{"slug": "emacs", "name": "Emacs", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "Extensible, programmable text editor built around Emacs Lisp, part of the GNU project.", "recommenders": 129, "commenters": 189, "warners": 4, "score": 123.437, "rising": 20.55, "first": "2025-11-01", "latest": "2026-10-30", "why": "HN commenters praise its deep customizability through Elisp, packages like Magit, Org mode and dired, and solid Vim emulation via evil-mode.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 157, "neutral": 73, "compare": 4, "warn": 7}, "spark": [19, 5, 6, 4, 7, 4, 8, 31, 19, 20, 11, 23], "listed": true, "loved": ["Customizability", "AI agent workflows"], "caveat": "Learning curve", "short_quote": "I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki.", "icon": true, "domain": "karl-voit.at", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Emacs", "GNU Emacs"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters praise its deep customizability through Elisp", "cites": [{"id": 804483776, "item_id": 50280236, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280236", "by": "Karrot_Kream", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the sheer amount of person-years that have gone into making emacs and elisp a conjoined system makes it a pleasure to use and iterate on", "excerpt": "Elisp is homoiconic and has a strong culture of REPL development, but really the thing that makes elisp so nice is that it has decades of use to iterate on an editor. There's an attempt to do this with Common Lisp that's quite cool, called Lem, but the sheer amount of person-years that have gone into making emacs and elisp a conjoined system makes it a pleasure to use and iterate on. Lem, in comparison, is building u", "context": "", "use_case": "editor customization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 791208368, "item_id": 49450523, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49450523", "by": "theokrueger", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I am in fact a long-standing near-vanilla emacs user", "excerpt": "haha I am in fact a long-standing near-vanilla emacs user. never said it being uncurated was a bad thing, the customizability is unrivalled and the reason I use it.", "context": "long-standing user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "A curmudgeon tries a language server"}, {"id": 792550208, "item_id": 49534388, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534388", "by": "holgerschurig", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki.", "excerpt": "Fine, I do this since several decades. I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki. And many things more. IDE with e.g. LSP integration, rustix and many other programmer-related modes and enhancements like tree-sitter. Git porcelain with magit. Organizer with Org-Mode. Wiki with denote.", "context": "long-time user for decades", "use_case": "editor, IDE, organizer, wiki", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}]}, {"text": ", packages like Magit, Org mode and dired", "cites": [{"id": 804399056, "item_id": 50274941, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50274941", "by": "lopotubez", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Did not realize that everything I was building in my vim configs to make it better was already default in emacs", "excerpt": "My biggest regret in life was that I was introduced to vim before emacs and got really comfortable with it. Did not realize that everything I was building in my vim configs to make it better was already default in emacs i.e dired, compile mode, magit, org mode, etc. If I wasn't able to multiplex with tmux I would have switched to emacs a long time ago.", "context": "Vim user", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804416849, "item_id": 50276053, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276053", "by": "_doctor_love", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs has served me well for more than a decade.", "excerpt": "I am too young to be in the 30 year club but Emacs has served me well for more than a decade. I don't use it as a daily driver anymore but it holds a special place in my heart. Using magit made me believe again that really good software can exist and that there are really great designers still among us. Also super agree that Stallman's original ideas are only ever more increasingly valid. I will generously say that S", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 802117906, "item_id": 50132369, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132369", "by": "teddyh", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I need to manipulate files in any quantity, I use Emacs and its dired-mode.", "excerpt": "I came to Unix from an MS-DOS background, where I used Norton Commander a lot. I used to keep an older version of NC \u2013 which would fit on a floppy \u2013 with me at all times. But on Unix, I ended up not using any of the clones; not even Midnight Commander, which was a key-for key clone, and should have fit me perfectly. It turns out you, or at least I, just don\u2019t use Unix the same way as I did MS-DOS. When I need to mani", "context": "came to Unix from MS-DOS", "use_case": "bulk file manipulation", "switched_from": "", "story": "The history of development of Norton Commander (2011)"}]}, {"text": ", and solid Vim emulation via evil-mode.", "cites": [{"id": 804556736, "item_id": 50284796, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284796", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs, as it turns out, vims much better than any other concrete vim implementation.", "excerpt": "I don't know how long ago \"your early 30's\" was, but for me this was never a question - I'm a die-hard vimmer, I use vim bindings everywhere. It's practical, why force myself to relearn my typing with every new tool I use if I really don't have to? Emacs, as it turns out, vims much better than any other concrete vim implementation. Even though I did learn some basic Emacs vanilla bindings, I'm still a vimmer. Vimming", "context": "die-hard vimmer", "use_case": "editing with vim bindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 789449664, "item_id": 49340604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49340604", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Emacs w/evil mode.", "excerpt": "I'm a life long vim user, and I love Emacs w/evil mode. There's something about hacking in elisp on the editor that you're using to do the hacking, that just makes me fall in love with programming again. I'm not joking when I say this, but one of the activities I look forward to when I'm retired is hacking on Emacs. Thanks to those who continue to make these Emacs releases happen.", "context": "life long vim user", "use_case": "editing and hacking", "switched_from": "vim", "story": "Emacs 31.1 RC1 is available"}, {"id": 800495601, "item_id": 50030975, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030975", "by": "precompute", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs", "excerpt": "You should try using evil again. I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs (the other 9% is in the terminal). It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim. In time you'll pick up some native emacs shortcuts to simplify your life but you'll still have modal editing everywhere. Best of both worlds.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily work", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}]}, {"text": " The most common caveats are poor defaults and a steeper learning curve than editors like VS Code", "cites": [{"id": 792512096, "item_id": 49532006, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532006", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use emacs daily (with vim keybindings of course)", "excerpt": "I use emacs daily (with vim keybindings of course), but I completely understand why vscode is so popular. It's extremely easy to get started with, has features galore, and sane defaults. Emacs takes much more effort to get productive with, although this is improving with each release.