project that i hope improves, and grows!

Emacs is Minecraft. It is what you make of it.

Having worked in an outsourcing company for a couple of years, one of the most helpful insights I gained was: Accepting things instead of constantly fighting them saves a lot of headaches.. When you're getting a new desk and computer every week, you just stop tweaking EVERY little dial to your liking and just start using things and more importantly: You accept defaults, because someone already thought about it and came to the conclusion that the default value would be a good starting point :) I took the same approach with emacs.. I use it as it is, only adding functionality that I'm missing and only slightly adjusting it to my preferences. Other than that, I'm working with it, not against it. When it comes to adding features, I quite enjoy having a choice between several packages, because I can choose the one that suits me best without having to rewrite half of it myself. I like emacs, because I want it to work and not configure it all day.. I can easily copy my .emacs over to a new machine and use-package will take care of installing all the packages I like and I can continue on a new laptop within minutes. It even goes as far as me trying to avoid leaving emacs.. if I can do something from within emacs, I do that, because it all feels the same. When you complain about it not using C-x, C-c, C-v for cut, copy, paste, the question came up how long you've tried using emacs.. Because after a while, it just doesn't matter much anymore.. emacs is emacs and other software is other software.. just like nobody's forcing you to run M-x doctor or M-x tetris.. it just doesn't matter that it exists :) I think you're trying to have an editor choose you instead of you yourself committing to one :) Another insight from an old person using emacs that holds true for many things in life: You'll appreciate things more with a little bit of struggle.. things that come easy often go as easily again ;)

Oh yes, of course Emacs sucks. However, people using Emacs tend to think that Emacs sucks way less than the alternatives. Let me add my personal 5 cents to your comments... ad "it feels old": Maybe you get this impression because it is heavily text-based and it provides less visual gimmicks? Text-based interfaces are usually associated with age. Just start any terminal emulator while a non-tech person is around. I don't think that this should and will change any time soon. However, you can tinker around with different fonts (some prefer even non fixed width fonts). I copies some parts of my knowledge management on beautifying Emacs and/or Org-mode to [https://paste.grml.org/3520/](https://paste.grml.org/3520/) ad "Conflicting functionality": You're right. However, you can re-frame the same statement with "Emacs gives you many options to choose from so that everybody is able to find what matches his/her set of requirements". ad "distracting": related: [The Emacs Lock-In Effect or the Emacs Sunk Cost Fallacy](https://karl-voit.at/2021/07/23/emacs-lock-in/). You're tinkering with your long-term environment, improving over time. I think this is worth quite some effort because you'll probably never lose the benefit you get out of it. ad "keybindings": I'm using vim and Emacs with their native bindings and I'm fine with it as well. I don't care about this discrepancy and if I would, I know that I can [change to the CUA bindings](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/CUA-Bindings.html). ad "community": old folk is a good thing. Usually, they're the experts. See it as a super-power of not having to deal with script-kiddies who switch their environment with the latest hype. It's the long-term aspect that is important here.

Thanks for wasting everyone’s time with your juvenile and mostly meaningless whining. The best bit - by which I mean stupidest - is this: “Looking at the community i mostly see in technical people, scientists, professors.” Besides your typos and grammatical errors, what the hell are you talking about? Who do you expect to see using code editors and IDEs? Pastry chefs? And emacs is old because it’s from 1985? VIM is from 1991 and vi is from 1976. Do you have any clue what your writing? And why apologize for your flame-bait title? Instead, you could have just fixed the title. But no, this way you get to be an obnoxious jerk - and then say “oops, I didn’t really mean it.”

On the plus side: The commenters are raking in the upvotes, not the OP :D

I see way more young people commenting and contributing on github. It seems to me that the "old folk" don't like github.

Old people like me. I don't like anyone or anything. If you don't like it, don't use it. No need to throw your teddy out of the pram.

Well, one of the traits of age is that people get more accepting of other opinions and they don't have to change the whole world every day :D The world needs them both.. The calm and the restless.. At some point, it will turn into "Listen sonny, in my time, we used to ... !" and they'll fight again :D

You are given the freedom to choose and you complain about it. You won’t be happy with this attitude.

