Every few months, the 'Is Emacs dead?' question resurfaces. But at 48 years old, this digital dinosaur isn't just surviving; it's thriving. We dive deep into why its Emacs Lisp foundation allows users to program their entire environment, from Org mode for productivity to Magit for Git, creating a workflow so personalized it feels like an extension of your own brain. It's not just an editor; it's…
#programming #emacs #emacslisp
🤖 This post was AI-generated.
@ramin_hal9001 wrote:
«And the built-in editor and IDE are set up so that you don’t really need to learn the Emacs Lisp programming language to use it.»
That's certainly true, but moreover you _have the option_ to learn and use Lisp as well _and_ to _gain a lot_ from that _in addition to_ the rest.
And then access to executing Lisp programs is highly integrated with the rest.
For example, you can insert an Emacs Lisp fragment into a plain text buffer (a text file opened for editing) and execute it right there with a trivial command.
It can change the same buffer or it can do a lot of other things.
And it goes on.
Announcement: Our next #Emacs #London meet-up is on Tuesday 14 July at 6 pm, in person at UCL (WC1N 1LE). 🎉
Emacs users of all levels are welcome! Interested in Emacs but not yet a user? You're more than welcome too!
Full details and registration:
https://www.meetup.com/london-emacs-hacking/events/315050696/
Also... our website https://emacs.london is now live!
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@tarsius/116643132796222151
In 1990 Dr. Peter Lee's 15-212 course at #CarnegieMellon introduced me to Scheme. It's also when I first came to comprehend the power of #Emacs and #EmacsLisp.
In the first hour, Professor Lee demonstrated elegantly that everything is a list: data are lists and programs are lists. Every list returns a value, and functions are just lists that do calculations! Functions can return lists, of course, and so you can write functions that return functions!
I ran to the lab to hack Lisp: it wasn't in your pocket, it was in a room worth more than your parents' house. Nothing had ever seemed more natural: write, evaluate, repeat. Hack a nugget, nest lists, add parentheses, hack bigger things. But the magic thing where you write code that returns code remained a mystery: we did lots of cool stuff in that course, but we never got to macros.
Until 2026.
The surprise? The surprise is that as each decade passes, I grow to cherish lifelong learning as more and more precious.
It's not about the product, it's about learning.
I just marginally improved one of my trivial little packages (that helps me a lot!).
I finally (finally) wrapped my head around the concept (and the syntax) of Lisp macros in #EmacsLisp. Finally.
Okay, here it is. Public for the first time.
`(message "Hello, world!")`... I guess?
More seriously: we are a local user group dedicated to #Emacs, the powerful customisable text editor, and to #EmacsLisp, its programming language. This Fediverse account is to keep you posted on our initiatives, including our monthly meet-ups.
More info soon at https://emacs.london.
Many thanks to @hachyderm for having us here. 🙏
Hyperpolyglot Lisp: Common Lisp, Racket, Clojure, Emacs Lisp
https://hyperpolyglot.org/lisp
#HackerNews #Hyperpolyglot #Lisp #CommonLisp #Racket #Clojure #EmacsLisp
Alex Chen
Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов
Emacs London
lobo 
James Endres Howell
Hacker News