> Like I mentioned, these are just a couple problems from a longer list. Occasionally, I pick one and (try) to solve it. If I tried to solve them all, I wouldn't have much time left for anything else. :-)
> My more general point is Emacs is pretty janky.
Well, for various definitions of "janky," perhaps. But I think your problems are mainly from third-party packages and your init file, not from Emacs itself. It's very common for Emacs to get blamed for badly written packages and code copied from random places. Such problems usually disappear by running `emacs -q`.
> I just checked, and 36% of the files in my site-lisp directory are using lexical scoping.
Maybe you meant the `lisp` directory? `site-lisp` is for site-local files, e.g. ones provided by the distro packagers and sysadmins, not by Emacs itself. I have a single file in my /usr/share/emacs/26.3/site-lisp directory, `subdirs.el`, which contains, in its entirety:
In contrast, /usr/share/emacs/26.3/lisp contains 258 .el.gz files, from Emacs itself.
About the same percentage as you mentioned use lexical-binding, yes. Patches welcome, I'm sure, although I wouldn't expect a noticeable performance improvement by changing them to do so.
> Dynamic scoping can be handy! Here's (incredibly nasty) my fix for the hard-coded 1-second delay in shell mode:
That is pretty nasty. ;) There are two better solutions:
1. Use ansi-term instead of shell. ansi-term is the better shell package included in Emacs. AFAIK there's no reason to use shell over ansi-term. Just call `M-x ansi-term RET` instead.
2. Generally, use advice rather than `flet`. But I can't recommend advising `sleep-for`, as that would be likely to cause problems.
And FYI (you may already know, but in case not), with lexical-binding, you would have to use either advice or `letf` with `symbol-function` to override functions like that.
> The fact that such a fix is needed, on the one hand, and that such a fix is possible, on the other, are emblematic of the both cultural and technical reasons that emacs is not more robust.)
FWIW, there is no call to `sleep-for` in my Emacs 26.3's `shell.el` file. I suspect you have a configuration problem, or perhaps you installed an Emacs that was packaged poorly, with ill-advised patches applied.
On the one hand, you're absolutely correct that most of my problems are in 3rd party packages, my own customizations (perhaps), and their interactions.
But on the other hand, emacs w/o 3rd party packages and personal customizations isn't really Emacs!
So I think it's fair to critique the quality of the software you end up with in practice, as a normal user of Emacs. Perhaps I should say the "Emacs ecosystem" tends towards jankiness, rather than Emacs itself, per se.
> site-lisp vs lisp
I meant my personal collection of 3rd party packages I have installed, which for some reason I call site-lisp, perhaps an abuse of the term!
My thinking was recent 3rd-party code wold be a better pulse-check of current practice than emacs itself, which I'd expect to have a lot of older code predating lexical scope. Interesting that they're about the same though.
> FWIW, there is no call to `sleep-for` in my Emacs 26.3's `shell.el` file
It turns out it's in comint.el, in (comint-exec). Here's the code:
;; Feed it the startfile.
(cond (startfile
;;This is guaranteed to wait long enough
;;but has bad results if the comint does not prompt at all
;; (while (= size (buffer-size))
;; (sleep-for 1))
;;I hope 1 second is enough!
(sleep-for 1)
...
> But on the other hand, emacs w/o 3rd party packages and personal customizations isn't really Emacs!
Certainly it is! There are many users who have used Emacs for decades who have only a handful of lines in their init files and no third-party packages.
> So I think it's fair to critique the quality of the software you end up with in practice, as a normal user of Emacs. Perhaps I should say the "Emacs ecosystem" tends towards jankiness, rather than Emacs itself, per se.
Yes, I think you should say that instead; that would be more fair and accurate.
Elisp is a forgiving language, and Emacs is a forgiving environment, so low-quality code is not always "punished" by failing to compile or run. So, as with any software you would run on your computer, you should use discretion.
The good news is that the quality of software in the Emacs ecosystem is steadily improving. MELPA is upholding higher standards for packages, and more tools are being made to catch poor-quality code and encourage best practices.
> I meant my personal collection of 3rd party packages I have installed, which for some reason I call site-lisp, perhaps an abuse of the term!
Ah, I see. Not necessarily an abuse, if you are your own sysadmin, I guess. :)
> It turns out it's in comint.el, in (comint-exec).
Thanks, that's interesting. I guess there must be some interesting discussion on emacs-devel about that from years past. I wonder if that could be improved.
> Certainly it is! There are many users who have used Emacs for decades who have only a handful of lines in their init files and no third-party packages.
...
> Yes, I think you should say that instead; that would be more fair and accurate.
Makes sense, & will do in the future!
> The good news is that the quality of software in the Emacs ecosystem is steadily improving. MELPA is upholding higher standards for packages, and more tools are being made to catch poor-quality code and encourage best practices.
> My more general point is Emacs is pretty janky.
Well, for various definitions of "janky," perhaps. But I think your problems are mainly from third-party packages and your init file, not from Emacs itself. It's very common for Emacs to get blamed for badly written packages and code copied from random places. Such problems usually disappear by running `emacs -q`.
> I just checked, and 36% of the files in my site-lisp directory are using lexical scoping.
Maybe you meant the `lisp` directory? `site-lisp` is for site-local files, e.g. ones provided by the distro packagers and sysadmins, not by Emacs itself. I have a single file in my /usr/share/emacs/26.3/site-lisp directory, `subdirs.el`, which contains, in its entirety:
In contrast, /usr/share/emacs/26.3/lisp contains 258 .el.gz files, from Emacs itself.About the same percentage as you mentioned use lexical-binding, yes. Patches welcome, I'm sure, although I wouldn't expect a noticeable performance improvement by changing them to do so.
> Dynamic scoping can be handy! Here's (incredibly nasty) my fix for the hard-coded 1-second delay in shell mode:
That is pretty nasty. ;) There are two better solutions:
1. Use ansi-term instead of shell. ansi-term is the better shell package included in Emacs. AFAIK there's no reason to use shell over ansi-term. Just call `M-x ansi-term RET` instead.
2. Generally, use advice rather than `flet`. But I can't recommend advising `sleep-for`, as that would be likely to cause problems.
And FYI (you may already know, but in case not), with lexical-binding, you would have to use either advice or `letf` with `symbol-function` to override functions like that.
> The fact that such a fix is needed, on the one hand, and that such a fix is possible, on the other, are emblematic of the both cultural and technical reasons that emacs is not more robust.)
FWIW, there is no call to `sleep-for` in my Emacs 26.3's `shell.el` file. I suspect you have a configuration problem, or perhaps you installed an Emacs that was packaged poorly, with ill-advised patches applied.