WEBVTT
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Hi everyone! I'm very excited
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to be here at EmacsConf 2021 today
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to give my talk called
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"M-x Forever: How Emacs Will Outlast
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Text Editor Trends."
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So let's start with the conclusion first.
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I know, it's a little bit unorthodox,
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but let's just try and see what happens.
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So no matter what happens
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in the wider software world,
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GNU Emacs will continue to be
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a beloved program
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with a dedicated community
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and a healthy team
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of maintainers and contributors.
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You're probably wondering
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who am I to be making such a claim,
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so I'll tell you.
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I am David Wilson, the creator of the
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System Crafters YouTube channel
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and community. If you want to see
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a lot of really great videos
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about GNU Emacs, GNU Guix, etc.,
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come check out my YouTube channel.
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I'm also on LBRY and Odysee
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if you don't want to go use YouTubea
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And also, if you're the type of person
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who doesn't want to use
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any of these websites
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and you want to see my videos anyway,
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please just send me an email
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at the email address below
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and I'll see if I can set you up
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with that. You can also check out
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my website and the places where we chat,
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especially on libera.chat
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at the #systemcrafters channel.
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If you have any thoughts
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after seeing this talk,
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please feel free to send me an email
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or find me on chat.
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So there is a recurring concern
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in the Emacs community
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about its popularity.
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This is something that keeps coming back
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time and time again. You probably see it
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every year or two where people on Reddit
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or maybe on the emacs-devel
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mailing list are talking about ways
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to increase Emacs popularity.
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More recently, there was a discussion
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on Hacker News where somebody posted
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a link to this
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Making Emacs Popular Again blog post
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which does chronicle some of the
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more recent discussions on emacs-devel
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about things that could be done
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to make Emacs a more popular editor.
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So the title of my talk claims
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that Emacs is going to
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outlast text editor trends.
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So to elaborate on this claim,
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we're going to try to answer
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a few specific questions.
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First of all, what is popularity
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and how do you even measure it?
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If people are saying
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that Emacs needs to be more popular,
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then what do we really mean
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by popularity?
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Also, what are the benefits
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of popularity? If emacs did somehow
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become more popular, what benefits
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would it receive from that?
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And also, how does an editor
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lose popularity, and what are
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the possible consequences to that?
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And then what are the unique factors
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about Emacs that will ensure
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that it survives long term?
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What is special about Emacs
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that will help it to thrive
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despite whatever happens in the
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popular sphere of text editors and
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programming languages, etc.?
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So, first of all, what does popularity
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really mean? When someone says
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that Emacs needs to become more popular,
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what are they really saying
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is that there needs to be more users,
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and that they stick around.
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Like, they learn how to use Emacs
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and they continue to be users.
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If we did get those new users,
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what would it actually do for Emacs?
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Also, is it that there are
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more community members that are
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creating new packages?
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You know, that sort of assumes
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that the editor itself
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doesn't have enough packages,
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or that the only way
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that the an editor stays alive
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is for there to be constant churn,
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with new packages coming around.
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Is it that there is more content
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being created by users,
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like more blog posts being written,
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more YouTube videos being made,
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more other ways that people are
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evangelizing the use of Emacs
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and also teaching people how to use it?
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Also, is it that
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more long-term stability is had
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in the editor, and more core
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improvements that are being made
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over time? I mean, I guess you could say
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that it does make sense
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that if the editor is more popular,
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then people will be more invested
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in improving it, and there will be
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more new contributors coming in,
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but is greater and greater popularity
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really what's needed
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to ensure that this happens?
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Also, it could just be that
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there's more validation
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for someone's personal choices.
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You know, people tend to use
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these software choices they use
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as part of their identity.
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So is it that they want Emacs
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to be more popular
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so that they can finally say,
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"I'm an Emacs user,"
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and have people think
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that they're cool or "hip" or whatever?
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I hope that... Hopefully,
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that's not the case.
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Hopefully, it's one of these
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other points. But it could be something
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because, as we see, you know,
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there's a lot of trends and fashion
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when it comes to software development
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and also free software
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and open source tools.
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So as we go through this talk,
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keep these questions in mind
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as we talk about
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some of the finer points on all of this,
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and see whether you think
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that popularity really correlates
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with these things.
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So first of all, how do we measure
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popularity? What information do we have
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to actually determine
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which editors are popular,
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and whether they're gaining or losing
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popularity? So I've got a few,
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or a couple places here
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that we can look at
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to judge the popularity
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of various editors.
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First of all, Google Trends.
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Google actually gives us the ability
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to track and compare search volume
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for particular terms and topics
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over time. So if you wanted to know
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how often someone was searching
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about Emacs, maybe to try to find help
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for something, or look for documentation,
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or maybe look for blog posts, etc.,
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you can look at Google Trends
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to see how often people are searching
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for Emacs over time.
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One useful ability is that we can
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compare how much people are searching
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across various different topics
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and see a graph, which is
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what i'm going to show you right now.
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This graph shows you the search volume
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for Emacs compared to Vim, Atom,
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Sublime Text, and Visual Studio Code
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from 2004 to the present
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worldwide, so all across the world
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where searches are happening.
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You can see that in 2004,
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Emacs is the reigning king supreme
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where you have the most search terms
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or searches happening on emacs
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at that time. Also, Vim is quite high
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on this list as well.
