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Programmer Humor @lemmy.ml

n7gifmdn @lemmy.ca

3w ago

Why do some programmers love emacs so much

61 comments

Remember when monitors were so fat you could hide a whole computer inside one?
- Apple’s still doing it.
- my computer lives inside my keyboard, next to the keyboard's computer

It's a text editor you customise by programming it. Why do you think that's appealing?
- I think you missed the joke.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMac
  
  This stupid antique computer is the reason my iOS keyboard autocorrects "emacs" to "eMacs"
  
  Looks like a US model. Never heard of it.
- I think we found the guy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc

Running emacs on emacs. Inception!
- source: @hfaust@shitposter.world
  
  This guy emacs
  
  GNU intensifies

I remember having a somewhat difficult transition from a keyboard editor to Word, Notepad, etc in the 90s. I didn't use EMACS but a similar one called EDT. I had used it so much I never thought about which keys to press, it was more like playing the piano - my fingers knew how to do what my brain wanted. Moving a mouse around and watching the cursor are additional mental activities you don't need with keystroke editors. This is one reason many Linux users are still hardcore command-line users. They get stuff done a lot faster.
- Depends on the operation. There are some things, especially interacting with remote servers, that can be done with a GUI tool. For example, exploring a kubernetws cluster. Sure, you could enter 5 different commands to get the info you want, or you can use a GUI app like OpenLens that is constantly sending dozens of commands in a polling loop to display all kinds of info on one view.

Because the mouse is useless with only one button so you have to use the keyboard.
- Ctrl + click!
  
  that won't help on an eMac, you need ⌘+click.

I suspect the world would collapse into some kind of singularity if someone ever ran vim on an emac.
- https://gist.github.com/dbrady/991366
  
  dbrady, now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time
  previous Relay user
  
  Maybe it has to be vim in emacs on an emac

I've been meaning to buy one of those forever, we had them in elementary school and they were fun
- It was my first Mac and first computer that was just mine.
  Boy I pushed that thing to the limits. Ended up frying the video card. While I loved it, it was just so so weak.
  
  I remember my school had no idea how you should set up computers before letting first graders use them so we were all constantly dragging all the applications into the trash can to hear the fun noise and see the little puff of dust.
  They also all had a copy of Type to Learn Jr installed, which we were strictly forbidden from opening, and every time we were using the computers multiple people would get in trouble for playing it. A few years ago I got a couple of cheap iBook G3 laptops and the first thing I did was install Type to Learn Jr and finally play it all the way through

I'm sure emacs is great but I learned about vim and neovim first so it's kind of a done deal already, not a lot of us Linux users are open source enthusiasts with so much time that we can noodle in all different flavors of text editors.
vim works great for me shrug, if emacs works great for you then awesome
- Vim is well emulated in Emacs, but it really shouldn't be thought of in the same category.
  Emacs is more of an unbelivably editable lisp system to streamline your computing that happens to have a decent default editor.
- When I started with Linux, I started with vim because the tutorials I was working off used vi and vim. Once I started with vim and learned the commands, I wasn't going to switch to something else... there's a joke somewhere in there about not knowing how to exit... but I'm not making it.
  If I was going to write documentation now for a Linux newbie, I'd probably pick nano to start with.
  
  I started with nano and I hated it, I didn't understand what anything meant in the bottom bar, like what is ^X. Unironically vim was easier to understand. I know what it is now but as a new user I didn't like using it.

Not a mac guy but this was my favorite era.

do folks do pc builds inside of old CRT cases? that seems like a niche that should exist.
- You've given me a great idea
  
  babe i’ve given BOTH of us a great idea. i’ve still got my very first big ass CRT. i’d love to give it life again.
  bonus points if you reuse the old DVI hookup as a video out. TIL regular-ass DVI can handle 1920x1200 @ 60hz!

Didn't know that X runs inside Emacs, but it doesn't surprise me.
- Call it Twitter. X is a stupid name
  
  ~~Twitter~~
  X
  Wayland
  
  Ex-Twitter
- https://www.xemacs.org/

I loved when it was redesigned for lcd's. move the screen anywhere you want.

IIRC somebody said the eMac computers like this were actually really good for their age. Either the iMac shaped ones like that, or the ones with the half-sphere foot for a base.

The eMac was one of the best of the era IMO

The correct response is: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Because it was the last Mac that could boot into MacOS 9. And we all know what that means…

There's no separate computer, it's all in the monitor!

Why do stars twinkle so pretty? Same reason fuck Jeff (he knows what he did) that's why.

61 comments