They differ in semantics and elegance, and for that reason alone I wouldn't want Emacs to end up scripted in JavaScript.
Sure it would bring new blood. It will also drive away old one; people, for whom Emacs is a Lisp runtime with a text editor bolted on top of it. Switching Emacs from Elisp to something else feels like selling its soul. Adding parallel support for JavaScript and bunch of other languages feels like turning it into a Frankenstein monster.
> Sure it would bring new blood. It will also drive away old one; people, for whom Emacs is a Lisp runtime with a text editor bolted on top of it. Switching Emacs from Elisp to something else feels like selling its soul.
While I agree with most of your statement, having Emacs switch/transition/support another, more modern form of Lisp like CL surely wouldn't count as selling your soul.
On the contrary you would stay true to your ideals (a Lisp-runtime with an editor) except now the Lisp runtime just got a lot better.
I like Emacs as much as the next guy, and I have dabbled some in Elisp. I can make due. But I sure as hell wouldn't mind getting some of that neat stuff the CL-guys are getting.
> While I agree with most of your statement, having Emacs switch/transition/support another, more modern form of Lisp like CL surely wouldn't count as selling your soul.
I... I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards agreeing. I can tell you that I don't get those "we're lobotomizing it" vibes when I think about switching Elisp for CL. Maybe because those two look alike and have similar philosophy. But even a thought of switching to Scheme, which is still a Lisp, sends chills down my spine.
I know, this is completely irrational. But maybe this is a part of Emacs's appeal. You get attached to it, down to its very core.
But if you run Emacs 24.4 in your browser, you could eww - the brand new browser written purely in elisp - to finally get some sane browsing experience.
(of course you can do that without running Emacs in the browser, just run it normally)
