Comment by coldtea
4 days ago
>How many developers are using VSCode? How does that number compare with Emacs/Vim?
How many people eat microwave meals? How many eat gourmet Michelin star dishes?
I don't care "how many use VSCode". My argument Emacs/Vim have great, well loved TUIs. And they are used by a huge number of the most respected coders in the industry. Whether a million React jockeys use VSCode doesn't negate this.
>Countless engineers spent many man-hours to develop theories and frameworks for creating GUI for a reason.
Yes, it sells to the masses. Countless food industry scientists aspend many man-hours to develop detrimental ultra-processed crap for a reason too.
The analogy mostly makes a point for snobbishness, but otherwise doesn’t really work. Most people would rather eat meals prepped by a Michelin star cook, but they can only afford microwave meals - whereas EMacs/Vim and VSCode are equally accessible to anyone.
>Most people would rather eat meals prepped by a Michelin star cook,
You'd be surprised. Most people can't eat anything adventurous or out of the junk-food category with some comfort food staples thrown in.
I love emacs but would never compare that with a Michelin meal! On the contrary, emacs is the DIY option that lets you experiment with whatever ingredients you please without judging your choices!
I think their point was about “most popular” not necessarily meaning “better”. I don’t think they meant anything more by it
> My argument Emacs/Vim have great, well loved TUIs.
They... are not great. They provide the absolute bare minimum of an UI.
An UI, even a terminal one, is more than a couple of boxes with text in them. Unfortunately, actual great TUIs more or less died in the 1990s. You can google Turbo Vision for examples.
The vast majority of people don't use the Emacs TUI and it is explicitly recommended to use the GUI.