It seems amazing to me that EMACS is just now getting ready to implement multi-threading.

Isn't that so 1990's?

Please I mean no disrespect...I was first exposed to EMACS in the late 80's if I remember correctly and have followed it's growth over the many years since, but I can't help but feel that introducing non-blocking threading is something that should have happened long ago.

I never noticed that it didn't have threads and I've been using it for 10+ years. That might explain why they didn't bother adding them - it works reasonably well as is

I notice a couple times a day. Any large mode will usually cause noticeable jankiness. My usual suspects are js2-mode, email modes like gnus, and evaluating org-src blocks.

There's hacks for some of these, but having threads natively will be really nice.

the main need for threads is a non blocking ui...another example of a very extensible software with a ui that locks at any step because of how extensible it is, is kodi :p

Emacs is little outdated as an operating system, but highly advanced as an text editor.

Keep in mind that from an architectural perspective, Emacs is mostly a LISP interpreter, with a text editor implemented in it. As such, not only did it involve refactoring application code, but the core language as well.

Emacs does have some other means for asynchronous processing, like processes and timers etc., but yes, maybe threads might have come earlier. The development pace of emacs in the recent years is way more faster than it used to be though, maybe with vim and Emacs alike becoming hip again and gaining traction (new cool stuff like Org mode, Magit, etc.) (and also new cool lisps like Clojure).

That's awesome! I hate blocking when I'm checking email.

I used to use Gnus, which is really bad for blocking (I used to run it in a separate Emacs instance).

Mu4e is pretty good in this respect: it offloads most of the mailbox processing work to the `mu` command, which it runs asynchronously. I fetch my email with a system service, external to Emacs.

I have a bunch of IMAP and exchange accounts. Any chance I can use them in Emacs? Last time I checked only POP3 was supported.

I am a mail account hoarder (9 so far and more coming) and offlineimap together with mu4e is the best email client for multiple IMAP accounts across multiple mail servers. For sending mail I have message-mode and smtpmail.el (both come with Emacs) set up to handle composing and replying across the multiple email addresses. I also set up smtpmail to queue mail and run in a sub-process - this gives gmail-like "undo sending this email" functionality, ability to compose and reply to messages off line, and most importantly does not block the parent Emacs process when sending email, while providing better error and progress output.

Planning to write a blog post about this configuration, but in the meantime I am happy to share privately - [email protected]

Gnus does do IMAP. Receiving from multiple accounts is easy, though sending from multiple accounts take a bit of work. IDK about excange.

Where can I get more info on Emacs 26?

The etc/NEWS file in the source code repo is constantly updated as new features come in, and thus it's a nice start.