I agree with your last paragraph, it is an interesting insight, i didn't think about that this way!

It just not as easy to know when you've struggled enough :D But I think, it's basically a normal learning curve.. you see someone using emacs as if it was his right hand, you want the same, you get disappointed.. Then you start dabbling, have a couple of successes and then some setbacks.. These things develop over time and they come in waves.. Code editors in particular are way too complex to be grasped in just a couple of hours.. But it's not only emacs.. pretty much every IDE has its own idea of how things should work.. They're not just "an editor" that integrated into your desktop environment, they're a "world of their own".. You're meant to do a whole lot of things within that ecosystem and then it's pretty consistent.. It's the interface to the outside world that usually has the most quirks :) It took me a few decades to distinguish between "this is bad", "this feels bad, but it's just different" and "this is broken". The difference between them often being "I'm just not used to doing it this way".

Apart from constant appetite of configuration, other arguments (like feels old, different from mostly used stuff, old people's stuff) are superficial. If it makes you productive then you will tolerate how it looks or feels.

True, but the challenge is to find a middle ground both sides can accept. It seems to me that's often an issue in the emacs community.

I suggest you watch the video "why programmers aren't productive anymore" by Jonathan Blow. This debunks the theory that young ppl make better software. For the distracting part, this is only because your config is not good enough to get actual job done, tbf distractions are everywhere, you could have games on your pc or fun projects. For the duplicate content, that is true but it is on every editor example neotree and nerdtree on vim, and different vim keybindings plugins in vscode. So yeah, it takes time to love emacs, it is a journey on its own, you will dislike it at one point but if you stick to it you might actually love it at some point

Sorry for waisting your time :/

Lol, if it’s waisting your time, why are you here? just ignore it vim guys had laughed on neovim as well and some of them said that neovim is just time waste. Look at them now so, stick your arrogance where it should be

> sorry for clickbait title, i don't actually think that Emacs sucks, No you're not, or you would have changed it rather than writing this line. :P

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> I don't have time for the other two. I'm sure that some of you won't agree with my points, so feel free to point out I would appreciate to read criticism about the other two. When you find time, please write something lol

I look at emacs tweaking and configuration the way I did setting up my wm, when I decided to switch to openbox. I spent a week changing this, and that. Have not made any changes to it in years. When I setup a new box, copy my dot files, and done. I like my current emacs configuration just fine, but I spent a while fiddling with the knobs.

It’s a great place to store my resume.

Thank you very much for pointing at a right (i think) direction. Part of why i made this post is that i partly (that part being 95%) blame myself for being a bad programmer, and i needed to write out my frustrations and blame it on an editor (i still think my points are valid tho, but not as important). I think i SHOULD learn how compilers work, i should learn how memory allocation works, how operating system works, and get into a nitty griddy side of computer science, that i delayed for so long.

In all sincerity it sounds like you'd be better off with visual studio code. Plugins get suggested and loaded automatically for you. If you don't want to tinker with your editor to get exactly what you want emacs isn't a good choice.

Well I can see the critique about keybindings to a degree. I would say that emacs is very invasive, but that said this is true for vim, too. Because vim users also just fork every software on the planet with vim keybindings. I would argue that emacs is very polerizing, you either are all in or all out. But it has also the advantage that you have choice, like you can use standard, cua, vim-modes or other modal modes like xah-fly-keys. Default is not a good strength of emacs, but it's more like a programmable calculator. I think it will be more appealing if you can do everything in it. With xwidget we can have webbrowser on of the last mosaics missing or not very well supported eww just doesn't cut it and even exwm with external browser doen't work well enough in my view. But because it's only a elisp interpreter it also isn't doomed to be a ide or editor or anything. I think emacs has a great design, but it has ruff edges (gnus could use some love as example), so I think it will slowly morth in a alternative desktop environment and I like the progress, there is enough momentum to do big things inside the code base, it's not just maintaining to keep it running.

