{"id":11153,"date":"2023-02-16T11:49:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T16:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11153"},"modified":"2023-02-16T11:49:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T16:49:47","slug":"is-vs-code-the-spiritual-successor-to-emacs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11153","title":{"rendered":"Is VS Code The Spiritual Successor To Emacs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vivek Haldar is a Python fan and considers Guido von Rossum \u201cone of the best language designers of our time.\u201d He was surprised, therefore, when von Rossum suggested in a Lex Fridman podcast that VS Code was the spiritual successor to Emacs. For many of us, that\u2019s like lighting a stick of dynamite under our chair but Haldar <a href=\"https:\/\/vivekhaldar.com\/articles\/a-spiritual-successor-to-emacs\/\">considers the idea of VS Code being the spiritual successor to Emacs calmly and rationally<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly he disagrees. Von Rossum bases his assertion on the fact that VS Code and Emacs are both structured as an interpretive language engine at the core and the majority of the editor implemented in that language. In Emacs\u2019 case, that language is Lisp. In VS Code\u2019s case it\u2019s JavaScript. Theoretically, that makes them both highly extensible but there\u2019s a difference.<\/p>\n<p>Haldar says that Emacs has two things that VS Code doesn\u2019t:<\/p>\n<dl class=\"org-dl\">\n<dt>Barrier-less extension<\/dt>\n<dd>The idea that you can write some Elisp <i>anywhere<\/i> in Emacs, mark it, execute it with <kbd>Meta<\/kbd>+<kbd>x<\/kbd> <code>eval-region<\/code>, and have the effects take place immediately. If you like the changes you can add the code to your <code>init.el<\/code> and have its action take place every time you start Emacs.<\/dd>\n<dt>Everything is a buffer<\/dt>\n<dd>I\u2019ve written about this <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11119\">before<\/a>. As Haldar says, it basically means that whatever you do in Emacs, it\u2019s in a buffer and subject to the usual Emacs editing and manipulation functionality.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p>I\u2019d add a third Emacs advantage: Emacs is Free Software and not owned by anyone. I say that not as a true believing ideologue but as someone who\u2019s been around long enough to know how Microsoft operates and to not trust them or their intentions. I worry that Microsoft will eventually revert to type and pull the rug out from under VS Code users.<\/p>\n<p>In any event, Haldar reaches the same conclusion that I do: VS Code is <i>not<\/i> the spiritual successor the Emacs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vivek Haldar is a Python fan and considers Guido von Rossum \u201cone of the best language designers of our time.\u201d He was surprised, therefore, when von Rossum suggested in a Lex Fridman podcast that VS Code was the spiritual successor &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11153\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-11153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-emacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11154,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11153\/revisions\/11154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}