Emacs-ng: Integrating Modern Technologies into the Emacs Ecosystem
Every now and then, a project comes along that seeks not just to improve or tweak existing systems, but to fundamentally infuse them with contemporary tools and technologies. One such project that stands out in the opensource development realm is emacs-ng.
emacs-ng, or "Emacs Next Generation," is an initiative to incorporate modern technology stacks into the famed Emacs text editor. By combining the power and versatility of the original Emacs with the cutting-edge capabilities of new technologies, emacs-ng aims to push the boundaries of what the Emacs ecosystem can achieve.
Project Overview:
At its core, emacs-ng is fueled by the ambition to revolutionize Emacs. The project aims to fundamentally enhance Emacs by integrating new technologies like Deno, Webrender, and others. By doing so, emacs-ng addresses the critical need for extending the capabilities of Emacs to accommodate modern development needs efficiently.
Emacs users, especially those in the software development and research communities, are the primary target audience for emacs-ng. However, given the project’s goal of openness, anyone interested in seeing Emac's functionalities extended using current technologies can benefit from emacs-ng.
Project Features:
emacs-ng brings several key features to the table. The integration of Deno, a secure runtime environment for JavaScript and TypeScript, is one of the project's standout features. This integration allows users to customize their Emacs using JavaScript and TypeScript, expanding the possibilities for personalization.
The project also incorporates support for Language Server Protocol (LSP), enhancing Emacs’ capabilities as a development environment. There's further support for the Webrender rendering engine that provides a modern user interface that significantly improves performance especially when it comes to display changes.
Technology Stack:
emacs-ng successfully incorporates quite a diverse blend of technologies. It brings in JavaScript and TypeScript through the integration of Deno. It further boosts Emacs’ features with Rust and Webrender, a hardware-accelerated graphics rendering engine.
The choice of these technologies underscores the project's commitment to not only extending Emacs' functionalities but also ensuring its suitability for modern development trends. The selected technologies all contribute to enhancing user experience, performance, and customization possibilities.
Project Structure and Architecture:
Emacs-ng project encompasses an array of components. Deno's JavaScript and TypeScript runtime environment is one of the main structural components. Interoperation between Deno and Emacs Lisp enables users to effectively use JavaScript and TypeScript within Emacs. Another significant component is Webrender, which enhances the UI rendering capabilities of Emacs.
The project also maintains certain architectural principles from the original Emacs. The "self-documenting real-time display editor" principle, for instance, remains integral to emacs-ng.
Contribution Guidelines:
As an open-source project, emacs-ng welcomes and indeed thrives on contributions from the open-source community. The project encourages bug reports, feature additions, and code contributions.
