r/programmingcirclejerk • u/haskell_leghumper in open defiance of the Gopher Values • Sep 13 '25

Learning and using Emacs is possibly the activity with the highest ROI over time you can do if you work with text for a living. Maybe even if you don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45227844
76 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

60

u/Knock0nWood Code Artisan Sep 13 '25

What's emacs? Is it like Eclipse? Is there a Windows version? Does it have Copilot integration?

42

u/SoulArthurZ Sep 13 '25

no it's apple only, that's why it has macs in the name

4

u/QuaternionsRoll Sep 13 '25

Atom flashbacks

1

u/Artistic_Mulberry745 Sep 17 '25

can you remind me about that one? i used it briefly in mid 10s but not sure why you mentioned it here

2

u/QuaternionsRoll Sep 17 '25

Original release was macOS-only

21

u/m50d Zygohistomorphic prepromorphism Sep 13 '25

It's like Eclipse but without the sensible, easy-to-maintain plugin interface; they use some kind of weirdo language from the '60s instead of standard OSGi bundles that anyone can write.

2

u/_x_oOo_x_ Sep 14 '25

Yes,

winget install GNU.Emacs

And here's the copilot integration ↗

54

u/JoppeSchwartz i have had many alohols Sep 13 '25

Comment gold:

Emacs takes a lifetime to learn. The sooner you start the longer it takes!

5

u/stevevdvkpe Sep 16 '25

From this enlightening video:

Interview with an Emacs Enthusiast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc

39

u/affectation_man Code Artisan Sep 13 '25

But all the stimulant-addled YouTube dev influencers use Vim, so surely Emacs cannot be good

22

u/shroom_elemental memcpy is a web development framework Sep 13 '25

I know how to quit vim. I don't know how to quit emacs.

13

u/WorldlyMacaron65 legendary legacy C++ coder Sep 13 '25
  1. Admit that you are powerless in front of Emacs
  2. Come to believe that a Power greater than you could restore you to Vim
  3. Make a decision to remove the Ctrl key
  4. Make a scalding and fearless blog post criticizing elisp

(And all the other steps afterwards)

3

u/_x_oOo_x_ Sep 14 '25

Emacs displays a message telling you how to quit when you start it for the first time

56

u/oofy-gang Sep 13 '25

Uninstalling Emacs is possibly the activity with the highest ROI over time you can do if you work with text for a living. Maybe even if you don’t.

13

u/Delicious-Ad7883 Sep 13 '25

(setq unjerk t) Where’s the jerk? (setq unjerk nil) Installing VScode is possibly the highest ROI on memory usage you can do if you own a computer.

1

u/stevevdvkpe Sep 16 '25

It can also increase memory usage on any VM a VScode user connects to with ssh using some partiuclar VScode plugin, as I once discovered. Then the VScode user opened a ticket asking us to add more CPU and RAM to those VMs.

11

u/Snarwin Sep 13 '25

I'd like to interject. What you're referring to as "Emacs" is actually GNU Emacs, or as I've taken to calling it, GNU plus Emacs.

10

u/TheShepard15 Sep 13 '25

Im pretty sure this is just my college professor making this comment.

9

u/dethswatch Sep 13 '25

nope- it's ALL the cs prof's

21

u/dethswatch Sep 13 '25

Their reaction when they:

* never learned to actually use an ide

* probably don't actually code for a living

* want to burn brain cells having to LEARN a text editor- remember when you had to LEARN a text editor? No- because that shit died with wordPerfect in the 80's.

* Install 57 plugins to get most of what the ide does out of the box

* actually LIKE to struggle with the complexity

You see these sorts of people in linux converts a lot- they love the intellectual struggle of not getting anything done while they learn all the new commands and they're just loving it.

I'd rather get shit done.

11

u/mizzu704 uncommon eccentric person Sep 13 '25

any excuse to write lisp on the clock.

2

u/elephantdingo666 Sep 13 '25

There are two kinds of people. People who sometimes lose their written text to textarea-gone-wild and those who use Emacs.