The most important thing is to have fun, if you're getting frustrated taking a break could be useful, emacs users are the kind of person who love what they do and the whole point of using an editor than you can bend in every possible way is to make it comfortable and fun to use. That is why our job/hobby is so great, we never stop learning fun things so take it easy and try to enjoy your journey as much as you can, i started programming with pycharm and getting into the UNIX/Linux world made it 10x greater (and discovering Emacs made it even better) so yeah I lost what i was saying but I thing you get the point

This is just my personal opinion from someone who’s used emacs for a few years now and is just starting their career. In college I had a roommate who introduced me to vim and I used it for about 6 months and tried to do everything in it. I tried VS code because it was popular and some other people I knew used it. Both has their annoyances which led me to looking for alternatives, and that alternative was emacs. As I started to use emacs more and more I realized that I could do anything in emacs. It’s really the only application I have running on my machine anymore. The main draw is extensibility and the community. If there’s a feature you want, someone in the community has probably created it already, and if they haven’t you can create it yourself.

OK, that's interesting, because what i learned from using Emacs is different. And that is that i want a conventional, focused editor (because i get distracted really easily), that by default comes with conventional keybindings, quick file access and and management, quick terminal, lsp, completions and so on. VScode comes close, but i'd argue its file access and managment game is really weak, and it is owned by fricking micro$oft. I should be happy with using existing software development tools for now, but I do want to create my own tools someday... Ya'know to each their own i guess.

This reminds me of that old quote by Stroustrup: "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses" or "the better is the enemy of the good." Your choice is **NOT** "which is a great editor?" Rather, it is "which ***of the available choices*** is a great editor ***for me***?" I admit that I too am often amazed just how complicated editors are and why I can't seem to find a "visual debugger" that lets me stop and examine data structures in the many, many, free editors out there. NB. there are several good and EXPENSIVE TO RENT editors available. Many years ago, our team used emacs and I loved it. I spent a million hours writing and rewriting that elisp-thingie config file. But after too many years of using Visual Studio that, while bloated, just has *everything*, now I am struggling to find a c++ development system (for a toy project - nothing serious) on a Linux system. I'm "getting by" with eclipse but I'm always looking back (and longingly) at emacs. Every attempt, however, to cobble together a \_working\_ emacs c++ development system in Linux has just been an "alice down the rabbit hole straight to the mad hatter's tea party" mind-numbing trek into frustration. I've watched many youtubes, and followed websites, all with the same result - ending up in a cul de sac of "ya can't get there from here." Every time I read r/emacs conversations about this lsp-mode thingie it makes me think "ugh, not ready for prime time", maybe next year. "There are only two kinds of ~~languages~~ editors: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses". PS. Clickbait title: dude, not good. Bad OP! Bad. PSS. For several reasons, VS Code is NOT an option for me.

> it still FEELS old *This topic*, repeatedly continually, **feels OLD**, and it just keeps feeling older and older... > good luck choosing > > a lot of configuration options Too many choices. Too rich. Too much to learn and choose. Such a bother. > keybinding scheme, that conflicts with today's most used conventional keybindings As you said, it's easy to make Emacs follow those conventions. But, as you also said, you "really like emacs keybindings". It's your choice. Use key bindings that you think are better than what's conventional or go with the conventional.

Dont worry, i only do clickbaitty titles when i want to get some attention hehehe (even when reddit some mods for some reason ban those). > why I can't seem to find a "visual debugger" Yea, i think there are only few free editors with decent visual debuggers - vscode, eclipse(?), codeblocks(outdated). > now I am struggling to find a c++ development system (for a toy project - nothing serious) on a Linux system Especially with C++, some sort of development system (i'm assuming you are talking about IDE) is necessary, i have Vietnam flashbacks for using cmake for some C++ projects, its much nicer to have IDE for adding libraries and compiling form source code and header files for you. Also what's your experience with eclipse, do you recommend it, never used it before?

It is good that you are passionate about Emacs, it is because you love it that you also get so frustrated by it. Same for me. Sometimes I use VSCode just because I'm so fed up with it, but I always return when other editors limits me in ways that Emacs doesn't. However at least once a day I feel like: Thank God for Emacs and the community effort behind it. It is such a blessing sometimes when doing stuff that takes other people so much time that it limits to infinity, you can do it in a couple of seconds in Emacs and just move on to next task..