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 787619120, "item_id": 49226195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226195", "by": "dannymi", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age.", "excerpt": "It really depends on what your character is. I like to start from the basics and build up. I would start from a completely vanilla emacs (on package emacs-pgtk--that is the graphical version), then enable Options > Cut/Paste with C-x/C-c/C-v CUA mode, then Options > Save Options. I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age. The defaults are all bad--but the possible end result you CAN configure is pretty modern [", "context": "long-time Emacs user", "use_case": "programming, email, notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: If you had to relearn Emacs today, how would you?"}]}, {"text": ", plus modifier-key controls that put off some modal-editing fans.", "cites": [{"id": 800493745, "item_id": 50030859, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030859", "by": "rmunn", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every time I see the Emacs control scheme, I wince and I'm reminded why I don't use it", "excerpt": "The two things about Emacs I would love if I used it (tried twice, bounced HARD off the keyboard controls both times. I hate modifer+key control schemes \u2014 give me modal editing any day \u2014 and I don't even have RSI!) are magit and org-mode. I've never tried magit so I don't know if lazygit is a decent substitute. But for org-mode in Neovim, there's https://github.com/nvim-neorg/neorg. I'm sure it's only a partial, half", "context": "modal-editing fan", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Customizability", "summary": "Users shape the editor to their own workflow through Elisp, calling the customizability unrivalled.", "quotes": [{"id": 791208368, "item_id": 49450523, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49450523", "by": "theokrueger", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I am in fact a long-standing near-vanilla emacs user", "excerpt": "haha I am in fact a long-standing near-vanilla emacs user. never said it being uncurated was a bad thing, the customizability is unrivalled and the reason I use it.", "context": "long-standing user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "A curmudgeon tries a language server"}, {"id": 792550208, "item_id": 49534388, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534388", "by": "holgerschurig", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki.", "excerpt": "Fine, I do this since several decades. I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki. And many things more. IDE with e.g. LSP integration, rustix and many other programmer-related modes and enhancements like tree-sitter. Git porcelain with magit. Organizer with Org-Mode. Wiki with denote.", "context": "long-time user for decades", "use_case": "editor, IDE, organizer, wiki", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 801515728, "item_id": 50094733, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50094733", "by": "antiframe", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "In Emacs I use different faces for comments, tables in literate sections, and code blocks.", "excerpt": "> Wish code editors would support different fonts per semantic region They absolutely do. In Emacs I use different faces for comments, tables in literate sections, and code blocks. I use the same font for all those faces, but different attributes (size, weight, etc). I also have configured different fonts for different unicode code points, so that when I include Cyrillic or Japanese text I can use a font with better ", "context": "", "use_case": "configurable code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Iosevka is an open-source, sans-serif and slab-serif monospace font"}]}, {"label": "AI agent workflows", "summary": "Several users drive coding agents from inside Emacs and have AI write their Elisp customizations.", "quotes": [{"id": 790170256, "item_id": 49385641, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49385641", "by": "jwr", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs turned out to be the ultimate material for AI. I no longer write my own Emacs functions.", "excerpt": "I have been using Emacs for 32 years now. It had its ups and downs: there was a period of very slow development, which led to the XEmacs fork, which I used for many years. These days I see a renaissance of sorts. First, the development progress is excellent. Second, Emacs turned out to be the ultimate material for AI. I no longer write my own Emacs functions. I tell AI to modify the Emacs behavior the way I want. I n", "context": "Emacs user for 32 years", "use_case": "customizable development environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31.1 will release on 8/24"}, {"id": 798937968, "item_id": 49933623, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933623", "by": "gnufied", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs makes for excellent Agent harness.", "excerpt": "Emacs makes for excellent Agent harness. With https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/ , this is the only UI I use for working with agents. What makes this great is infinite hack-ability of the interface and agents have become pretty good at writing elisp packages, so basically you can have a workflow exactly how you want. I wish I had time to make a screencast about this, but If you are a Emacs user and not using Em", "context": "Emacs user", "use_case": "agent harness UI", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek Harness Desktop for macOS and Windows"}, {"id": 788956385, "item_id": 49309774, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49309774", "by": "xenodium", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "first class integration into your text editor (no context switch)", "excerpt": "I recently read someone [1] make the case for a sweet spot blending the best of CLI agents (fast, keyboard-driven, in a terminal) and desktop agents (rich UI: inline images, diffs). This resonated with me as fairly on point to what agent-shell has been going for, except from inside Emacs, which arguably gets you plenty of goodies at once: it's fast and text/keyboard-driven like a terminal, also renders inline images,", "context": "", "use_case": "host editor for agent-shell", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Agent-shell \u2013 vendor-neutral chat with AI agents in Emacs"}]}, {"label": "Built-in packages", "summary": "Magit, Org mode, dired and consult are repeatedly singled out as standout tools.", "quotes": [{"id": 804399056, "item_id": 50274941, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50274941", "by": "lopotubez", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Did not realize that everything I was building in my vim configs to make it better was already default in emacs", "excerpt": "My biggest regret in life was that I was introduced to vim before emacs and got really comfortable with it. Did not realize that everything I was building in my vim configs to make it better was already default in emacs i.e dired, compile mode, magit, org mode, etc. If I wasn't able to multiplex with tmux I would have switched to emacs a long time ago.", "context": "Vim user", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 803674064, "item_id": 50229629, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229629", "by": "Karrot_Kream", "date": "2026-10-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the moment agents became a viable way to develop code I switched back into emacs", "excerpt": "I've been an emacs user for most of my life, before I even went to college. I took a brief (5 years) tour into IDEs for writing code on the job, but the moment agents became a viable way to develop code I switched back into emacs. I love reviewing changes in magit. I'm pretty sure many folks put up with the bloat of IDEs just for the functionality they offered. Now, they're hopping back to emacs, vim, sublime, whatev", "context": "emacs user for most of life", "use_case": "code editing with agents", "switched_from": "IDEs", "story": "We should be more ambitious with the software we build"}, {"id": 804416640, "item_id": 