Emacs Is a Lispboard
andros
106 points
52 comments
July 23, 2026
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Discussion Highlights (7 comments)
behnamoh
It's a matter of philosophy; would you rather have multiple small apps that do only one job or one "super app" that does it all? Ironically, starting from the former, I've now turned my tmux into the latter with so many utility apps integrated into it. But now I can see the benefits of each approach. Maintaining "super apps" is more challenging due to the coupling of so many pieces to each other.
xvilka
Something like Lem[1][2] could go even further because of the richer CommonLisp ecosystem compared to Elisp one. [1] https://lem-project.github.io/ [2] https://github.com/lem-project/lem
rbc
GNU Emacs is probably the easiest way to capture the spirit of working on the Lisp machines. Interlisp is an ongoing project that takes you even further down that road.
boscillator
> Suppose I want to work in a single place for all my contexts, both personal and professional. This has always been my problem with adopting Emacs or Obsidian or any other app that purports to do this. Who are y'all working for that you can bring professional stuff onto the same system as personal stuff? I don't want my personal emails on my work computer, and my boss would be rather upset if I brought work emails onto my personal computer. I'd love one of these do everything apps that lets me tag and sync just stuff that ought to be synced.
jiehong
If we take a browser, and add things to make it a super app, we would basically get an extensible electron app, right? Maybe, why not?
hatsumisen
Can someone define "lispboard" for me? The article calls the browser a lispboard, which breaks every guess at a definition I have.
nonfamous
I learned “real” programming in the early 90’s by learning Elisp to customize Emacs. (Before that the only languages I’d written in by choice were C64 Basic and Assembler.) Like the OP, I used Elisp for everything - scripts to bulk-edit files, manage the file system, format posts, etc. etc. Unlike the OP I hated the scratch buffer for running Elisp, so I created a REPL for Elisp that behaved more (in my naive eyes) as a real language. I was very excited when RMS emailed me to ask to include it in Emacs. Last I checked (a few years ago now) it was still there as M-x ielm (Inferior Emacs Lisp Mode).