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Let's see. Sublime Text is a bit lower
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in the list, but it's in third place.
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Nope. Yep. That's right.
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Then atom is quite low, but I think that
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Atom didn't exist yet,
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so maybe at that point, you know,
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this is probably something else.
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Google is just getting random data.
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And then Visual Studio Code
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also didn't exist,
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so probably this is like
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Visual Studio searches,
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but then as you go across the years,
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you see that gradually,
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Emacs popularity appears to be declining.
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As does Vim, but not quite so much.
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And then over time, Sublime Text
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becomes more popular,
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and then VS Code in more recent years
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becomes very popular
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compared to everything else.
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So it looks like Emacs
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has declined significantly in popularity,
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while the other editors have taken over.
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But is the search volume really
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the only important factor
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that indicates popularity or health
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of a given editor?
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That still remains to be seen.
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We can also take a look
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at the yearly survey
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that the website Stack Overflow puts out
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asking developers about the tools
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that they use to find out
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which ones are being used
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most frequently and that are
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gaining popularity over time.
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So there is a great blog post
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by someone named Roben Kleene,
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who synthesizes some
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of this data together,
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specifically about editors,
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and provides us with a graph
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that we can take a look at
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that compares the popularity
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of particular editors
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in the last maybe four or five years,
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at least 2015 to 2019,
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based on the responses
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to the Stack Overflow survey.
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In this case we see that
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Emacs is the light blue line,
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and it sort of stays in maybe, let's see,
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maybe third place in the beginning,
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and then fifth place,
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and basically just stays in fifth place
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the whole time, compared to things like
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Atom, Sublime Text, and VS Code.
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As we saw before, the VS Code
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just sort of ramps up at the end.
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Now, this is another thing
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that basically is showing us
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similarly to the Google Trends
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that Emacs's popularity is not quite
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as much as other editors out there.
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You can also look at the 2021 results
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of the Stack Overflow survey,
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which I'll show you now,
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which shows Emacs in 16th place.
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Let's see. If we look here,
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we see Visual Studio Code
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is the most popular, then we have
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a whole bunch of other well-known editors.
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Some are kind of surprising,
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like Notepad++ is quite high up there,
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but then we have Emacs here
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coming right in behind
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PhpStorm and NetBeans,
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which is pretty funny to me.
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But it just goes to show you
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that the Emacs community is smaller
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than what you might consider
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for other editors, or at least
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the Emacs user base, maybe.
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Maybe it's just the people
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who actually respond to the survey.
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You can't really tell for sure
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because all this data is coming from
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a self-selected group of people
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who have responded to the survey.
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So I think what... Basically,
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what I'm trying to say is that
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if you look at all these things,
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you would probably get the perception
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that Emacs is dead
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and that maybe nobody really
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uses the editor anymore,
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or that it's on its way out.
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However, I think there's another way
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to look at the health or popularity
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of Emacs (or any other editor, really),
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and that is to judge
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the popularity and health
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by taking a look
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at the community activity
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in places such as Reddit,
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or maybe on Discord servers,
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Slack servers, IRC channels,
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mailing lists, particularly
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on emacs-devel,
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where all of the conversation
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about the development of Emacs happens.
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Blogs. There's quite a lot of people
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in the Emacs community
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writing blog posts.
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There's quite a few YouTube channels now
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making content about Emacs
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pretty frequently, and then
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conferences like this one, EmacsConf.
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If you've spent any time
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in any of these places recently,
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did you actually get the sense
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that Emacs community lacks activity?
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I personally don't.
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I see quite a lot of activity on Reddit,
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I see a lot of activity
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in various other places,
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even my own chats that I've created.
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Lots of people talking about Emacs
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every day. But this is harder to measure,
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because you would have to go count
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all of the mailing list emails
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compared to other editors,
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or maybe like the Reddit posts
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compared to other editors.
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We could do that, but really,
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the more important thing
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is to just go experience the community
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by going to one of these places
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and take a look at what's going on.
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You can get a really good sense of that
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by checking out Sacha Chua's Emacs News
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roll-up blog posts
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that come out every week.
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It's a very good distillation of things
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that are happening
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in the Emacs community.
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If you look at those things
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and look at all that,
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you can tell that there is actually
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something happening
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in the Emacs community
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that is more than what you see
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in the numbers on Google Trends
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and on Stack Overflow.
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Another interesting point
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that doesn't really fit into all this,
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but if you want to look
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at the actual data
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from the Emacs community
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about how the community uses Emacs,
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check out the results
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of the 2020 Emacs survey.
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I'm sure there's going to be
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another Emacs survey at some point soon,
10:11.760 --> 10:13.120
as well, but that will give you
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some insight into what's happening
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within the community itself.
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You can see that
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there's quite a lot of activity
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and a lot of different use cases for Emacs
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and types of people who are using Emacs.
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Let's talk about
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how editors lose popularity.
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So people are worried
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that Emacs is going to lose popularity.
10:29.360 --> 10:31.440
What do they worry is going to happen
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if that happens?
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Or how actually could it happen?
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So maybe a new editor
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with better features appears.
10:41.839 --> 10:43.440
So one theory for why users
10:43.440 --> 10:45.920
left TextMate for Sublime Text...
