Two Years of Emacs Solo

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Custom tooling & “solo Emacs”

  • Several commenters strongly relate to writing small bespoke Elisp tools instead of relying fully on external packages.
  • Example: a custom region-expansion function driven by user-defined delimiter sets and trigger keys, used alongside treesitter plugins for fine-grained selections.
  • Some hesitate to open-source such code due to edge cases, maintenance burden, and user expectations.
  • Others see “solo” setups as a way to deeply understand Emacs, while acknowledging the time and discipline required.

Packages, ELPA, and learning Elisp

  • One camp argues the “no external packages” motivation is weak: core vs ELPA is historically arbitrary, and many built-ins get fixes only via ELPA.
  • Strong pushback on the claim that “writing your own packages is the best way to learn Elisp” if taken alone; reading others’ code is seen as crucial.
  • Defenders clarify that the solo approach still studies many existing packages and treats it as a fun learning challenge.
  • Some suggest copying small chunks of open-source packages into configs instead of full rewrites.

LSP: Eglot vs lsp-mode for C++

  • Consensus: feature quality and performance depend mainly on the underlying C++ LSP (e.g., clangd), not on Eglot vs lsp-mode.
  • Multiple reports that Eglot works “pretty much” on par, sometimes more reliably and with less setup.

Lisp and Emacs architecture

  • Discussion on whether Lisp is inherently better for editors.
  • Historical context: Emacs grew from Lisp-heavy environments; today, Lisp’s dynamic, incremental nature and code-as-data model still fit Emacs’ live-hacking style.
  • Some note that most of Emacs is written in Elisp on top of a C core; others mention alternative extension languages in other editors.

Backups, autosave, and defaults

  • Strong dislike for Emacs’ default tilde-suffixed backup files, especially when editing config directories like nginx’s.
  • Many share snippets to redirect all backups to a single directory or disable them entirely; some also disable lockfiles.
  • Debate over whether Emacs or tools like nginx should adapt; some argue these backup conventions predate modern daemons, others call it directory “pollution.”
  • General agreement that Emacs is easy to reconfigure, but disagreement on what its defaults “should” be.

Emacs UX: keyboard vs GUI, learning curve

  • Some are impressed by hardcore keyboard-centric setups but prefer GUI-oriented editors like Zed or Sublime.
  • Others argue the power comes precisely from dense keybindings and muscle memory; menus cannot replicate that efficiently.
  • Tools like which-key and built-in tutorials are recommended as bridges for newcomers.
  • Many run Emacs as a GUI app; some still prefer terminal + tmux, others advocate TRAMP for remote editing.

Emacs + LLMs

  • Multiple reports that LLMs are already effective at writing and debugging Elisp and Emacs configs.
  • Emacs’ text-centric, highly programmable environment is seen as a promising “OS” for agents, lowering the barrier to deep customization.

Overall sentiment

  • Broad admiration for the solo configuration as a learning exercise and reference.
  • Recurring tension between maximal customizability and the time cost of tinkering versus “just getting work done.”