So I get a Google alert in my RSS reader for “emacs,” this way when anyone mentions that operating system text editor on the Internet, I know.
I did it, initially, as a gimmick. The interesting thing, is that it’s been really interesting. In the grand scheme of things, I’m pretty new to emacs so I’m like a sponge for new information. I’ve learned, chiefly, about emacs-fu, which is a delightful little blog.
Perhaps more interesting is the fact that fully half of the sites that pop up on the emacs alert are sites that I’m already familiar with, or worse (better?) things that I’ve written. This leads me to think that the active discussion/community regarding emacs is actually pretty small, in a day to day sort of way.
It’s possible that most people who use emacs don’t feel the need to really talk about it, but given how vehemently many people feel about emacs that doesn’t seem terribly likely. It’s also possible that emacs' niche is shrinking in the face of competition from the Java IDEs, TextMate, and Firefox.
Another theory is that most of the conversation regarding emacs happens on the emacswiki, and that the sort of “here’s a protip, about emacs,” is too much of a niche, and not the kind of thing that’s really appreciated, so the blogging happens here and there. Or… no one’s doing search engine gaming/hacking (SEG? SEH?) on emacs, so the alert isn’t clogged up with crap from dweebs and industry.
In whatever case, it’s interesting. Or interesting enough.
Onward and Upward!
(ps. sorry for the short post and the weird schedule this week. Next week should be better. --ty)