10:45.920 --> 10:46.880
If you don't know about TextMate,
10:46.880 --> 10:49.600
it was a very popular editor on macOS
10:49.600 --> 10:52.160
back probably in the Ruby on Rails craze
10:52.160 --> 10:54.079
time frame, maybe like the mid-2000s,
10:54.079 --> 10:57.200
2005 or so. Then eventually Sublime Text
10:57.200 --> 10:59.519
came along, and it had
10:59.519 --> 11:01.360
a better extensibility API
11:01.360 --> 11:03.200
and really good performance.
11:03.200 --> 11:05.200
It also was able to use
11:05.200 --> 11:07.040
some of the same stuff from TextMate,
11:07.040 --> 11:08.720
like these syntax highlighting grammars
11:08.720 --> 11:11.040
and the snippet definitions, etc.
11:11.040 --> 11:12.240
So you had TextMate
11:12.240 --> 11:13.519
which was a well-loved editor,
11:13.519 --> 11:15.200
but then a new editor called Sublime Text
11:15.200 --> 11:17.200
came along with better functionality,
11:17.200 --> 11:18.880
and people started switching over to it
11:18.880 --> 11:20.160
because it could do more things
11:20.160 --> 11:21.680
and the user had more ability
11:21.680 --> 11:24.399
to add functionality to it.
11:24.399 --> 11:26.880
Also, VS Code came along
11:26.880 --> 11:27.920
and used a similar model
11:27.920 --> 11:29.120
to the Atom editor,
11:29.120 --> 11:31.360
basically being a web-based editor
11:31.360 --> 11:32.480
using Electron,
11:32.480 --> 11:34.640
but it greatly improved upon performance
11:34.640 --> 11:36.640
and IDE tooling ecosystem.
11:36.640 --> 11:38.640
For people getting real work done
11:38.640 --> 11:39.519
with large projects,
11:39.519 --> 11:41.120
you need to have things like IntelliSense,
11:41.120 --> 11:42.800
and being able to find definitions
11:42.800 --> 11:45.839
of functions or classes that are defined.
11:45.839 --> 11:47.040
So you have a new editor
11:47.040 --> 11:47.519
that comes along
11:47.519 --> 11:49.440
that has basically better functionality
11:49.440 --> 11:51.279
than the one that was there before.
11:51.279 --> 11:52.399
But the thing is,
11:52.399 --> 11:53.760
if you have a new editor that comes along
11:53.760 --> 11:54.720
with better functionality,
11:54.720 --> 11:57.120
it still has to be at least as good as
11:57.120 --> 11:58.800
or better than the previous editor
11:58.800 --> 12:00.000
for people to stick with it.
12:00.000 --> 12:02.480
So it's a very tall order
12:02.480 --> 12:03.680
for someone to say
12:03.680 --> 12:05.200
there's going to be some editor
12:05.200 --> 12:05.839
that will come along
12:05.839 --> 12:07.040
that would be better than Emacs
12:07.040 --> 12:08.240
on every dimension,
12:08.240 --> 12:09.680
because there are some unique dimensions
12:09.680 --> 12:11.360
that are hard to beat
12:11.360 --> 12:14.160
in an editor like Emacs.
12:14.160 --> 12:15.920
Lack of sufficient maintenance.
12:15.920 --> 12:16.560
That's one thing
12:16.560 --> 12:17.600
that could possibly happen
12:17.600 --> 12:19.279
if an editor loses popularity.
12:19.279 --> 12:20.687
So maybe sometimes...
12:20.687 --> 12:22.480
Sorry, that's something
12:22.480 --> 12:23.440
that can cause a lack,
12:23.440 --> 00:12:25.679
a loss of popularity.
12:25.680 --> 12:26.959
Sometimes the development team
12:26.959 --> 12:28.320
for an editor either moves on
12:28.320 --> 12:29.279
or maybe switches focus
12:29.279 --> 12:30.720
to a different project.
12:30.720 --> 12:32.079
When this happens, the development
12:32.079 --> 12:33.360
of the editor can stagnate,
12:33.360 --> 12:36.240
giving the impression that it's dead.
12:37.279 --> 12:38.160
You can see this happening
12:38.160 --> 12:40.720
a lot of times on repositories
12:40.720 --> 12:41.920
for open source projects,
12:41.920 --> 12:43.440
where if someone doesn't make any commits
12:43.440 --> 12:44.639
or adding new features for a while,
12:44.639 --> 12:45.839
people just automatically assume
12:45.839 --> 12:46.880
that the thing is dead,
12:46.880 --> 12:48.399
even if it's in a very stable state
12:48.399 --> 12:49.920
and doesn't really need any improvements
12:49.920 --> 12:53.680
to be made. This is something
12:53.680 --> 12:55.360
that can happen over time.
12:55.360 --> 12:56.720
The developers of Sublime Text
12:56.720 --> 12:57.920
sometimes give the impression
12:57.920 --> 12:59.519
that the editor isn't being maintained
12:59.519 --> 13:02.000
because of long breaks between updates,
13:02.000 --> 13:03.360
and this gives people...
