From ed9142938d816d5e85177ecb134f814a0fb9929c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Joseph Nuthalapati Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2019 23:16:25 +0530 Subject: [PATCH] emacsconf 2019 - first draft Signed-off-by: Joseph Nuthalapati --- content/posts/emacsconf-2019.md | 68 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 68 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/posts/emacsconf-2019.md diff --git a/content/posts/emacsconf-2019.md b/content/posts/emacsconf-2019.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9d73b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/emacsconf-2019.md @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +--- +title: "EmacsConf 2019" +date: 2019-11-03T15:40:09+05:30 +lastmod: 2019-11-03T15:40:09+05:30 +tags : [ "free-software", "emacs" ] +categories : [ "conferences" ] +layout: post +type: "post" +highlight: false +--- + +![EmacsConf logo](https://emacsconf.org/s/emacsconf-logo1-256.png) + +I attended the [EmacsConf 2019](https://emacsconf.org/2019/ "EmacsConf 2019") on +2nd November. It was offered as a video stream that anyone can watch over the +internet, with audience conversations over IRC. The conference was powered +entirely by free software tools. RMS and some FSF members were also among the +audience. + +One of the speakers called Emacs the mother of all free software. When RMS +started the free software movement, one of the first tools he built was Emacs, +using which all other free software was developed, starting with glibc. A lot of +free software development is done on 40+ years old Emacs even to this day. + +The core of emacs is written in C with Elisp offered as an extension language. +All of the elisp source code that is running on your Emacs is available easily +through Emacs itself. Elisp is designed to be an easy-to-use minimalistic +language that non-programmers can use to create small improvements in their +workflow. + +The most controversial talk and the one that generated the most conversation at +the conference was a talk titled "Emacs: The Editor for the Next Forty Years" by +Perry E. Metzger. It was quite a ranty talk by an Emacs user of over 20+ years. +He mentioned that MacOS has better Emacs-everywhere keybindings as compared to +mainstream GNU/Linux distributions that come with Gnome and KDE. I have to agree +on this particular thing. But having used Emacs on MacOS myself, I had way too +many segfaults and bad GUI experience. This was a much worse user experience in +my opinion. My problems can be easily dismissed as user faults, well so can his. +One might simply say that he could've used StumpWM or something that has better +Emacs keybindings (I picked up StumpWM from B. Slade's talk at the same +conference). The speaker goes on to recommend gradually replacing parts of Emacs +with better languages that can stand the test of time, using a concept from +philosophy called the Ship of Theseus. The core of Emacs can be changed from C - +a dangerous language according to the speaker - to a relatively safer language +like Rust. Elisp is not such a great language either with all the functions +staying in the global scope. Maybe a better Lisp would do well as a replacement. +I have to agree on both. The speaker says that we should put in the effort to +design a programming language specificially for the use case of Emacs and not +settle for a general purpose language. Also, the new language should +interoperate with elisp since there's too much of it to replace without decades +of work (e.g. org-mode has 120k lines of elisp). The importance of concurrency +and parallelism in the new language is also stressed. + +Though most of the talks were about people doing cool things with Emacs, I was +more emotionally touched by these two talks - "GNU Emacs as software freedom in +practice" by an FSF member Greg Farough and "How to record executable notes with +eev - and how to play them back" by Eduardo Ochs. These two talks emphasized +the freedom that Emacs gives to its users, whether they are programmers or not. +Both the speakers use Emacs the way it is meant to be used. They truly used +Elisp as an extension language. I highly recommend watching the talks after +they're posted. This got me thinking. Though I am primarily a programmer and use +Emacs for almost all text editing, I barely programmed anything in Emacs - the +programmable text editor. This is mostly because I think that my newbie elisp +scripts are not as good as the ones already available as Elisp packages, so I +refrain from writing elisp at all. I realized that this is not how Emacs is +meant to be used. Emacs is all about taking the free software editor built by +the community, making it your own through customization and contributing your +improvements back to the community if you can. -- 2.43.0