50276040, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276040", "by": "lukehandcool", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love emacs and have been using it daily for about 5 years now.", "excerpt": "I love emacs and have been using it daily for about 5 years now. Many people have mentioned magit and org mode. I just want to give another shout out to consult.el which is a wonderful way to grep and search through text. Happy birthday emacs!", "context": "", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}]}, {"label": "Vim emulation", "summary": "Vim users say evil-mode gives them modal editing that works better than other Vim implementations.", "quotes": [{"id": 804556736, "item_id": 50284796, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284796", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs, as it turns out, vims much better than any other concrete vim implementation.", "excerpt": "I don't know how long ago \"your early 30's\" was, but for me this was never a question - I'm a die-hard vimmer, I use vim bindings everywhere. It's practical, why force myself to relearn my typing with every new tool I use if I really don't have to? Emacs, as it turns out, vims much better than any other concrete vim implementation. Even though I did learn some basic Emacs vanilla bindings, I'm still a vimmer. Vimming", "context": "die-hard vimmer", "use_case": "editing with vim bindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804497776, "item_id": 50281111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50281111", "by": "Jtsummers", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Because emacs is better, and I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings", "excerpt": "The only expression I have gotten was something like \"Why not vim?\" and my response was \"Because emacs is better, and I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings\". Then it gets installed (by me or an admin) and I use it. I can't imagine anyone actually caring, that's pretty petty of them, or lazy based on your other comment about it being too much work for sysadmins.", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 800495601, "item_id": 50030975, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030975", "by": "precompute", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs", "excerpt": "You should try using evil again. I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs (the other 9% is in the terminal). It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim. In time you'll pick up some native emacs shortcuts to simplify your life but you'll still have modal editing everywhere. Best of both worlds.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily work", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}]}, {"label": "Longevity", "summary": "Long-time users value that it has stayed stable and actively maintained for decades.", "quotes": [{"id": 804380112, "item_id": 50273757, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273757", "by": "jwr", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed.", "excerpt": "I have been using Emacs for more than 30 years now. Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed. Parts of my configuration are more than 30 years old. There were better and worse times in Emacs history. Recent times, however, are really good. Emacs is maintained and developed actively and there are many external packages which are impressive. Magit and ghostel are good examples of packages that I use on a daily ba", "context": "30+ year user", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804563520, "item_id": 50285220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50285220", "by": "jjav", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I fully switched from vi to emacs in 1992 and been using it heavily every day since then. So good.", "excerpt": "> I have been using Emacs for more than 30 years now. Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed. Parts of my configuration are more than 30 years old. Same here! Aside from the basic unix tools in /[usr]/bin/, there is very little software with the longevity of emacs. I fully switched from vi to emacs in 1992 and been using it heavily every day since then. So good. (The only other program I can think of from tha", "context": "long-time Unix user since the early 1990s", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "vi", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804379441, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}]}, {"label": "All-in-one tool", "summary": "Some users handle email, writing, planning and coding all inside Emacs.", "quotes": [{"id": 804514160, "item_id": 50282135, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282135", "by": "RedCinnabar", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You\u2019re the best thing that happened in the computing world.", "excerpt": "I programmed in Emacs in a myriad of different languages, I used it to write my thesis, to write my homework and later to grade them. I\u2019ve used it to publish countless blog articles, wiki pages and technical documents. I read that I was hired at my first job from en email received inside Emacs, I\u2019ve used it to send countless emails to colleagues, employers and business partners. I planned both my personal and profess", "context": "20-year user", "use_case": "programming, writing, email, planning", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 801300656, "item_id": 50081291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081291", "by": "SoftTalker", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "On linux I read my mail in emacs, and use notmuch for searching/indexing. It's amazing.", "excerpt": "On linux I read my mail in emacs, and use notmuch for searching/indexing. It's amazing. On the go I use a web browser on my phone for gmail or outlook. No apps. I try to minimize doing email on my phone because it's so awkward to type.", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "reading email on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Thunderbird for iOS"}, {"id": 787619120, "item_id": 49226195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226195", "by": "dannymi", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age.", "excerpt": "It really depends on what your character is. I like to start from the basics and build up. I would start from a completely vanilla emacs (on package emacs-pgtk--that is the graphical version), then enable Options > Cut/Paste with C-x/C-c/C-v CUA mode, then Options > Save Options. I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age. The defaults are all bad--but the possible end result you CAN configure is pretty modern [", "context": "long-time Emacs user", "use_case": "programming, email, notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: If you had to relearn Emacs today, how would you?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Learning curve", "summary": "It takes more effort to become productive than VS Code, and the defaults are described as bad.", "quotes": [{"id": 792512096, "item_id": 49532006, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532006", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use emacs daily (with vim keybindings of course)", "excerpt": "I use emacs daily (with vim keybindings of course), but I completely understand why vscode is so popular. It's extremely easy to get started with, has features galore, and sane defaults. Emacs takes much more effort to get productive with, although this is improving with each release.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 787619120, "item_id": 49226195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226195", "by": "dannymi", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age.", "excerpt": "It really depends on what your character is. I like to start from the basics and build up. I would start from a completely vanilla emacs (on package emacs-pgtk--that is the graphical version), then enable Options > Cut/Paste with C-x/C-c/C-v CUA mode, then Options > Save Options. I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age. The defaults are all bad--but the possible end result you CAN configure is pretty modern [", "context": "long-time Emacs user", "use_case": "programming, email, notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: If you had to relearn Emacs today, how would you?"