13:03.360 --> 13:04.560
If you go search for
13:04.560 --> 13:05.440
"Is Sublime Text dead?",
13:05.440 --> 13:06.800
you'll see posts about this
13:07.519 --> 13:08.240
every couple years,
13:08.240 --> 13:09.120
where people are wondering
13:09.120 --> 13:10.320
what's happening with Sublime Text,
13:10.320 --> 13:12.320
when in reality, there's actually
13:12.320 --> 13:15.120
development happening on this project,
13:15.120 --> 13:18.160
and paid users are getting these updates
13:18.160 --> 13:19.279
because they've paid,
13:19.279 --> 13:20.639
but the product is not open source.
13:20.639 --> 13:21.600
You have no visibility
13:21.600 --> 13:22.399
into the development.
13:22.399 --> 13:24.639
So if people have the perception
13:24.639 --> 13:26.160
that the editor is not being maintained,
13:26.160 --> 13:26.880
then there's going to be
13:26.880 --> 13:28.079
rumors getting started,
13:28.079 --> 13:29.200
and that could cause
13:29.200 --> 13:30.959
the mentality of people to shift
13:30.959 --> 13:32.639
and try to move on to other editors
13:32.639 --> 13:34.240
because they perceive them to be
13:34.240 --> 13:36.399
more well-maintained or more active.
13:36.399 --> 13:37.920
Another problem can be that there are
13:37.920 --> 13:39.839
major bugs that persist over a long time
13:39.839 --> 13:41.040
that aren't being fixed
13:41.040 --> 13:42.560
while the maintainers are focusing on
13:42.560 --> 13:44.639
some other efforts in the project,
13:44.639 --> 13:46.000
and this could hurt sentiment
13:46.000 --> 13:48.160
in the community and cause a backlash
13:48.160 --> 13:49.120
leading to an exodus.
13:49.120 --> 13:51.120
So if you have really bad bugs
13:51.120 --> 13:51.600
and people think
13:51.600 --> 13:52.560
that you're not really concerned
13:52.560 --> 13:53.519
about fixing them,
13:53.519 --> 13:54.399
then that could be something
13:54.399 --> 13:55.360
that would cause an editor
13:55.360 --> 13:56.399
to lose popularity
13:56.399 --> 13:58.000
as people move on to find something else
13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.039
that appears to be more stable.
14:01.040 --> 14:03.199
Lastly, sometimes all it takes is
14:03.199 --> 14:04.480
for a new programming language
14:04.480 --> 14:05.279
to become popular
14:05.279 --> 14:06.880
or for an influential person to say
14:06.880 --> 14:08.720
that they switched to a different editor,
14:08.720 --> 14:14.560
because people are capable of being led
14:14.560 --> 14:16.720
by someone else who is influential,
14:16.720 --> 14:18.320
so sometimes it's just...
14:18.320 --> 14:20.240
All it takes is someone to say, you know,
14:20.240 --> 14:22.240
I'm not going to use this editor any more,
14:22.240 --> 14:24.000
and other people will follow.
14:24.000 --> 14:26.240
But oftentimes, it's not just about
14:26.240 --> 14:27.199
the fashion changing,
14:27.199 --> 14:28.560
it's also there's other problems
14:28.560 --> 14:29.040
that are happening.
14:29.040 --> 14:29.680
Some of these other things
14:29.680 --> 14:30.959
that I mentioned before
14:30.959 --> 14:32.160
that could be contributing
14:32.160 --> 14:33.839
to this overall sentiment
14:33.839 --> 00:14:36.958
that caused people to move on.
14:36.959 --> 14:38.000
So then what happens
14:38.000 --> 14:40.000
when an editor loses popularity?
14:40.000 --> 14:40.800
If people are worried
14:40.800 --> 14:43.120
that Emacs is going to lose popularity,
14:43.120 --> 14:44.880
what happens if it doesn't gain more?
14:44.880 --> 14:47.839
So what are the possible consequences?
14:47.839 --> 14:49.120
Well, maybe core maintainers
14:49.120 --> 14:50.399
will gradually leave the project
14:50.399 --> 14:52.160
with nobody to replace them. I mean,
14:52.160 --> 14:53.839
if you have a project like Emacs
14:53.839 --> 14:57.199
where there's a core
14:57.199 --> 14:58.240
that's written in a language
14:58.240 --> 14:59.600
that's different than the language
14:59.600 --> 15:01.040
everybody uses to extend it,
15:01.040 --> 15:02.240
then maybe it's risky
15:02.240 --> 15:03.440
to have people leave the project
15:03.440 --> 15:04.800
because you don't have other people
15:04.800 --> 15:06.560
to come along who can help maintain it
15:06.560 --> 15:10.240
and to carry on the knowledge of the core.
15:10.240 --> 15:11.519
Also, maybe no new features
15:11.519 --> 15:13.279
are being added to stay competitive
15:13.279 --> 15:14.800
with other editors.
15:14.800 --> 15:15.920
So this is one of these things
15:15.920 --> 15:17.120
where people kind of feel like
15:17.120 --> 15:18.800
there's a feature mill, where you know
15:18.800 --> 15:20.880
if new features are coming online
15:20.880 --> 15:21.680
in other editors,
15:21.680 --> 15:23.279
maybe your editor needs to catch up.
