Re: An anonymous IRC user's opinion

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > > Isn't Emacs usable without any pre-configuration, out of the box?

  > It is a good editor without any pre-configuration (it even ships
  > org-mode). But to be a good Web-IDE, C++ or Scheme programming
  > environment, Server automation plattform, and so forth, it requires
  > configuration.

Between there to what follows

  > Which might be a reason why it is discovered by writers, and why
  > Spacemacs and Doom capture new people.

there is an yawning gulf.  My imagination can't get me from one to the
other.  Can you please explain how to cross?

You listed Web-IDE, C++ or Scheme programming environment, and Server
automation plattform as kinds of work a user might want Emacs set up
for.  Choosing Spacemacs first, does it do some of those three things?
Does Doom do some of those three things?

Aldo, when you say that each of them requires "configuration", could
you make that more concrete?  What sort of configuration does "Web
IDE" require?  What sort for Scheme programming environment?  And so
on.  I'm not asking for all the details, just an overall idea.

Could we easily add those missing kinds of configuration to Emacs?
If we did, would that make Emacs competitive with Spacemacs and Doom?

We generally try to make all sorts of packages for various uses of
Emacs coexist in a single Emacs job.  I get the impression people are
assuming that these different configurations are mutually incompatible,
so that it is necessary to choose which one to install.

Is that what people assume?  If people do, why so?  Why can't
users select one at run time?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)