There are dozens of low hanging fruit.
Off the top of my head:
- dispensing with the absurd references to Alt as Meta that haven't been relevant for 35 years
- bringing the terminology in the documentation into the 2000s by fixing what's called window, a pane, etc.
- including CUA mode as default for ease of onboarding windows users
- including per-pixel/smooth scrolling which AFAICT is only available via the emacs-mac port
- updating the graphical interface to make it look modern and sophisticated instead of the current look which can best be described as "abandonware chic"
- improving handling of large files with long lines so the editor doesn't choke
- setting the gc threshold to a much higher value
- the yes/no vs y/n thing that literally everyone rebinds
- make middle click insert at the cursor instead of where the mouse is
I'm certain there are dozens of others.
The main problem, as they often mention on the mailing list, is that the manpower is low. There is no reason they don't want to solve the large technical problems, like very large files.
The master branch (Emacs 29) has this in `pixel-scroll-precision-mode` and it seems to perform better than the emacs-mac implementation.
It would seem you and I have very little common ground.
Being different too much can be bad too. Emacs has not much big fails, but many small things which lead to being bad by thousand little cuts.
> When I read it I find myself assuming that you're dismissing the experiences of people whose context starts before yours.
Why does it matter? Nobody want's to take your emacs from you. The discussion is always about bringing in new people, and why people leave emacs. And that emacs has a problem with this is not new. Emacs is always swinging between hype and death, and it's not like this has become much better over time.
I guess most people know by now, but Emacs’ keybindings were designed for a specific keyboard that had way more keys that usual: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/495/what-...
As Emacs was ported, they replaced dedicated keys with chords and sequences and we ended up in this mess, instead of at some point doing a full review of the default keybindings to match the input devices we actually have, merging in the conventions that had developed in the meantime.
After three decades of use, I have internalized those defaults because I keep having to use Emacs in its default configuration from time to time, have remapped many keys in my workstation, bound custom functions and all that. It’s still a paper cut, and also prevents me from recommending Emacs to more casual users.
I'm asking because I learned its defaults before windows had the market prevalence that it does, and it just doesn't seem all that different from an outside perspective.
I think the term 'grognard' is not helpful to your case. When I read it I find myself assuming that you're dismissing the experiences of people whose context starts before yours. You might prefer to give a different impression.