15:23.279 --> 15:24.160
Well, I don't really think that
15:24.160 --> 15:25.279
that's necessarily needed,
15:25.279 --> 15:28.160
but if there are new paradigms
15:28.160 --> 15:29.839
or usage patterns or workflows
15:29.839 --> 15:32.320
that are becoming...
15:32.320 --> 15:33.759
I guess you could say mainstream,
15:33.759 --> 15:34.800
sometimes it does make sense
15:34.800 --> 15:37.199
for an editor to be able to adopt these,
15:37.199 --> 15:37.759
but if you have
15:37.759 --> 15:39.519
a sufficiently extendable editor,
15:39.519 --> 15:41.440
then oftentimes, you don't really need to
15:41.440 --> 15:42.079
do anything other than
15:42.079 --> 15:44.480
just write a new package.
15:44.480 --> 15:46.160
Critical bugs that never get fixed...
15:46.160 --> 15:48.240
I mean, if people start to drift off
15:48.240 --> 15:49.839
from the project, it is much more likely
15:49.839 --> 15:52.720
that bad bugs won't get fixed over time.
15:52.720 --> 15:54.079
Less community interest in creating
15:54.079 --> 15:55.199
and maintaining packages.
15:55.199 --> 15:56.320
There's another possibility
15:56.320 --> 15:57.519
if people don't feel like
15:57.519 --> 15:58.880
it's worth their time anymore
15:58.880 --> 16:00.079
because not many people
16:00.079 --> 16:00.880
are using an editor,
16:00.880 --> 16:02.480
maybe they'll have more users
16:02.480 --> 16:03.279
or more interaction
16:03.279 --> 16:04.959
if they go write a similar package
16:04.959 --> 16:07.440
for a different editor.
16:07.440 --> 16:10.079
Less blog posts, videos, content.
16:10.079 --> 16:11.519
Basically, like, if people feel
16:11.519 --> 16:12.480
that it's not worth their time
16:12.480 --> 16:13.839
to make content about the editor either,
16:13.839 --> 16:15.360
or if you're just not interested any more,
16:15.360 --> 16:17.040
then those things will dry up.
16:17.040 --> 16:18.639
And also one thing that is possible,
16:18.639 --> 16:19.839
but probably not very likely,
16:19.839 --> 16:21.839
is that the program may not be
16:21.839 --> 16:24.000
packaged any more in Linux distributions
16:24.000 --> 16:25.680
or for other operating systems.
16:25.680 --> 16:27.519
So if it's not worth someone to package it,
16:27.519 --> 16:29.040
or they just sort of lose interest
16:29.040 --> 16:31.360
in the editor, then maybe those things
16:31.360 --> 16:32.320
sort of drift away
16:32.320 --> 16:33.920
and you can't even install it any more
16:33.920 --> 16:35.360
in many places.
16:35.360 --> 16:36.399
But I feel that these things
16:36.399 --> 16:37.279
would only really happen
16:37.279 --> 16:39.279
if there was already other major issues
16:39.279 --> 16:41.920
in the dev team or in the community,
16:41.920 --> 16:44.320
like maybe a high profile schism
16:44.320 --> 16:45.199
in the maintainer team,
16:45.199 --> 16:47.519
sort of like what we saw with GNU Emacs
16:47.519 --> 16:49.759
versus XEmacs, because you have
16:49.759 --> 16:50.959
two competing versions
16:50.959 --> 16:52.160
of the same idea
16:52.160 --> 16:53.600
with different implementations,
16:53.600 --> 16:54.800
and then over time,
16:54.800 --> 16:55.920
one of them may fade out
16:55.920 --> 16:57.839
because people just lose interest
16:57.839 --> 17:00.800
and maybe something like GNU Emacs
17:00.800 --> 17:02.399
gradually catches up and surpasses it
17:02.399 --> 17:04.720
in functionality. So these things
17:04.720 --> 17:07.520
can happen, but it's not really
17:07.520 --> 00:17:10.239
as likely as people would think, I think.
17:10.240 --> 17:12.959
So how is Emacs going to survive
17:12.959 --> 17:15.280
despite popularity? I feel that
17:15.280 --> 17:16.640
there are a few important
17:16.640 --> 17:17.679
and unique factors
17:17.679 --> 00:17:20.159
that are going to contribute to this.
17:20.160 --> 17:21.520
First of all, Emacs is
17:21.520 --> 17:22.720
more deeply hackable
17:22.720 --> 17:24.959
than almost all other editors.
17:24.959 --> 17:26.000
I'm couching that a bit,
17:26.000 --> 17:26.880
but really it is
17:26.880 --> 17:28.000
basically more extensible
17:28.000 --> 17:28.960
than any other editor.
17:28.960 --> 17:29.679
I haven't seen one
17:29.679 --> 17:31.440
that's more extensible than Emacs so far,
17:31.440 --> 17:32.000
and that's because
17:32.000 --> 17:34.160
Emacs was designed for this.
17:34.160 --> 17:35.360
The whole point of Emacs
17:35.360 --> 17:36.960
is that you should be able to go in
17:36.960 --> 17:38.320
and customize your workflow,
17:38.320 --> 17:39.600
and customize the editor to do
17:39.600 --> 17:41.039
exactly what you want it to do.
17:41.039 --> 17:44.080
It's this whole idea of user freedom.
