I saw orgmode once and I really loved it. Used Doomed and spacemacs. But dear Lord, does everything break on updates and need fixing. I had to give up as I just don't think it's feasible for me to fix my emacs when I want to get some work done.

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iLemming 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> does everything break on updates and need fixing

Emacs is a kitchen and emacs-packages are recipes - they come with the exact instructions (source code). If you try to cook fifty different meals all at once, your kitchen inevitably would be a mess. You need to know what you're trying to cook and how to work the recipes, and that comes with experience. No starter kit gives you a structure to un-mess your kitchen magically. Every sufficiently complex Emacs config is a system - a composite interweaving network of thousands of expressions, millions of code lines - it is the Space Shuttle equivalent; Neovim is like a simple twin-engine and VSCode is like a Cessna in comparison. Updates break your Emacs, I update things multiple times a week and rarely anything breaks (I consume over 350 packages); when things stop working - it doesn't usually take even a minute to figure out what's up. Yes, it does happen, but not as often as you painted it. On the other hand - when I need to get something done, there's no other tool in existence that can help me better.

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0xpgm 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use vanilla emacs and compile from source straight from master at whatever commit it happens to be in when I decide to do it.

Only once was there a noticeable breakage when a command like `git log` in the terminal would spit out all its output instead of displaying one screenful at a time. I'd expect someone following stable releases wouldn't experience any breakages.

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zelphirkalt 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I tried Doom or Spacemacs for a while, not sure which one right now. The one that does evil-mode by default. After it crashed a few times inexplicably, I gave up on them and returned to my heavily configured vanilla Emacs, which never crashes. Not sure how the other Emacsen managed to break things and maybe those failures are long fixed by now, but it was quite unfortunate. I imagine other people experiencing such a thing thinking Emacs is unstable.

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globular-toast 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What "updates" are you referring to? In more than 15 years of using Emacs I've not once been blocked from doing work due to any kind of breakage.

	▲	jjav 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Right, I can't understand what this breaking refers to? I've been using emacs every day all day every time I'm front of a computer, since 1991. I need only one finger to count the pieces of software I've been using that long that have never crashed or broken on me in any way.
	▲	neutronicus 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I'm a Spacemacs user, and I just tried to update all my packages and my emacs is now somehow broken. Luckily I only did that one one of my two work machines so I will just do without the mac until I have the time to unfuck it.
	▲	kqr 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I think it depends on which parts of the ecosystem you use. The org publication/export logic has changed a few times in the past 10 years. If you relied on quirks in that in your configuration you would have had to fix your code to repair it after some upgrades.[1] I have also run into compatibility issues when using older versions of Emacs with newer packages, and newer Emacs versions with older packages. [1]: I totally did not build my blog on top of a bunch of these quirks. Every time one of them is fixed I'm reminded of the workflow xkcd. https://m.xkcd.com/1172/
	▲	jr_isidore 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		He means time passing, aka bitrot. Emacs is designed for quick hacks which often rely on filesystem and shell behaviors outside itself to remain constant.

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binary132 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’ve come to believe that this is less an emacs problem and more an “emacs plugins that try to do way too much stuff / take too much control” problem. I’m on vanilla emacs (I don’t even use use-package) and my config never breaks any more, even when upgrading major emacs versions. I think it’s about doing things in harmony with the emacs way instead of trying to take over the UI/UX. Emacs Live was always broken when I was using that.

	▲	zelphirkalt 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		use-package is now in standard Emacs, so I would count that towards the Emacs way. But I agree that it is very stable and for me also doesn't break, even though I use use-package a lot and install many key packages. Maybe it is important to note, that I don't need everything there is out there and that I remove not well working packages quickly after trying them. From time to time I also look at my init file and get rid of no longer used stuff.