EmacsConf 2022: What I'd like to see in Emacs - Richard M. Stallman

The anti-javascript talk is a bit strange, it's hardly the fault of JS itself if it has been used for things RMS doesn't like.

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Well, the usage of and "culture" around a programming language do matter. What libraries exist, what functionalities do they offer and how are those implemented? Are there any hidden/undesirable functionalities? Who has the know-how to use the language, what working styles are those people used to and how aware are they to problems like protecting user freedom? Compared to the elisp-community the JS-community is more problematic when it comes to these questions.

I remember reading that the Javascript creators were considering Scheme at one point, and ever since I've been sad about the lost opportunity of today's most popular and accessible programming language almost being a Lisp. I can only imagine all the Lisp-related benefits if that had happened. I've not watched this video, but it sounds like RMS might have been a bit conflicted if that had happened, though.

I don't think so. He emphasizes that there is nothing wrong about JS. What is wrong is that it is now skewed (via common usage patterns and implementations) towards arbitrary code injection without user notice. The result is: everything making use of JS becomes more vulnerable to unjust non-Libre code and trying to stick to Libre code only makes most things unusable. "Most things unusable" defeats the purpose of including JS support.

Curious about how he imagines implementing WYSIWYG in Emacs.

If I recall the talk correctly: (1) Rewrite Emacs display engine to allow more complex layouts (not just symbol grid); (2) Use Org as basis for text markup. The second clause might be biased memory though (: **EDIT**: Ok, he said nothing about specifics. Just "like Libreoffice, but with Emacs extensibility". This makes me think about http://texmacs.org/tmweb/home/welcome.en.html

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html it’s not that surprising. The reason JavaScript is popular is because it’s popular. It’s got a lot of corporate support and people are trained to use it in school as such it has a big ecosystem with a lot of useful utilities. Unfortunately the JavaScript ecosystem has been built around the idea that downloading/running code from the internet at runtime is a good way to do modularity. Using JavaScript in a freedom respecting system would mean basically rebuilding the entire ecosystem.

I don't see why it would mean rebuilding everything, you could block JS executed in emacs from making RPCs. Doesn't have to support JS in exactly the same way that a browser does.

It's still very divergent from the stable and reliable lisp codebase and that's reason enough to leave it be

I wish that RMS better understood that usability and adoption go hand-in-hand. If we want more people to on-board with the culture of free software we need to make our software more attractive, usable and indispensable. I fail to see how this can be harmful to the very noble cause of keeping Emacs a vessel for software freedom.

RPC isn’t the issue; the problem is that the browser-javascript platform is designed to ship users code that they can neither see nor modify, which is in direct conflict with the core tenets of the FSF. There is a browser extension that blocks non-free JS, by checking for attestation, but it’s a niche approach that doesn’t seem to have changed the fact that most people using the modern web run code on their computers without any way to make their own changes to it. “Minification” is just one way that this problem is exacerbated.

Dependency hell https://dustycloud.org/blog/javascript-packaging-dystopia/ If you want to use existing libraries you end up getting sucked into npm or what have you. JavaScript in particular has really leaned into fine-grained dependencies and it is difficult to use any piece of it without the infrastructure to resolve those dependencies. npm install is a meme for a reason. It will take a lot of work to untangle the mess and the people who are most capable of doing it are not interested. I think if you take away the ecosystem, JavaScript becomes a lot less attractive.

I don’t think he has any problems understanding that, and I have heard him say publicly that he would like GNU in general to be more usable and approachable. This is why, for example, he supported GNOME and and LibreOffice and colors/fonts/graphics in emacs for years, even though he doesn’t use them himself. Similar for GNU on Windows and macOS, for other examples. If your wish is instead that he would sacrifice the fundamentals of the project in favor of usability and approachability, then that is an ENTIRELY different statement than what you said — but it is commonly expressed around computing since forever. As above, see Windows and macOS and binary-blob drivers as examples.

> If your wish is instead that he would sacrifice the fundamentals of the project in favor of usability and approachability Nope, not my wish at all. Thanks for the comment!

Check out our brand new package manager and distro, but if you want proprietary drivers to be able to use your WiFi or GPU get fucked and don't come asking about it in our IRC. *Surprised Pikachu* when only 10 neckbeards with librebooted thinkpads use guix even though it's absolutely amazing in theory.

Yep. I miss Guix! I'm on Nix now because I want freedom but I also want to get real work done. If more people were on Guix maybe I would not have stressed about node-lts being a full release behind

I just tried it out for a bit and gave up because I didn't want to wait 3 hours to update my system every time. But that declarative system configuration and guix home keep tempting me to give it another shot. It's a real shame that basic stuff like node are a mess. It could become a driving force to replace random DSLs with lisps, especially in the DevOps space, but only if it becomes actually usable.

It took me 20 years to understand a few things about software from Richard M. Stallman: "Lisp is the most powerful language." I knew from RMS's biography on wikipedia that he was good in maths. And he used the superlative here. He wouldn't without a reason use this grammatical form. I read later the lisp 1.5 manual and then I understood that it's not just another programming language but a new theoretical foundation for programming machines that is similar to ZFC. A profound experience as Eric Raymond called it. While thinking about what programming languages are most powerful I noticed that even more important then the used language is the philosophy behind the project. And the superior philosophy is free software. The world used to be run on proprietery software. Now we have free software everywhere. On every pc, mobile device or car or any other big machine you will find free software that is superior to it's proprietary alternatives. I am nowadays also convinced that this philosophy is applicable not only to software but patents and copyrights. And that we pay a huge social cost for this. Philosophy does matter

Amen! I was having this conversation with a student yesterday, who was saying they need to use a Mac because onedrop (?) is so convenient and they look nice. Trying to make them understand that even they depend on and benefit from free software and some things are more important than shininess.