17:44.080 --> 17:46.320
You're not letting the editor designer
17:46.320 --> 17:47.120
tell you what to do,
17:47.120 --> 17:48.880
you're telling the editor what to do
17:48.880 --> 17:50.559
at every step of the way.
17:50.559 --> 17:53.440
Also, an Emacs user can grow their skills
17:53.440 --> 17:55.039
from small configuration tweaks,
17:55.039 --> 17:56.240
just basically setting variables
17:56.240 --> 17:57.280
and whatnot, to writing
17:57.280 --> 17:58.960
their own packages over time,
17:58.960 --> 17:59.600
and then eventually
17:59.600 --> 18:01.280
to contributing to Emacs itself--
18:01.280 --> 18:02.320
the same skill set,
18:02.320 --> 18:03.360
because the majority
18:03.360 --> 18:04.640
of the functionality of the editor
18:04.640 --> 18:06.160
is written with the same language
18:06.160 --> 18:07.600
that you use to configure it.
18:07.600 --> 18:09.280
So unlike other editors,
18:09.280 --> 18:10.960
where you have...
18:10.960 --> 18:12.960
the way that you write extensions
18:12.960 --> 18:13.440
for the editor,
18:13.440 --> 18:14.960
that has a specific API,
18:14.960 --> 18:16.400
but if you go contribute to the core,
18:16.400 --> 18:18.160
the code base is completely different.
18:18.160 --> 18:19.280
It's different with Emacs
18:19.280 --> 18:22.640
because you have basically the same APIs,
18:22.640 --> 18:24.320
the same code and same everything
18:24.320 --> 18:26.080
that you use to write a package
18:26.080 --> 18:28.160
versus writing actual code
18:28.160 --> 18:29.600
for functionality for the editor.
18:29.600 --> 18:30.960
Now obviously, there's the C layer
18:30.960 --> 18:32.000
that is different,
18:32.000 --> 18:34.000
but I think a lot of the actual packages
18:34.000 --> 18:35.280
and functionality in Emacs
18:35.280 --> 18:36.640
are at the Emacs Lisp layer.
18:36.640 --> 18:38.797
So what this means is that
18:38.797 --> 18:41.120
Emacs configuration hackers
18:41.120 --> 18:42.000
and package authors
18:42.000 --> 18:43.200
are prime candidates
18:43.200 --> 18:44.880
for eventually becoming contributors
18:44.880 --> 18:46.960
to Emacs itself. You see this play out
18:46.960 --> 18:48.559
a lot of times in Emacs community,
18:48.559 --> 18:49.760
where someone writes
18:49.760 --> 18:51.039
some really good packages,
18:51.039 --> 18:52.240
and either parts of those
18:52.240 --> 18:53.440
get merged into Emacs
18:53.440 --> 18:55.520
or that person maybe makes contributions
18:55.520 --> 18:57.280
to Emacs to add new functionality
18:57.280 --> 18:59.360
that their own packages can use,
18:59.360 --> 19:01.679
or just to improve Emacs as a whole.
19:01.679 --> 19:03.679
So there's much more chance
19:03.679 --> 19:04.880
that people who are involved
19:04.880 --> 19:06.160
in the community of Emacs
19:06.160 --> 19:07.440
can actually become contributors
19:07.440 --> 19:08.480
to the project itself.
19:08.480 --> 19:09.200
I think that's going to be
19:09.200 --> 19:11.600
very important for its health.
19:11.600 --> 19:13.200
Also, you don't need to add functionality
19:13.200 --> 19:14.080
to Emacs core
19:14.080 --> 19:16.160
to make the editor itself better.
19:16.160 --> 19:17.120
Package authors are on
19:17.120 --> 19:18.480
an equal playing field
19:18.480 --> 19:19.679
as the built-in functionality,
19:19.679 --> 19:21.008
for the same reason what I said before.
19:21.008 --> 19:22.640
Everything's written with Emacs Lisp,
19:22.640 --> 19:24.160
or I guess a lot of the functionality
19:24.160 --> 19:26.000
is written with Emacs Lisp.
19:26.000 --> 19:28.720
Since there's a lot of ways to hook into
19:28.720 --> 19:30.720
or replace functionality in Emacs,
19:30.720 --> 19:33.280
you can do a lot of deep customizations
19:33.280 --> 19:35.360
to Emacs itself to make it better
19:35.360 --> 19:37.600
in ways that aren't really...
19:37.600 --> 19:39.760
The core developers don't need to
19:39.760 --> 19:40.960
add new things for you to do that.
19:40.960 --> 19:42.320
You can just do it if you want to.
19:42.320 --> 19:44.640
So that gives Emacs more of
19:44.640 --> 19:45.840
a platform feel
19:45.840 --> 19:47.440
rather than just being an editor
19:47.440 --> 00:19:51.439
that can't really be changed very much.
19:51.440 --> 19:53.440
Also, Emacs has a strong community
19:53.440 --> 19:56.080
of highly-skilled packaged authors
19:56.080 --> 19:58.000
and the high-quality packages
19:58.000 --> 19:59.919
that they create make it far better
19:59.919 --> 20:01.679
and more uniquely valuable
20:01.679 --> 20:02.960
than many other editors.