}]}, {"label": "Keyboard controls", "summary": "Some modal-editing fans bounced off its modifier-key control scheme.", "quotes": [{"id": 800493745, "item_id": 50030859, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030859", "by": "rmunn", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every time I see the Emacs control scheme, I wince and I'm reminded why I don't use it", "excerpt": "The two things about Emacs I would love if I used it (tried twice, bounced HARD off the keyboard controls both times. I hate modifer+key control schemes \u2014 give me modal editing any day \u2014 and I don't even have RSI!) are magit and org-mode. I've never tried magit so I don't know if lazygit is a decent substitute. But for org-mode in Neovim, there's https://github.com/nvim-neorg/neorg. I'm sure it's only a partial, half", "context": "modal-editing fan", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}]}, {"label": "Terminal TUIs", "summary": "One user had repeated issues running TUI agent tools inside vterm.", "quotes": [{"id": 790960112, "item_id": 49435007, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49435007", "by": "diegoeche", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love emacs. I used emacs for 20 years.", "excerpt": "I love emacs. I used emacs for 20 years. But I haven't used it as much since moving to codex/claude. Even with vterm, can't really use TUIs that well inside IMO. Or at least, had way too many issues where emacs/vterm was the culprit", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What's new in Emacs 31.1"}]}, {"label": "Upgrade issues", "summary": "Users report a persistent package warning after building 31.1 and memory leaks on macOS that 31.1 fixed.", "quotes": [{"id": 790965280, "item_id": 49435330, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49435330", "by": "jmclnx", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I build Emacs 31.1 on Slackware 15.0 and it has an odd issue.", "excerpt": "Well for what it is worth, I build Emacs 31.1 on Slackware 15.0 and it has an odd issue. I get this message below but issuing that command does not fix it, the warning still appears. So either I need to move from ccrypt to a different encryption utility or revert. For now I will revert and decide if I want to use gnupg instead. I use ccrypt for my password list text file. for more information. * Warning (files): Miss", "context": "Slackware user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What's new in Emacs 31.1"}, {"id": 790180848, "item_id": 49386303, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49386303", "by": "mcookly", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend upgrading to 31.1 ASAP since several memory leaks have been fixed", "excerpt": "For those who use Emacs on macOS, I highly recommend upgrading to 31.1 ASAP since several memory leaks have been fixed by Przemys\u0142aw Alexander Kami\u0144ski [1] et al. [1]: Author of \"Emacs: The macOS Bug\" (<https://xlii.space/eng/emacs-the-macos-bug/>), which surfaced on HN some time ago.", "context": "Emacs user on macOS", "use_case": "editor on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31.1 will release on 8/24"}]}, {"label": "Org lock-in", "summary": "Org files are tied to Emacs, which creates friction when collaborating with users of other editors.", "quotes": [{"id": 798758433, "item_id": 49922402, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922402", "by": "theCodeStig", "date": "2026-10-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Emacs, but I can't (ethically and pragmatically) force any editor/IDE on anyone.", "excerpt": "Yes, exactly that. Org predates Markdown, however the Achilles heel is that it's tied to Emacs. I love Emacs, but I can't (ethically and pragmatically) force any editor/IDE on anyone. And as soon as a lone emacser commits an org file to a repo, it creates a disconnect. Markdown (although it doesn't adhere to a strict standard) is ubiquitous, and support for Ledge notebooks degrades gracefully. If one doesn't have Led", "context": "Emacs user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Ledge.sh \u2013 Runnable Markdown Notes"}]}, {"label": "Dated terminology", "summary": "Users say terms like Meta key and window feel outdated.", "quotes": [{"id": 791806672, "item_id": 49487917, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487917", "by": "holgerschurig", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Emacs daily, and I (mostly) like it.", "excerpt": "That is what people use for the Alt key. I mean, I use Emacs daily, and I (mostly) like it. But the terminology *) is really fucked up inside Emacs. Almost no one realizes that perhaps since 35 years no keyboard in mass-use had an \"Meta\" key. And if the \"e\" people now still keep that weird name, then they aren't similarly frozen in the state of time as the Emacs community. 1) There's more. Lisp still let bleed assemb", "context": "daily Emacs user", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "e is a customizable self-aware Emacs-like editor written in Chez Scheme"}]}], "who": [{"by": "wilkystyle", "context": "Emacs user for almost 20 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296313", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "iLemming", "context": "die-hard vimmer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291657", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "jjav", "context": "long-time Unix user since the early 1990s", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50285220", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "not2b", "context": "user since the early 80s", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284380", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "RedCinnabar", "context": "20-year user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282135", "date": "2026-10-28"}, {"by": "Isamu", "context": "user since around 1980", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50277049", "date": "2026-10-28"}, {"by": "tarentel", "context": "Emacs user for ~15 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276222", "date": "2026-10-28"}, {"by": "lopotubez", "context": "Vim user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50274941", "date": "2026-10-28"}, {"by": "jwr", "context": "30+ year user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273757", "date": "2026-10-28"}, {"by": "Karrot_Kream", "context": "emacs user for most of life", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229629", "date": "2026-10-25"}, {"by": "teddyh", "context": "came to Unix from MS-DOS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132369", "date": "2026-10-17"}, {"by": "SoftTalker", "context": "Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081291", "date": "2026-10-14"}], "tags": ["for Vim users", "for AI agent workflows", "for Org-mode note-taking", "for Lisp developers", "for email in the editor"], "use_cases": ["text editing", "editor", "editing", "daily editing", "text editor", "code editing"], "compared": [{"slug": "vim", "name": "Vim", "co": 46, "switched_from": 5, "switched_to": 4}, {"slug": "neovim", "name": "Neovim", "co": 30, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 3}, {"slug": "visual-studio-code", "name": "Visual Studio Code", "co": 30, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "magit", "name": "Magit", "co": 22, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "org-mode", "name": "Org mode", "co": 20, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "lem", "name": "Lem", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 13, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "doom-emacs", "name": "Doom Emacs", "co": 12, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273171", "title": "Emacs Turns 50", "mentions": 21}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584135", "title": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving", "mentions": 18}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48542784", "title": "Emacs, how it all started (for me)", "mentions": 