I can't do much about the build times, still (though, eventually, you get into the habit of checking if a substitute is available and that can shorten time tremendously), but, with nonGuix, I find it's pretty drivable. I was certain I'd have to wait because I wouldn't be able to use the drivers I needed but I've been running it with the Linux kernel and I've been able to get 80% of the way there. There's definitely still a ton of packages missing (my node is still at v14…) but there's also much more possible, with nonGuix, than I would've anticipated. I've been able to use my original computer, given the Linux kernal and I've been able to install Firefox proper. Plus it's astoundingly easy to write packages for so I've found myself being able to get packages into upstream while I would've been confounded on how to build from source for a ton of free software on my old distro. In case you needed any more tempting.

20 years ago I might agree with you. But now 20 years later I realized that the neckbeards were right. Give it enough time and the good stuff wins. 20 years ago windows ruled everywhere and people adviced not to loose time on linux. And making fun about the fact that whitespace matters in python. Now linux is everywhere and python is used in one third of all new code written. And people like paul graham let me understand that lack of popularity can be used as a secret weapon. In retrospect I recall that python was for a short time my secret weapon. When it had less then 1% market share. And now that it got popular I got banned on the python reddit for life :D I wasted also some time of my career for stuff like c++ and microsoft technologies. Both are now in the decline. Have I've been more truthful to my beliefs(aka listened to the neckbeards) i wouldn't waste my time on this. I also thought once that vegans are idiots. Now I'm 42 years old and have six-pack abs although i did not train them. And I a m get more looks from women then ever. Because the idealists were right. And the vegans weren't idiots. Maybe RMS surpassed Osho's level and is approaching Jesus. And javascript will be long forgotten since everything will be on wasm

Too bad the bean counters shot down the scheme idea eich had because it had to have "java" in the name. ugh.

>Give it enough time and the good stuff wins. 20 years ago windows ruled everywhere and people adviced not to loose time on linux Linux is on what, less than 3% of desktops? It was destroying windows in the server market since the get go. So what's changed exactly except that car manufacturers are switching Linux for windows? >And making fun about the fact that whitespace matters in python. Now linux is everywhere and python is used in one third of all new code written. It's everywhere because it made binding c/c++ code easy for people who're not primarily programmers. You know, the whole point of this comment chain is that ease of use is tied to adoption, so thank you for accidentally proving our point. Semantically significant whitespace is still a shit idea and that's why it's the only one using it. >I wasted also some time of my career for stuff like c++ and microsoft technologies. Both are now in the decline. Have I've been more truthful to my beliefs(aka listened to the neckbeards) i wouldn't waste my time on this. If you have a PhD in math or data science you can still work perfectly fine in the same space as python, since they depend on c/c++ for any actual processing. Without it you'd still have less options with python than with c++ or c#. And python is also dying in the automation/sysadmin/DevOps industry since bash is better for quick and dirty scripts, while go is better for maintained utility apps. Go is also pushing it out of the backend webdev. >Because the idealists were right. And the vegans weren't idiots. Maybe RMS surpassed Osho's level and is approaching Jesus. Or maybe he's just a pedophile with autism that had a few amazing ideas. We don't know for sure, and so we can only look at the historical and current state of affairs. And no matter how much we'd all like for it to be otherwise, it's not looking good so far for the GNU approach. >And javascript will be long forgotten since everything will be on wasm Sure, in certain scenarios, it's not going to nor is it meant to completely displace Js. Edit: and don't get me wrong I love some of the software GNU released. I'm just giving the other side of the argument. >Give it enough time and the good stuff wins. I'm still holding out hope for common lisp on that front. 40+ years and it's finally maybe coming back due to quantum computing.

I'm not sure if anything has changed but I Remember reading a usenet email chain where he bemoaned ORG claiming it to be exactly the wrong implementation for emacs and that it needs to be rewritten. I believe it was due to so much bundling within org to create a more "monolithic" piece of code. He was also upset that things like the org-tables were being used over the built in versions. He wanted essentially every component of org to be useable individually.

This is a big part why I decided to drop Notion despite having built a pretty snazzy system within it. Not owning my data an it being proprietary was just a bit too much. I agree so hard on the copyright point. Likely the patent point too though I've not really considered that angle as much.

Yes, but it is a rant about implementation. https://orgmode.org/list/E1kIPh1-0001Lu-Rg@fencepost.gnu.org Basically, he wants features of Org mode outside Org mode, if possible. And then we have https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87bkqx4jyg.fsf@localhost/

Bringing a new drug to market costs millions and billions. Covid, HIV. Human lives depend on these laws. Either patents are beneficial or it's the opposite and somebody dies. There are also so many cases of natural remedies being equal or better then patented drugs, but somebody has to finance the research. It's horrible how the world works

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What the fuck? This has been removed, as it is not very civil; please attack ideas, not people.

This has been removed, as it is not very civil; please attack ideas, not people.