Re: "Why is emacs so square?"

[ndame]

>
> A better language wins extensions, not a "popular" language, and Emacs
> Lisp is definitely more suited to extending editors than TypeScript.

I agree that Emacs is easier to program once you learned it, but
other editors, like VSCode, has the advantage that you don't have to
learn a quirky and unfamiliar language first.

Many developers know Javascript and even if one doesn't it's more similar
to mainstream languages than lisp, so extension writers mostly has to
learn the VSCode API only.

VScode has a very nice out of the box experience. If you want support
for a language then it's one click to install it and it installs the
necessary scaffolding too, like a language server for the language.

And it has Electron for display support which has a mature browser
engine behind it, so it can support advanced graphics features out
of the box on all the supported platforms.

Out of the box experience matters. Familiarity matters (e.g supporting
standard keys on the platfrom for cut and paste). Nice appearance matters.

No wonder lot of developers choose VScode:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=emacs%20editor,visual%20studio%20code