It's a matter of philosophy; would you rather have multiple small apps that do only one job or one "super app" that does it all?
Ironically, starting from the former, I've now turned my tmux into the latter with so many utility apps integrated into it. But now I can see the benefits of each approach. Maintaining "super apps" is more challenging due to the coupling of so many pieces to each other.
dietr1ch•Jul 23, 2026
And building a consistent good experience from isolated tools is even harder. The problem is just hard and I think good criteria with the super app approach is the way to go.
I really like Spacemacs. It's discoverable, extendable, quite consistent.
behnamoh•Jul 23, 2026
> And building a consistent good experience from isolated tools is even harder.
Yes, I agree, which is why my tmux slowly devours my numerous small utility apps into itself! I haven't tried Spacemacs yet, too Vim-pilled at the moment..
xvilka•Jul 23, 2026
Something like Lem[1][2] could go even further because of the richer CommonLisp ecosystem compared to Elisp one.
I am not sure if I would bet one way or another on who has the richer ecosystem here.. They are both great. I would probably wager elpa has more packages in general than quicklisp, but maybe not necessarily richer/higher quality.
adrian_b•Jul 23, 2026
Having CommonLisp as the extension language would indeed be a great improvement over Elisp.
However, I am suspicious about the dependency of Lem on Webkit, which for me is rather associated with inefficiency and low performance than with the instant reactions that I expect from programming text editors, terminal emulators and tiled window managers.
The main problem is that it is very difficult for any replacement of Emacs to offer everything that already exists for Emacs.
In my opinion, the only way in which such a replacement would succeed would be if it would include an automatic translator from Elisp to CommonLisp scripts executable by it, with equivalent functionality.
chiffaa•Jul 23, 2026
Lem can also render via ncurses, which works fairly fine if you don't need mouse support. It used to also have an SDL2 frontend, but it was deprecated for reasons I don't remember
conartist6•Jul 23, 2026
I chose the JS ecosystem. Why does the power of Emacs not belong in the browser? These days JS is a powerful enough FP language to do it.
all2•Jul 23, 2026
They told me the future would have horrors beyond my comprehension.
But I understand this particular horror. I might even agree... :D
m463•Jul 23, 2026
Maybe python can't do it, but I would love to extend my editor (and even browser) using python.
What it could at least let you do is view JS code using more "Pythonic" syntax rendering. The semantics would still be JS, but you could get rid of the curly braces while you were reading it if you just preferred semantic indentation, for example
getpokedagain•Jul 23, 2026
Nearly 40 years of stuff.
People iterating on a problem space over time is the best way we have found to improve things.
The JS ecosystem is not that old and also attempts to solve hundreds of unrelated problems like running software without peoples consent.
stackghost•Jul 23, 2026
"Common Lisp Emacs" has been attempted a few times. Lem seems like the best effort yet, and I was really excited about it until they decided to adopt a webview renderer.
I've got vscode for that.
rbc•Jul 23, 2026
GNU Emacs is probably the easiest way to capture the spirit of working on the Lisp machines. Interlisp is an ongoing project that takes you even further down that road.
boscillator•Jul 23, 2026
> Suppose I want to work in a single place for all my contexts, both personal and professional.
This has always been my problem with adopting Emacs or Obsidian or any other app that purports to do this. Who are y'all working for that you can bring professional stuff onto the same system as personal stuff? I don't want my personal emails on my work computer, and my boss would be rather upset if I brought work emails onto my personal computer. I'd love one of these do everything apps that lets me tag and sync just stuff that ought to be synced.
4 Comments
Ironically, starting from the former, I've now turned my tmux into the latter with so many utility apps integrated into it. But now I can see the benefits of each approach. Maintaining "super apps" is more challenging due to the coupling of so many pieces to each other.
I really like Spacemacs. It's discoverable, extendable, quite consistent.
Yes, I agree, which is why my tmux slowly devours my numerous small utility apps into itself! I haven't tried Spacemacs yet, too Vim-pilled at the moment..
[1] https://lem-project.github.io/
[2] https://github.com/lem-project/lem
However, I am suspicious about the dependency of Lem on Webkit, which for me is rather associated with inefficiency and low performance than with the instant reactions that I expect from programming text editors, terminal emulators and tiled window managers.
The main problem is that it is very difficult for any replacement of Emacs to offer everything that already exists for Emacs.
In my opinion, the only way in which such a replacement would succeed would be if it would include an automatic translator from Elisp to CommonLisp scripts executable by it, with equivalent functionality.
But I understand this particular horror. I might even agree... :D
What it could at least let you do is view JS code using more "Pythonic" syntax rendering. The semantics would still be JS, but you could get rid of the curly braces while you were reading it if you just preferred semantic indentation, for example
People iterating on a problem space over time is the best way we have found to improve things.
The JS ecosystem is not that old and also attempts to solve hundreds of unrelated problems like running software without peoples consent.
I've got vscode for that.
This has always been my problem with adopting Emacs or Obsidian or any other app that purports to do this. Who are y'all working for that you can bring professional stuff onto the same system as personal stuff? I don't want my personal emails on my work computer, and my boss would be rather upset if I brought work emails onto my personal computer. I'd love one of these do everything apps that lets me tag and sync just stuff that ought to be synced.