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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 4th, 2023

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  • Po Lu a week ago: less cl-lib please. Po Lu a couple days ago: What do you mean touchscreen.el shouldn’t be loaded by default?

    lol Not that I think it’s a big deal (sorry for using you as an example, Po. I respect the work you’re doing, but I’m calling it as I see it). It does highlight how unproductive this type of bikeshedding is, though. That email chain is beyond novel length now and it’s still going. Almost makes me hope the “reply-to” button on the site stays broken.


  • [The Elpaca installer] has a version-number variable that it sets. […] The solution is to replace [the installer with] the new code in elpaca’s docs

    This is correct. For anyone troubleshooting Elpaca, there is a Wiki which covers this warning.

    When you initialized your new Emacs instance, it installed elpaca from MELPA

    This is incorrect. The installer directly clones Elpaca. Elpaca is not hosted on any ELPA. Doing so would require an installer package to be installed by another package manager. I don’t offer support for users running multiple package managers because it creates confusion about which package manager is responsible for which package, load-path entry, etc. MELPA rejected a similar proposal for straight.el as well:

    https://github.com/melpa/melpa/issues/4939

    cc: /u/liesdestroyer


  • I have never done anything in lisp before

    Emacs has a built-in emacs lisp tutorial. That would be a good starting place.

    struggle to understand how single quotes signify a function or what ever

    Not exactly sure what you mean by that. Again, I recommend the manual, but you can think of quoting as a way to tell the interpreter “don’t evaluate this”.

    e.g.

    (prin1 (+ 1 1)) ; (+ 1 1) is evaluated, prints 2
    (prin1 '(+ 1 1)) ; prints the literal list (+ 1 1)
    

    There is also backquoting, which I recommend reading up on, too. The syntax and rules are simple, but powerful.

    Is this even “viable”, or advisable?

    Try it out. At worst you’ll learn something. Fretting about whether or not to give it a shot is a waste of time. I’m sure you can find previous problems and solutions in a lisp.

    Should i be looking at common lisp instead?

    Do a few problems in elisp, a few in Common Lisp.

    Or would you say that’s a pretty dumb idea and i should rather learn it in a different way?

    The only foolish idea is to spend time debating about whether or not to try learning something. No one can make that call for you. Try it and see if you like it.

















  • My conclusion has been that for some users it creates more problems than it solves, as they can wind up with a new layer of things they don’t understand, and one which further obfuscates the systems they didn’t understand to start with.

    There are many questions about use-package because new users are encouraged to copy/paste configurations from package READMEs and other configurations. If you take use-package out of the equation, you’ll be left with questions about the underlying elisp. It doesn’t matter what was used if the crux of the question is “I copied this thing I didn’t read about and now I don’t know how it works. Explain it to me?”