Is Emacs Doomed?

No. Of course not. The commentary one sees on Emacs is much like that one sees for Apple: This latest [smartphone | editor] is an [iPhone | Emacs] killer. Besides, the iPhone/Emacs is old, tired technology. It’s doomed. And yet, both seem to not only survive but thrive.

Oivvio Polite has a personal take on the question. He started using Emacs in 1999 so his views are informed. Oddly, his major complaint is that Emacs users have to build the editor they want by themselves. I, and many others, have always considered that one of Emacs’ advantages. Certainly, I never considered it an imposition when I started with Emacs. I began with vanilla Emacs and added the bits I needed for C, Lisp, and Scheme. It all seemed natural and unintimidating. The introduction of the package system made things even easier.

Still, some people prefer an “out-of-the-box” experience and aren’t interested in building their own. As usual, Emacs has you covered. If you want a light-weight solution, there are several starter kits such as Bozhidar Batsov’s Prelude or Steve Purcell’s Emacs configuration. If you want a more comprehensive solution, there are the Spacemacs and Doom distributions. A lot of folks think Spacemacs and Doom are for immigrants from Vim but as Derek Taylor says, sometimes n00bs use Spacemacs and Doom because they’re easier.

Polite is not a n00b but he does like Doom and thinks it points to the way forward for Emacs. I agree that they’re a real boon for some users but continue to believe that vanilla Emacs has a long and bright future. Take a look at Polite’s post for his views and see if you agree.

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