I struggled with codeblocks for too long. I give up. Much of it is good, but I kept tripping over things like weird code highlighting (actually "dimming" code too much - no matter how I tried to tweak it). I find Eclipse manageable, but clunky. I hate the way it does its file inclusion into the build. If the file is in your source directory then it's part of the build. I dislike that I can't use ctrl-tab to move smartly thru the list of open files. I've had a number of problems with compilation results. Sometimes my code mistake renders such compiler gibberish that I reboot into windows and compile in visual studio until I can repair the file enough (pet project compiles in both Linux and Windows (lots of careful conditional compilation for that)). If you can't find anything else, I think Eclipse is best. NB. There is a SEPARATE build of Eclipse just for C++ development (forget what it's called. It includes ALL the pkgs you need). I tried NetBeans but didn't like it. Too much mystery in getting it setup for C++. Awhile back I had Codelite working (but that's gone). I really like the JetBrains products (eg. PyCharm) but they make a really spizoo C++ offering but it's not free (and the rent is high). I would REALLY like an emacs based IDE system but can't figure out how to get a visual debugger working. There's this lsp "server" stuff but you don't have to read too far to find words like "experimental" etc for C++ development. Life is too short. Since those early days I've picked up an understanding of Lisp (the WORST explained language ever. It's not that hard to understand if you stay away from the monkeys who try to explain it). So, I'm not adverse to putting in the time to build a config file again. Dunno if you've done this - but go find one of those webpage/Youtube "tutorials" on setting up an entire C++ dev config - and you'll quickly find you've descended into the pit of "can't get there from here" because... well... it's not 2018 anymore and a lot of what they offer doesn't work together anymore. Life is too short.

> However, people using Emacs tend to think that Emacs sucks way less than the alternatives. get my upvote, sir!

You’re doing it all wrong.

Mk. Bye. Just use what you like. Because freedom!

Interesting point of view. It differs so much from my personal point of view and my experience. Did you have more write-up about that "philosophy" somewhere else that I can read and link?

Not really, I make it up as I go :D But the thing is: I was sent over to customers to get a job done and I've seen colleagues who spent their first week at a customer's site tinkering with juuuuuust the right colour and look of their shell prompts everywhere.. In the same amount of time, I had already migrated half a dozen SAP systems. I guess that does things to you :D It's not that I don't like spending some time customizing my environment, but I pride myself in not having to.. I work equally well on my private snowflake Linux installation than in a fresh vanilla install.

Oh, funny anecdote from my stint at an IT training company.. One of the teachers wanted a basic db2 setup for the classroom, because he wanted to do a db2 performance tuning workshop. So we set up a lot of db2s, we set up some benchmarking software, so the participants could measure their success and... ​ ...at the end of the week, the database was half as fast as with the default/automatic settings :D Defaults are not bad, they're just what everybody can live with.. kind of.

Defaults are not bad nor good by default. It all depends on the set of requirements you are having at the moment.

Oh, that is a different thing in general IMHO. If I'm in a position where I need to be productive on new systems frequently, I would need to either stick with defaults or use a concept that allows me to get started with my personal configuration with minimum effort and time. I'd go for the latter because in my experience, I'm much more faster with my own configuration settings than with the defaults simply because I tinkered my system so that it supports my personal and business use-cases as optimal as possible. From my point of view: customizing is a perfectly good thing to do. Noteworthy: https://xkcd.com/1319/ and https://xkcd.com/1205/

That was pretty much what made me accept things as they are and not spend a whole lot of time to get a 0.01% improvement over something :) Most of the time, I feel that my time is too precious to optimize each and every setting of every software I use. In addition to that, I'm slightly autistic, so in some areas, I have a very precise idea of how things should be and I'm totally not ready to move even an inch from that position :D Or in other words: I have to pick my fights or I'll be stuck in minutiae forever.