20:02.960 --> 20:04.960
Specifically, things like Org mode,
20:04.960 --> 20:06.240
Magit, Org-roam,
20:06.240 --> 20:07.039
and a lot of other things
20:07.039 --> 20:08.000
that we've talked about
20:08.000 --> 20:10.000
on the System Crafters channel over time,
20:10.000 --> 20:11.136
and the hundreds of other
20:11.136 --> 20:12.480
workflow-improving packages
20:12.480 --> 20:14.720
that have been created over the years.
20:14.720 --> 20:18.559
So all these things really make Emacs
20:18.559 --> 20:20.159
a unique offering
20:20.159 --> 20:21.679
in the space of text editors,
20:21.679 --> 20:22.640
or development tools,
20:22.640 --> 20:24.240
or even just general
20:24.240 --> 20:25.440
information management tools,
20:25.440 --> 20:27.120
or desktop environments,
20:27.120 --> 20:28.960
if you want to call it that.
20:28.960 --> 20:31.280
So the people who are involved
20:31.280 --> 20:32.159
in making these things
20:32.159 --> 20:33.600
make Emacs far better than it could be
20:33.600 --> 20:35.039
just by itself,
20:35.039 --> 20:37.360
and this thriving ecosystem helps Emacs
20:37.360 --> 20:39.120
to continually feel fresh,
20:39.120 --> 20:40.320
regardless of what's happening
20:40.320 --> 20:41.600
in core Emacs development,
20:41.600 --> 20:43.840
because packages can do so much
20:43.840 --> 20:45.280
and because people can come along
20:45.280 --> 20:46.640
and propose sort of
20:46.640 --> 20:47.760
a new way of doing things
20:47.760 --> 20:49.360
and other people can start using it.
20:49.360 --> 20:51.120
Emacs itself doesn't have to be
20:51.120 --> 20:52.400
beholden to just what
20:52.400 --> 20:53.840
the core developers do.
20:53.840 --> 20:55.280
The community can also play
20:55.280 --> 20:57.760
a major role in making Emacs feel fresh
20:57.760 --> 20:59.919
and be modernized over time.
20:59.919 --> 21:01.360
Just take a look at what Doom Emacs
21:01.360 --> 21:03.919
is doing to give Emacs a better face,
21:03.919 --> 21:04.960
and Spacemacs as well.
21:04.960 --> 21:06.240
Those things are very good
21:06.240 --> 21:08.000
for making Emacs more palatable
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to the general public,
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because you have a much better experience
21:11.120 --> 21:12.240
out of the box, and a lot of things
21:12.240 --> 21:12.880
have been polished
21:12.880 --> 00:21:15.279
for the user experience.
21:15.280 --> 21:17.200
Emacs also has a very strong
21:17.200 --> 21:18.799
user community. Lots of activity
21:18.799 --> 21:20.000
and discussion about emacs
21:20.000 --> 21:21.440
is taking place all the time
21:21.440 --> 21:22.559
in various places,
21:22.559 --> 21:23.919
like we talked about before.
21:23.919 --> 21:26.559
Mailing lists, IRC, Reddit, etc.
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If you get into Emacs
21:28.159 --> 21:28.880
and you go take part
21:28.880 --> 21:29.840
in the Emacs community,
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there's always going to be
21:30.640 --> 21:32.000
somebody around who's going to want to
21:32.000 --> 21:33.520
talk about Emacs with you
21:33.520 --> 21:34.960
and answer your questions.
21:34.960 --> 21:37.120
So it's a very good thing
21:37.120 --> 21:39.039
for the health of the project
21:39.039 --> 21:40.320
because there's a lot of people there
21:40.320 --> 21:42.640
that are very invested in it every day
21:42.640 --> 21:45.120
and want to see it succeed.
21:45.120 --> 21:47.039
Also, there's many community members
21:47.039 --> 21:47.840
writing articles
21:47.840 --> 21:49.440
and making videos about Emacs,
21:49.440 --> 21:51.280
many of which are actually moving forward
21:51.280 --> 21:52.240
the state of the art
21:52.240 --> 21:53.679
about how we use the editor,
21:53.679 --> 21:55.360
and how we use it... I mean,
21:55.360 --> 21:56.480
how many times have you seen
21:56.480 --> 21:57.520
a really great blog post
21:57.520 --> 21:59.120
that completely blew your mind
21:59.120 --> 22:00.880
and showed you a new way
22:00.880 --> 22:02.720
to use Emacs, or a new way to think about
22:02.720 --> 22:05.120
how you use Emacs. I see stuff like that
22:05.120 --> 22:08.480
all the time, like posts by Protesilaos,
22:08.480 --> 22:10.640
or by Karthik, or by many other people
22:10.640 --> 22:12.080
who show you a new way
22:12.080 --> 22:13.360
to look at things, and then you're, like,
22:13.360 --> 22:14.720
Wow. This... I could do things
22:14.720 --> 22:15.200
completely different
22:15.200 --> 22:16.559
than I was doing before.
22:16.559 --> 22:17.200
This kind of stuff
22:17.200 --> 22:18.240
is extremely important
22:18.240 --> 22:20.080
for the health of the editor
22:20.080 --> 22:22.799
going forward, because people are able to
22:22.799 --> 22:24.799
inspire others to use the editor.
22:24.799 --> 22:26.559
It's a great thing for evangelism as well.