11}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783376", "title": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?", "mentions": 10}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48535886", "title": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464543", "title": "Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode", "mentions": 5}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 19, "neutral": 4}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 3}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 4, "recommend": 6}, "2026-02": {"compare": 1, "neutral": 3, "recommend": 4, "warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 4, "warn": 2}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 5, "recommend": 4, "compare": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 5, "recommend": 8, "compare": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 13, "recommend": 31}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 5, "recommend": 19, "warn": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 9, "recommend": 20, "warn": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 11, "neutral": 7}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 23, "neutral": 11, "warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804805025, "item_id": 50300314, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50300314", "by": "athrowaway3z", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It works great so far. I can just ask it to update its layout whenever i think something better is possible. I wont be going back", "excerpt": "Having used herdr since its release, the recent 'Emacs is 50' made me decide to go back to it and just vibecode herdr features i use into an emacs package. It works great so far. I can just ask it to update its layout whenever i think something better is possible. I wont be going back, but the one thing that might change that is a mobile app.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent management package", "switched_from": "Herdr", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 804741009, "item_id": 50296313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296313", "by": "wilkystyle", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "after almost 20 years of using it to write all sorts of functionality from big to small things", "excerpt": "I definitely agree with this. Literally the only time I use lisp is when working on my Emacs configuration, but after almost 20 years of using it to write all sorts of functionality from big to small things, just having the exposure to lisp has really helped expand my thinking about programming in ways that working with e.g. C, Python, Rust may not have. One last thing on the Vim emulation front: While I'm not a big ", "context": "Emacs user for almost 20 years", "use_case": "editor and customization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804666513, "item_id": 50291657, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291657", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "otherwise, I might have never convinced myself to ever give Emacs a try.", "excerpt": "> Vim implementation quality varies wildly from environment to environment is extremely frustrating to me. I know exactly what you're talking about. I am a die-hard vimmer and used vim plugins in every editor/IDE/browser/shell/multiplexer/WM/etc. I use vim bindings system-wide. I control my music, switch between apps, swap and resize windows - all without lifting a finger from the home-row. I spent almost a decade li", "context": "die-hard vimmer", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "IntelliJ", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804563520, "item_id": 50285220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50285220", "by": "jjav", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I fully switched from vi to emacs in 1992 and been using it heavily every day since then. So good.", "excerpt": "> I have been using Emacs for more than 30 years now. Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed. Parts of my configuration are more than 30 years old. Same here! Aside from the basic unix tools in /[usr]/bin/, there is very little software with the longevity of emacs. I fully switched from vi to emacs in 1992 and been using it heavily every day since then. So good. (The only other program I can think of from tha", "context": "long-time Unix user since the early 1990s", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "vi", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804556736, "item_id": 50284796, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284796", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs, as it turns out, vims much better than any other concrete vim implementation.", "excerpt": "I don't know how long ago \"your early 30's\" was, but for me this was never a question - I'm a die-hard vimmer, I use vim bindings everywhere. It's practical, why force myself to relearn my typing with every new tool I use if I really don't have to? Emacs, as it turns out, vims much better than any other concrete vim implementation. Even though I did learn some basic Emacs vanilla bindings, I'm still a vimmer. Vimming", "context": "die-hard vimmer", "use_case": "editing with vim bindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804554832, "item_id": 50284677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284677", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can't just ignore forty years of package development", "excerpt": "> someone has made the wrong editor choice Just the other day I made this comment on the topic of \"nvim vs emacs\", I think it fits here well: > editor choice shouldn't be treated like soccer or religion Oh, I wish there was a choice here. I've been vimming since 2010, the idea of vim modality is an excellent, practical, beautiful model. It's a fantastic idea and the ideas do port. That's why I've used vim-bindings in", "context": "vimmer since 2010", "use_case": "Lisp REPL and editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804550080, "item_id": 50284380, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284380", "by": "not2b", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "shortly after switch to GNU Emacs when it was first released in 1985", "excerpt": "I've been using Emacs since the early 80s, first Gosling's Emacs and shortly after switch to GNU Emacs when it was first released in 1985. In college we had a DEC-10 system and I used Teco on that one.", "context": "user since the early 80s", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "Gosling Emacs", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804525728, "item_id": 50282858, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282858", "by": "Arubis", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Decades later it feels perhaps more relevant than it did the then.", "excerpt": "When I started using emacs it already felt past well-established and perhaps past its prime. Decades later it feels perhaps more relevant than it did the then. The easier-access defaults kits of the mid-2010s got a lot of new user investment, and it feels like the community really ticked up around COVID. Yes, agentic development has us spending a lot of time in harnesses; relevance-wise, things that aren\u2019t an editor ", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804523664, "item_id": 50282729, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282729", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Blaming Emacs for that is blaming the UI for the engine.", "excerpt": "> Will probably die Did anyone ever tell you how badly you suck at prophecies? This unfalsifiable prediction has enormously bad track record: people have called Emacs dead since the 90s, through XEmacs, through every IDE wave since, through Atom, Sublime, nvim, VSCode, Zed, etc. I'm sure \"Anti-AI core community\" drinking themselves to oblivion and chugging anti-depressants seeing how many packages for AI integration ", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804514160, "item_id": 50282135, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282135", "by": "RedCinnabar", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You\u2019re the best thing that happened in the computing world.", "excerpt": "I programmed in Emacs in a myriad of different languages, I used it to write my thesis, to write my homework and later to grade them. I\u2019ve used it to publish countless blog articles, wiki pages and technical documents. I read that I was hired at my first job from en email received inside Emacs, I\u2019ve used it to send countless emails to colleagues, employers and business partners. I planned both my personal and profess", "context": "20-year user", "use_case": "programming, writing, email, planning", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804497776, "item_id": 50281111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50281111", "by": "Jtsummers", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Because emacs is better, and I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings", "excerpt": "The only expression I have gotten was something like \"Why not vim?