I understand your point of view. The difference might be that I do think that my customization is pushing me at least more than ten percent. I also state that as a personal PIM trainer, I can spare people at least 20min each day with my improvement tips when they're working 8hrs/day on a computer. And this is a substantial difference which shifts the point of view IMHO.

Your day might differ from that of a software developer/devops engineer a bit, then :) My everyday work doesn't repeat all that often.. If there is something repetetive, I automate it, because my time is way too expensive to be doing things twice or worse, a couple thousand times :)

You're uncomfortable because you're switching. Pick one and commit to it. Then, learn its feature set, and either settle for what you've got or bend it to your will. After the switching you've been doing, you should have enough info to decide which route to take for your own personality. You just need to make that decision, and take it.

"It feels old" LoL That was great. I assume you don't like black and white movies too? Anyway, there is some truth to the thing about the modes and packages. Lisp, and Smalltalk, and things based off them are really designed to allow you to build the environment you want and Emacs inherits that philosophy. You accrete the editor you want either by installing things or writing code yourself. Emacs, ultimately, suffers from/exploits the idea of the heroic programmer. The coder (or writer) who isn't interested in how YOU do it, just in the way THEY want to do it. It's a double-edged sword and one reason that changes to the core product can be very controversial (and, ironically, it's why the core dev team tend to ignore objections even to terrible decisions like the way line-breaks work) - THEY don't *really* care much about how YOU want to do things either. "Do it yourself or shut up" is a philosophical choice and it has at its centre the sort of activist creed that people like RMS grew up in. It is not just selfishness, it is a social tool to force people to help themselves and contribute back to the ecosystem via all those conflicting and overlapping modes and packages you complained about. Your value to society is measured by how much you contribute to it. You can complain and you can criticise but if you don't do *anything* else, well, those that do will stop listening. Keep on Truckin'

> it still FEELS old Then your feelings match reality. Emacs is old. It's older than MacOSX. It's older than Windows. It's even older than MSDOS. It's certainly older than the Ctrl-X / Ctrl-V, believe it or not. Emacs is, after all, from 1976. But: oldness is just an attibute, it mustn't be automatically judgemental. That people eat food is a very old behavior. Much older than Emacs. Is it bad because of that? The bridge at Trier over the river Mosel is the oldest bridge in Germany. It has been built in 45 a.D. by the romans. But is this bridge therefore bad, must it be removed? Or would another bridge, 2km up the river, for a special task (here: train bridge) not do the job? So maybe you use a specialized tool for your specific need? In IT; some things older than Emacs are still widely used. C is from 1969, for example. The first patents on transistors (used by the billions in every computer) is from 1925. Don't let you fool by oldness alone.

I'm not a developer, no. But I don't think that this is much different from the basic principle. It only differs in the actual requirements. For example, when I do have to enter the current date like 2022-08-15 and I do add a config setting for a snippet system that inserts me the date (or time), this is a customization. You do have different ones most likely. But it is my belief that almost anybody is able to profit from customizations. Automation is also a customization. ;-)

It depends.. Development workflows have already been modelled quite a bit, so things are probably close to useful right after installing the package.. It's more a question of having your toolbar on the left or the right, but hardly ever any groundbreaking improvement :)

It'd be awesome to have you in my lecture about PIM and customizations. In any way, I'd get perfect feedback. ;-)

I'm glad I could provide some entertainment :D

Oh, you did get me wrong. I either could profit from your approach (after you hearing what my approach provides) or you could profit from my content. Either way, it would be a win.

I was just kidding :) I enjoy being pushed in new directions and I've only ever looked at emacs from a software developer's point of view.. Pretty much the same way of working for everybody, because the problems are the same for everybody(but don't tell that to any developers, because everybody's building something really clever all the time :D ). At the same time, your data or its shape probably varies a lot between people.. Everybody's having different focus points and before I started deleting mails that are not relevant to me in like a months time, I could have used at least three or four different sorting attributes that don't exist in normal mail clients :)

> Besides your typos and grammatical errors, what the hell are you talking about? Who do you expect to see using code editors and IDEs? Pastry chefs? https://bofh.org.uk/2019/02/25/baking-with-emacs/ ;)