> But if most new programmers prefer browsers, then that's what they are going to use...
If most new programmers prefer to edit code in browsers than in editors, then they are just wrong. I don't know why the preferences of new programmers should matter to professionals any more than the preferences of peewee football players matter to the NFL. The whole point of education is to improve people, not leave them satisfied where they are.
> Maybe they just prefer building tools on top of javascript/css (where they can create actual GUIs) rather than lisp.
Anyone who prefers JavaScript to Lisp or SmallTalk is just wrong. And, of course, one can create 'actual GUIs' in Lisp or SmallTalk just as in JavaScript. In fact, SmallTalk kinda invented the GUI IIRC.
> On a side note: Your TRAMP teleporter appears to use rsync most of the time anyway ;)
At least in my experience it's mostly SSH, not rsync.
> Anyone who prefers JavaScript to Lisp or SmallTalk is just wrong.
I also happen to share that opinion, but the trick is to avoid falling into the Smug Lisp Weenie trap.
It is amazing how primitive most editors are in comparison to Emacs. However, what is also amazing is how fast they are progressing. I've been trying (of all things!) Atom, and it is already adequate for most folks.
Just the other day I've overhead colleagues talking about how some editor (MS Code?) finally added tabs. I kept to myself, but couldn't help rolling my eyes. Not only buffers are more practical (specially if paired with something like Helm), one could hack their own tab bar in a reasonable amount of time (or just download something to do so).
Recent editors are just not customizable enough (not yet, at least). Doesn't matter if they are written in Lisp or BrainF*ck.
> the trick is to avoid falling into the Smug Lisp Weenie trap.
Yeah, I know — that's why I included a shoutout to SmallTalk, another great language. There are any number of truly great languages out there (ML, Erlang also leap to mind), although not all of them are great for writing a great editor.
It's hard to avoid being a Smug Lisp Weenie when one sees so much effort wasted on haphazardly reinventing stuff which has been working well for decades elsewhere. Why not spend a few hours or weeks improving what is already great rather than spending years building something new which will probably never be great?
It's probably the thing which makes me most bitter about our profession: the amount of sloppy and wishful thinking, which includes ignoring the numerous lessons of the past. Can you imagine where automotive technology would be if every new engineer spent the first decade of his career playing with rubber trees and ore trying to develop tyres and engine-suitable alloys rather than building on over a century of experience of others?
What's really weird is that there's so much new territory to explore in our field. We're spending entire careers re-exploring our own backyards when there's an entire continent out there to discover.
One of the most important metrics for a language is the number of people using it.
For new programmers learning elisp adds possibility to create best possible editor on base of emacs (a problem they still don't want to solve), learning javascript allows to find a job (a problem many want to solve). When they learn javascript for their day job, they like the language that gives them power to create things, and they don't see emacs as great, because what they can do for js based editor in hours, will take them months in emacs.
But all that aside, the most important advantage building editor in the browser instead of in emacs, is the huge amount of work that large groups of very good engineers put into making browsers fast, stable and well documented. Small emacs team never can make the part of emacs written in c on par with browser, even for handling the small number of features needed for the ide.
So on one hand we had to redo some of the things lisp had acomplished earlier, on the other hand there is a high chance we won't have to redo in the future what web is doing now.
If most new programmers prefer to edit code in browsers than in editors, then they are just wrong. I don't know why the preferences of new programmers should matter to professionals any more than the preferences of peewee football players matter to the NFL. The whole point of education is to improve people, not leave them satisfied where they are.
> Maybe they just prefer building tools on top of javascript/css (where they can create actual GUIs) rather than lisp.
Anyone who prefers JavaScript to Lisp or SmallTalk is just wrong. And, of course, one can create 'actual GUIs' in Lisp or SmallTalk just as in JavaScript. In fact, SmallTalk kinda invented the GUI IIRC.
> On a side note: Your TRAMP teleporter appears to use rsync most of the time anyway ;)
At least in my experience it's mostly SSH, not rsync.