Amit Patel
amitp.blogspot.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Amit Patel writes about programming, Emacs, game development and Mac setup, including a well-known Lisp versus Python comparison.
What HN saysHN commenters praise him for decades of shared knowledge, and cite his Lisp vs Python syntax post and his guide to building Emacs on Apple M1.
18HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
29stories submitted
875story points
3 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Lisp vs Python3 people · 76 points · first shared 2008 · 89 comments on HN
- 2LLMs and Shaders3 people · 5 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 3Non-Consensual Personalization2 people · 346 points · first shared 2022 · 234 comments on HN
- 4Firefox 89 Tab Appearance2 people · 260 points · first shared 2021 · 188 comments on HN
- 5Axial name highlighting2 people · 19 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 6Mac Keyboard with Hidutil2 people · 15 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 7Amit's Thoughts: Emacs Tree-sitter custom highlighting, part 32 people · 4 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 8Notes About Eyeglasses2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 9Amit's Thoughts: Emacs consult-buffer filenames2 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 10Emacs Tree-sitter custom highlighting1 people · 123 points · first shared 2025 · 23 comments on HN
- 11Emacs and Shellcheck1 people · 6 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 12Using an LLM to query my notes1 people · 4 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 13Emacs Tree-sitter custom highlighting, part 21 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 14Microtunnels1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 15Road Archaeology, Part 11 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
jjkaczor · 2023-09-29
Am going to chime in as well - Amit is amazing and has been providing his knowledge and experience since the early 90's, when I first encountered him on FidoNet over BBS, then next on Usenet.
Regular tech blog: https://amitp.blogspot.com/
Game Dev blog: https://simblob.blogspot.com/
amitp · 2021-02-16
My life is also in Emacs. I'm using it all the time on the new Macbooks and it's working great for me (gui mode, not terminal mode).
There are two major versions of Emacs on Mac. There's the "NextStep" version, which is part of the official emacs repository, and the "Mac" version, which is separately maintained.
* emacsformacosx.com runs in x86 emulation mode, but flickers when using lsp mode --> this is the version the author used, and I didn't find it to work well. It's the NextStep version.
* Mitsuharu Yamamoto's maintains the Mac port and has M1 patches in the "work" branch but not in the master branch. I use the work branch and am very happy with it. Compilation instructions: https://amitp.blogspot.com/2020/11/building-emacs-27-on-apple-arm-m1.h…
* in homebrew the emacs and emacs-plus packages both work on arm m1, but I haven't tried these as I prefer the Mac port over the NextStep version.
* homebrew "railwaycat" emacs is based on the Mac port, and it looks like it has m1 patches, but I haven't tried it either.
* The gccemacs branch was tricky to get working even on my x86 mac, and I haven't tried it on the M1 macbook. It requires libgccjit which is in x86 homebrew but not in arm homebrew (gcc is not yet available). The M1 feels so fast that I've not felt the need to use gccemacs.
TL;DR: Emacs is not a blocker, but the widely used version from emacsformacosx.com doesn't work as well as the Mac Port [https://bitbucket.org/mituharu/emacs-mac/src/work/README-mac]
jagger27 · 2021-02-16
Seems like the Homebrew version already builds on M1. People have been working on this since last year.
https://amitp.blogspot.com/2020/11/building-emacs-27-on-apple-arm-m1.h…
jcrites · 2013-08-11
> Lisps where only lists/pairs are syntactically first class
There are several types of first class syntax in Lisp: http://amitp.blogspot.com/2007/04/lisp-vs-python-syntax.html
jimbokun · 2008-01-28
I don't think this author makes his point very well. But I think Amit makes a similar point here:
http://amitp.blogspot.com/2007/04/lisp-vs-python-syntax.html
Single quote summary: "When I'm writing code I prefer Lisp; when I'm reading code I prefer Python."
I think where Mr. Kesteloot goes wrong is comparing Lisp with Java. Java sucks both for reading and writing, pretty much.