\" and my response was \"Because emacs is better, and I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings\". Then it gets installed (by me or an admin) and I use it. I can't imagine anyone actually caring, that's pretty petty of them, or lazy based on your other comment about it being too much work for sysadmins.", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804494448, "item_id": 50280903, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280903", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm reading this thread in Emacs.", "excerpt": "It absolutely is. Consider this. I'm reading this thread in Emacs. Why? Am I obsessed with it? What's the point? Well, I can easily read not just the thread but also the article posted while ignoring all the fluff - graphics, banners, ads, etc. - to extract a piece of plain text. I can also just ignore every conversation - sometimes, posted urls are more valuable than what people blabber and fight about. Imagine havi", "context": "", "use_case": "reading HN and extracting URLs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804483776, "item_id": 50280236, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280236", "by": "Karrot_Kream", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the sheer amount of person-years that have gone into making emacs and elisp a conjoined system makes it a pleasure to use and iterate on", "excerpt": "Elisp is homoiconic and has a strong culture of REPL development, but really the thing that makes elisp so nice is that it has decades of use to iterate on an editor. There's an attempt to do this with Common Lisp that's quite cool, called Lem, but the sheer amount of person-years that have gone into making emacs and elisp a conjoined system makes it a pleasure to use and iterate on. Lem, in comparison, is building u", "context": "", "use_case": "editor customization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804449713, "item_id": 50278107, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50278107", "by": "ashton314", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you're feeling curious at trying Emacs out for the first time", "excerpt": "If you're feeling curious at trying Emacs out for the first time (or just want to see what's new in the past decade or so), may I humbly suggest you take a look at my starter config: https://codeberg.org/ashton314/emacs-bedrock When I first started using Emacs, my dad gave me his config. (Yes, I actually experienced https://xkcd.com/297/ irl.) A few years ago a friend of mine asked for some help getting a simpler Ema", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804441760, "item_id": 50277610, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50277610", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I grokked display-buffer-alist and never had any problems since.", "excerpt": "I grokked display-buffer-alist and never had any problems since. With any other editor or IDE (and I used more than a few), it never occurred to me to even want to do anything complex with window placement. There are things I would love to see getting improved in Emacs, but managing windows and frames is not the one.", "context": "", "use_case": "window and frame management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804432784, "item_id": 50277049, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50277049", "by": "Isamu", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "And I used Emacs (on Linux) this morning.", "excerpt": "I started using the original TECO based Emacs on TOPS-20 at CMU in maybe 1980, so much better than the line editor of the time. And I used Emacs (on Linux) this morning. Let me know if you remember the DEC20 and the dreaded \u201cnot running\u201d message that happened to everyone in the room when it went down. Also interested if you remember Gosling Emacs, the first rewrite for Unix. James Gosling of Java fame.", "context": "user since around 1980", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804419552, "item_id": 50276222, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276222", "by": "tarentel", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use emacs everyday.", "excerpt": "I've been using emacs for ~15 years. I don't now what is considered lean. My init is 343 lines. Probably removing all the comments and junk collected over the years it is likely ~200 that actually does anything useful at this point, I should probably clean up. I use emacs everyday. I get the desire to want to do everything in emacs but I also don't. It is good at what it does, it happens to do other things too but I ", "context": "Emacs user for ~15 years", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804416849, "item_id": 50276053, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276053", "by": "_doctor_love", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Emacs has served me well for more than a decade.", "excerpt": "I am too young to be in the 30 year club but Emacs has served me well for more than a decade. I don't use it as a daily driver anymore but it holds a special place in my heart. Using magit made me believe again that really good software can exist and that there are really great designers still among us. Also super agree that Stallman's original ideas are only ever more increasingly valid. I will generously say that S", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804416640, "item_id": 50276040, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276040", "by": "lukehandcool", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love emacs and have been using it daily for about 5 years now.", "excerpt": "I love emacs and have been using it daily for about 5 years now. Many people have mentioned magit and org mode. I just want to give another shout out to consult.el which is a wonderful way to grep and search through text. Happy birthday emacs!", "context": "", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804399056, "item_id": 50274941, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50274941", "by": "lopotubez", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Did not realize that everything I was building in my vim configs to make it better was already default in emacs", "excerpt": "My biggest regret in life was that I was introduced to vim before emacs and got really comfortable with it. Did not realize that everything I was building in my vim configs to make it better was already default in emacs i.e dired, compile mode, magit, org mode, etc. If I wasn't able to multiplex with tmux I would have switched to emacs a long time ago.", "context": "Vim user", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804380112, "item_id": 50273757, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273757", "by": "jwr", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed.", "excerpt": "I have been using Emacs for more than 30 years now. Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed. Parts of my configuration are more than 30 years old. There were better and worse times in Emacs history. Recent times, however, are really good. Emacs is maintained and developed actively and there are many external packages which are impressive. Magit and ghostel are good examples of packages that I use on a daily ba", "context": "30+ year user", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804379441, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 803674064, "item_id": 50229629, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229629", "by": "Karrot_Kream", "date": "2026-10-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the moment agents became a viable way to develop code I switched back into emacs", "excerpt": "I've been an emacs user for most of my life, before I even went to college. I took a brief (5 years) tour into IDEs for writing code on the job, but the moment agents became a viable way to develop code I switched back into emacs. I love reviewing changes in magit. I'm pretty sure many folks put up with the bloat of IDEs just for the functionality they offered. Now, they're hopping back to emacs, vim, sublime, whatev", "context": "emacs user for most of life", "use_case": "code editing with agents", "switched_from": "IDEs", "story": "We should be more ambitious with the software we build"}, {"id": 802117906, "item_id": 50132369, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132369", "by": "teddyh", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I need to manipulate files in any quantity, I use Emacs and its dired-mode.", "excerpt": "I came to Unix from an MS-DOS background, where I used Norton Commander a lot. I used to keep an older version of NC \u2013 which would fit on a floppy \u2013 with me at all times. But on Unix, I ended up not using any of the clones; not even Midnight Commander, which was a key-for key clone, and should have fit me perfectly. It turns out you, or at least I, just don\u2019t use Unix the same way as I did MS-DOS. When I need to mani", "context": "came to Unix from MS-DOS", "use_case": "bulk file manipulation", "switched_from": "", "story": "The history of development of Norton Commander (2011)"}, {"id": 801845172, "item_id": 50115323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50115323", "by": "GeneralMaximus", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "as malleable as Emacs", "excerpt": "These numbers make a lot of sense to me. When the November 2025 coding agent inflection point happened, the first thing I did was to solve all the niggling little problems I have with the software I use on the daily. Think shell scripts, Alfred workflows, Elisp functions, and Obsidian plugins. Claude Code/Codex has made my entire macOS environment as malleable as Emacs. That\u2019s huge! Everyday automation continues to b", "context": "", "use_case": "extensible editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI is driving a boom in modestly successful software projects"}, {"id": 801543712, "item_id": 50096482, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50096482", "by": "arialdomartini", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have a key emitting \u201cforall\u201d which Emacs then displays as \u2200.", "excerpt": "When I program or I write maths I see and think of -> >>= <*> etc as a single, semantically meaningful symbols. Not only do I use a ligature for them, but I make my keyboard to use one single key. For the same reason I have a key emitting \u201cforall\u201d which Emacs then displays as \u2200.", "context": "", "use_case": "code and math editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Iosevka is an open-source, sans-serif and slab-serif monospace font"}, {"id": 801515728, "item_id": 50094733, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50094733", "by": "antiframe", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "In Emacs I use different faces for comments, tables in literate sections, and code blocks.", "excerpt": "> Wish code editors would support different fonts per semantic region They absolutely do. In Emacs I use different faces for comments, tables in literate sections, and code blocks. I use the same font for all those faces, but different attributes (size, weight, etc). I also have configured different fonts for different unicode code points, so that when I include Cyrillic or Japanese text I can use a font with better ", "context": "", "use_case": "configurable code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Iosevka is an open-source, sans-serif and slab-serif monospace font"}, {"id": 801489905, "item_id": 50093119, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50093119", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "That's why I use telega.el in Emacs.", "excerpt": "That's why I use telega.el in Emacs. Even if it has thousand vulnerabilities, nobody really cares, except the other three people on the planet who also use it. That's what I call \"security by obscurity\"... lol", "context": "", "use_case": "host for Telegram client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Telegram Desktop vulnerability allowed any user's file to be stolen"}, {"id": 801300960, "item_id": 50081310, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081310", "by": "Avicebron", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "used Emacs for almost two decades now", "excerpt": "I've worked in C, used Emacs for almost two decades now, and work(ed) on plenty of SQL. We're tired, older. You either were part of the cohort who rode the wave of 150K starting salaries out of college or a bootcamp 15-20 years ago or not. And if you were, you now have graduated to making upwards of that and displacing locals out of their small rural communities because the economy is bad there and you can. Or you we", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where has creativity in software gone?"}, {"id": 801300656, "item_id": 50081291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081291", "by": "SoftTalker", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "On linux I read my mail in emacs, and use notmuch for searching/indexing. It's amazing.", "excerpt": "On linux I read my mail in emacs, and use notmuch for searching/indexing. It's amazing. On the go I use a web browser on my phone for gmail or outlook. No apps. I try to minimize doing email on my phone because it's so awkward to type.", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "reading email on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Thunderbird for iOS"}, {"id": 800982464, "item_id": 50061404, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50061404", "by": "mindcrime", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Not sure exactly, but probably either Emacs or Bash.", "excerpt": "Not sure exactly, but probably either Emacs or Bash.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the oldest software tool you still rely on every day?"}, {"id": 800671394, "item_id": 50041962, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50041962", "by": "RandomGerm4n", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There are also alternatives such as VSCodium, Neovim, or Emacs.", "excerpt": "I wish lists like this were curated more carefully. Just because a company is European doesn't automatically make it better. For example, Gigaset is listed as one of the alternatives to the iPhone. They distributed malware to end users via their official update servers and then failed to inform them about it. Something like this should be an absolute no go for a smartphone manufacturer unless it's properly addressed.