22:26.559 --> 22:28.080
Like, if someone happens to
22:28.080 --> 22:30.080
stumble across a video or a blog post,
22:30.080 --> 00:22:33.439
they may be really inspired to use Emacs.
22:33.440 --> 22:35.280
And lastly, the Emacs maintainers
22:35.280 --> 22:36.720
and contributors really care
22:36.720 --> 22:38.000
about the users.
22:38.000 --> 22:39.280
There are many core maintainers
22:39.280 --> 22:40.080
who have been with the project
22:40.080 --> 22:43.360
for 10+ years, some way longer than that.
22:43.360 --> 22:45.200
So it shows you that
22:45.200 --> 22:46.559
the people who work on this project
22:46.559 --> 22:47.600
really care a lot,
22:47.600 --> 22:48.640
and they're very invested
22:48.640 --> 22:51.120
in making sure that it remains healthy
22:51.120 --> 22:53.360
for the long term.
22:53.360 --> 22:55.440
They also really care about ensuring
22:55.440 --> 22:56.720
that Emacs continues to work well
22:56.720 --> 22:58.159
for long-time users,
22:58.159 --> 23:00.080
(and some people have been using it
23:00.080 --> 23:01.280
for 30 to 40 years,
23:01.280 --> 23:02.400
which is kind of insane,
23:02.400 --> 23:03.760
if you think about it),
23:03.760 --> 23:05.679
all while gradually and sensibly
23:05.679 --> 23:07.120
enabling new scenarios
23:07.120 --> 23:08.080
and core improvements
23:08.080 --> 23:09.280
that benefit all of us,
23:09.280 --> 23:11.520
even the new and the old users.
23:11.520 --> 23:12.880
Keeping a piece of software
23:12.880 --> 23:13.600
running and relevant
23:13.600 --> 23:14.400
for this many years
23:14.400 --> 23:15.440
is a huge effort,
23:15.440 --> 23:16.799
so I'm very thankful
23:16.799 --> 23:18.480
to the maintainers of Emacs,
23:18.480 --> 23:20.159
and I hope all of you are as well,
23:20.159 --> 23:22.799
because this is kind of an anomaly
23:22.799 --> 23:23.600
in the software field
23:23.600 --> 23:24.960
to have a piece of software
23:24.960 --> 23:26.640
that has existed for so long,
23:26.640 --> 23:30.000
who has managed to survive
23:30.000 --> 23:31.840
despite various different types
23:31.840 --> 23:33.280
of platform transitions,
23:33.280 --> 23:35.280
operating transitions over the years
23:35.280 --> 23:37.360
and still thrive and be a very useful
23:37.360 --> 23:38.559
and very key piece of software
23:38.559 --> 00:23:40.959
for a lot of people.
23:40.960 --> 23:42.320
So aren't all these things
23:42.320 --> 23:43.039
that we just talked about
23:43.039 --> 23:43.840
supposed to come
23:43.840 --> 23:45.279
when an editor is popular?
23:45.279 --> 23:46.080
We've been talking about
23:46.080 --> 23:47.039
what is popularity,
23:47.039 --> 23:48.720
what benefits come with popularity.
23:48.720 --> 23:50.320
So all the things I just mentioned,
23:50.320 --> 23:51.120
shouldn't that be something
23:51.120 --> 23:52.720
that would only be for editors
23:52.720 --> 23:54.640
that are super popular? Well, I guess
23:54.640 --> 23:56.720
the answer is maybe Emacs is actually
23:56.720 --> 23:57.840
popular enough.
23:57.840 --> 23:58.799
That doesn't necessarily mean
23:58.799 --> 24:00.640
that we should not try to
24:00.640 --> 24:03.600
help other people find Emacs,
24:03.600 --> 24:04.960
but I think that we should not
24:04.960 --> 24:05.760
worry so much about
24:05.760 --> 24:06.880
the popularity of Emacs,
24:06.880 --> 24:08.480
because what we have is great,
24:08.480 --> 24:11.120
and we should just focus our time
24:11.120 --> 24:13.919
on continuing to improve the health
24:13.919 --> 24:15.520
of the community that we have
24:15.520 --> 24:17.360
and the health of the editor itself,
24:17.360 --> 24:19.440
and not worry too much about chasing
24:19.440 --> 24:20.880
whatever is happening out in the world
24:20.880 --> 00:24:22.879
at any given point.
24:22.880 --> 24:26.159
To conclude, the next time someone says
24:26.159 --> 24:27.760
we should do this thing
24:27.760 --> 24:28.559
or this other thing
24:28.559 --> 24:30.400
to make Emacs more popular,
24:30.400 --> 24:32.240
ask them these questions.
24:32.240 --> 24:35.200
1. What does popularity mean to you?
24:35.200 --> 24:37.279
2. How do you measure it?
24:37.279 --> 24:39.440
3. What do you think Emacs is going to
24:39.440 --> 24:41.600
gain from increased popularity?
24:41.600 --> 24:43.279
So I hope that you found this talk
24:43.279 --> 24:44.159
inspiring and maybe
24:44.159 --> 24:46.320
a little bit reassuring. Thanks so much
24:46.320 --> 24:48.240
for your time, and happy hacking.
24:48.240 --> 24:50.867
We'll see ya.
24:50.867 --> 24:51.559
[captions by sachac]
