How is emacslisp similar to other Lisp dialects?
EmacsLisp appears quite similar to other lisp dialects, but it has enough “gotchas” and differences to frustrate the beginning EmacsLisp programmer very badly. There’s tons of people with some understanding of scheme or lisp, but relatively few who really get into EmacsLisp.
What are the different types of conditionals in Emacs?
Emacs Lisp has five conditional forms: if, which is much the same as in other languages; when and unless, which are variants of if; cond, which is a generalized case statement; and pcase, which is a generalization of cond (see Pattern-Matching Conditional ).
Why do so many people hate emacslisp the language?
Most people seem to hate EmacsLisp -the-language, but the primary obstacle to replacing EmacsLisp is, of course, EmacsLisp -the-library. 30+ years and 80+ megabytes of Emacs functionality, all in EmacsLisp. Redoing even the core editing functions is a terrifying thought to me [4]. Who Is EmacsLisp For? Who Wants EmacsLisp Dead?
Which is easier to learn scheme or Lisp?
Never experimented with any lisp besides EmacsLisp. Only “toyed with” the idea of learning lisp. [2] Scheme is a standard lisp dialect, easier to implement than CL, partly because it’s smaller, partly because the standard was written with optimization in mind. In contrast, CL was written with commonality in mind.
When to use recursive editing levels in Emacs?
Recursive editing levels are also used when you type C-r in query-replace or use C-x q ( kbd-macro-query ). This function invokes the editor command loop. It is called automatically by the initialization of Emacs, to let the user begin editing. When called from a Lisp program, it enters a recursive editing level.
What is the effect of recursive editing in Lisp?
Lisp programs can also invoke the command loop. Since this makes more than one activation of the command loop, we call it recursive editing. A recursive editing level has the effect of suspending whatever command invoked it and permitting the user to do arbitrary editing before resuming that command.
Why is Emacs so bad in IRC channel?
I like sitting in IRC channels devoted to technical subjects I’m interested in, so I found #emacs and started hanging out there. It was not long before I discovered the Terrible Secrets of the Emacs community: EmacsLisp Sucks and Emacs Is Dying.