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "European Alternatives"}, {"id": 800622241, "item_id": 50038890, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50038890", "by": "kscarlet", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Common Lisp software (besides Emacs) written by human", "excerpt": "In many case it is the sheer accidental complexity. I tried to get into Linux codebase and gosh it's so much harder than FreeBSD. And Chromium, LLVM... I don't believe it has to be that way. I use Common Lisp software (besides Emacs) written by human for anything I can and these have always been a joy to use or work with. It seems the way industry is heading towards wrt LLM will make this even much, much worse.", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Grieving the loss of details"}, {"id": 800499840, "item_id": 50031240, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50031240", "by": "xz18r", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've used Emacs and org-mode for about half a decade now and I find it inescapable.", "excerpt": "I've used Emacs and org-mode for about half a decade now and I find it inescapable. I hate that I love it, and love that I hate it. Things like Neorg (which looks unmaintained) gave me hope to find another plaintext ecosystem that handles tasks and notes very well, but I haven't found the perfect solution.", "context": "", "use_case": "notes and tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 800496867, "item_id": 50031054, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50031054", "by": "rmunn", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Emacs is definitely more full-featured than plain vim.", "excerpt": "Emacs is definitely more full-featured than plain vim. But for me, I wouldn't be switching to it from plain vim, I'd be switching to it from a LazyVim setup. Which I've barely had to configure: it's an IDE straight out of the box. And to get that IDE setup back in Emacs, I'd have to learn which Emacs plugins do what, reconfigure several plugins' default keystrokes to match what LazyVim did because those are in my mus", "context": "", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 800495601, "item_id": 50030975, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030975", "by": "precompute", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs", "excerpt": "You should try using evil again. I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs (the other 9% is in the terminal). It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim. In time you'll pick up some native emacs shortcuts to simplify your life but you'll still have modal editing everywhere. Best of both worlds.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily work", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 800493745, "item_id": 50030859, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030859", "by": "rmunn", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every time I see the Emacs control scheme, I wince and I'm reminded why I don't use it", "excerpt": "The two things about Emacs I would love if I used it (tried twice, bounced HARD off the keyboard controls both times. I hate modifer+key control schemes \u2014 give me modal editing any day \u2014 and I don't even have RSI!) are magit and org-mode. I've never tried magit so I don't know if lazygit is a decent substitute. But for org-mode in Neovim, there's https://github.com/nvim-neorg/neorg. I'm sure it's only a partial, half", "context": "modal-editing fan", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 799670544, "item_id": 49979409, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49979409", "by": "stevekemp", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using Emacs for the past 20+ years at this point", "excerpt": "I guess it depends on your niche; I spend half my time coding Golang and Python, and the other half terraform, ansible, perl and I use other languages now and again for small projects and utilities. In the devops/sysadmin world my stack would be common, and mostly people pick an editor and stick to it. I've been using Emacs for the past 20+ years at this point, and the last time I used Microsoft's IDE was back in the", "context": "devops/sysadmin", "use_case": "coding Go, Python, Terraform, Ansible", "switched_from": "", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799049041, "item_id": 49940565, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49940565", "by": "wilkystyle", "date": "2026-10-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "As a long-time Emacs user", "excerpt": "So simple, I love this. As a long-time Emacs user, I also prefer Markdown (and by a wide margin). I have tried so many times over the years, even going all in for a time with Beorg on iOS. But I always come back to Markdown. Part of it is that I just prefer the Markdown syntax to everything else, but the other part is that I just don't care to use much of the (admittedly super cool) machinery around org, such as task", "context": "long-time Emacs user", "use_case": "editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc"}, {"id": 799015489, "item_id": 49938468, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49938468", "by": "Telemakhos", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "make emacs and org-mode as easy for him as WordPress is for you", "excerpt": "Someone who spends his day in emacs writing code and org-mode for work will have the muscle-memory and lisp knowledge to make emacs and org-mode as easy for him as WordPress is for you. I've been subscribed to a mailing list for many years, of which perhaps half I actively participated in the mailing list. Almost the entire time I used alpine, a terminal mail client, hosted on a remote server, getting its mail from a", "context": "", "use_case": "writing blog posts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc"}, {"id": 792550208, "item_id": 49534388, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534388", "by": "holgerschurig", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki.", "excerpt": "Fine, I do this since several decades. I use an editor-construction kit named \"Emacs\" to build my own Editor, and IDE, and git porcelain, and organizer, and wiki. And many things more. IDE with e.g. LSP integration, rustix and many other programmer-related modes and enhancements like tree-sitter. Git porcelain with magit. Organizer with Org-Mode. Wiki with denote.", "context": "long-time user for decades", "use_case": "editor, IDE, organizer, wiki", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 792512096, "item_id": 49532006, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532006", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use emacs daily (with vim keybindings of course)", "excerpt": "I use emacs daily (with vim keybindings of course), but I completely understand why vscode is so popular. It's extremely easy to get started with, has features galore, and sane defaults. Emacs takes much more effort to get productive with, although this is improving with each release.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 791208368, "item_id": 49450523, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49450523", "by": "theokrueger", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I am in fact a long-standing near-vanilla emacs user", "excerpt": "haha I am in fact a long-standing near-vanilla emacs user. never said it being uncurated was a bad thing, the customizability is unrivalled and the reason I use it.", "context": "long-standing user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "A curmudgeon tries a language server"}, {"id": 789449664, "item_id": 49340604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49340604", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Emacs w/evil mode.", "excerpt": "I'm a life long vim user, and I love Emacs w/evil mode. There's something about hacking in elisp on the editor that you're using to do the hacking, that just makes me fall in love with programming again. I'm not joking when I say this, but one of the activities I look forward to when I'm retired is hacking on Emacs. Thanks to those who continue to make these Emacs releases happen.", "context": "life long vim user", "use_case": "editing and hacking", "switched_from": "vim", "story": "Emacs 31.1 RC1 is available"}, {"id": 787619120, "item_id": 49226195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226195", "by": "dannymi", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age.", "excerpt": "It really depends on what your character is. I like to start from the basics and build up. I would start from a completely vanilla emacs (on package emacs-pgtk--that is the graphical version), then enable Options > Cut/Paste with C-x/C-c/C-v CUA mode, then Options > Save Options. I like and use Emacs, but it is showing its age. The defaults are all bad--but the possible end result you CAN configure is pretty modern [", "context": "long-time Emacs user", "use_case": "programming, email, notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: If you had to relearn Emacs today, how would you?"}]}