5 ms·

I think about three years went by between the first time I opened the Emacs tutorial and when I started using Emacs seriously. So, sure, the barrier to entry d

by eudox 11y ago

I think about three years went by between the first time I opened the Emacs tutorial and when I started using Emacs seriously. So, sure, the barrier to entry doesn't look so high once you're past it, but insurmountable before. Specially when the official tutorial tells new users to move around the file using obscure key combinations and even the standard copy/paste/kill key combinations don't work.

melling 11y ago
The standard copy and paste work for me. Just use the arrow keys and page up/down keys to navigate. Skip the complicated stuff and pretend you're using Notepad.
- WalterGR 11y ago
  Skip the complicated stuff and pretend you're using Notepad. No? Being a beginner to Lisp doesn't imply being a beginner to programming. Why would an experienced non-Lisp programmer find being subjected to a Notepad-like development experience worth even the slightest consideration? (EDIT: And non-experienced non-Lisp programmers also have a preferred tool-set, which is likely superior to Notepad.) Emacs can be great - to some people. The "You have to use Emacs to program in Lisp" meme is not great.
  - melling 11y ago
    So don't use it like Notepad. Give it the full hour. And I doubt if you have to use Emacs to write in Lisp. Let me Google it for you: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/94792/using-vim-for-lisp-development http://stackoverflow.com/questions/94792/using-vim-for-lisp-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19891
  - pvaldes 11y ago
    "you have to use Emacs to program in lisp..." You don't. Nobody stops you to use vim and fire a clisp repl instead if you want. Older but much friendly to start than sbcl. Emacs as a barrier to lisp is an interesting concept. To me was exactly the opposite.
    - WalterGR 11y ago
      You don't. Nobody stops you to use vim and fire a clisp repl instead if you want. Of course. And there could very well be a service that accepts handwritten source code via the post, transcribes it, executes it, and mails you the output. In context, I'm responding to the following: • the article's preference for beginner-friendly suggestions (e.g. don't overwhelm beginners with an abundance of choice) • the specific text I quote in my original comment above, and • the fact that Emacs+SLIME is the de facto standard answer to every Lisp beginner who asks for an IDE.
      - pvaldes 11y ago
        "Emacs+SLIME is the de facto standard answer to every Lisp beginner who asks for an IDE" Is a good advice because emacs is awesome, multipurpose, and free. But, you have choices. You could use also slimv, the "slime for vim" for example. And Vim is also awesome, multipurpose and free. If you are a total beginner that do not want to learn neither vim nor emacs (something that you will regret when you finally learn one of them some years later) just forget all about superior modes, fire a clisp repl in bash and use your favourite text editor to write and copy-paste. If you want a simple plan to start, is pretty simple If you want it more simple, just save some bucks and buy a commercial lisp, like allegro for example that comes with a nice IDE: allegro-composer. You obtain what you pay for.
        WalterGR 11y ago
        But, you have choices. Correct. It would be nice if they were appropriately presented to beginners. like allegro for example that comes with a nice IDE: allegro-composer. Do you... use Allegro? Do you find it good? Have you used LispWorks? In the past couple/few years, Franz introduced a single-stepper.[1] They released a video alongside the new feature, demonstrating it. Literally, by 20 minutes into the video, the narrator was still mucking about with configuration and such and hadn't gotten to the point of being able to single-step through Lisp code. (Also, Allegro's licensing terms require a runtime license fee for every unit of software developed with Allegro that you distribute. LispWorks' do not.) [1] (It's unconscionable to me that that could be a new-ish feature. I don't even know that I had heard of the term "single-stepper" prior to that - I always just assumed it was a natural v0.1 part of a debugger that didn't bear even mentioning. But what can you do...)
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    "Why would an experienced non-Lisp programmer find being subjected to a Notepad-like development experience worth even the slightest consideration?" Is this any different from other IDEs? As a vim user, Eclipse certainly feels more-or-less like notepad.
  - lispm 11y ago
    > Emacs can be great - to some people. The "You have to use Emacs to program in Lisp" meme is not great. You don't have to use GNU Emacs to write Lisp code. It just happens that a popular Editor written in Lisp and extensible in Lisp is somehow the natural choice for Lisp developers.
- masukomi 11y ago
  use what's possibly the world's most powerful editor... but pretend you're using notepad... ...
  - melling 11y ago
    Just to get started. Many people are intimidated by Emacs because there is so much to learn. If it scares you, start off simple then let your knowledge grow organically.
    - fein 11y ago
      I've been coding in emacs for years and still have no idea what I'm doing. Lisp makes sense, but I'm aware that there are thousands of features in emacs that I'm unaware of. It makes life MUCH worse switching from linux to osx emacs and back though.
yellowapple 11y ago
> Specially when the official tutorial tells new users to move around the file using obscure key combinations If you're a Mac user, they're actually - in all likelihood - not that obscure; you can use the same exact key combinations in pretty much every OS X application. The built-in tutorial is indeed exceissively comprehensive, but those "obscure" keybindings are incredibly useful, particularly C-a and C-e (much faster than using "Home" or "End", respectively), which is why they're covered. And really, the Emacs bindings aren't any harder than the CUA bindings; they're just different, and can be easily gleaned (in graphical Emacs installations, at least) by poking around in the menu and looking at the shortcuts for certain commands, like opening/saving files or killing/yanking. > and even the standard copy/paste/kill key combinations don't work. This is easily fixable by going to Options -> Use CUA Keys, which enables C-x for kill, C-v for yank, and C-c for copy. OS X users can also just use Command-C/V/X like normal, with or without this option enabled.
- vsync 11y ago
  > And really, the Emacs bindings aren't any harder than the CUA bindings; they're just different, and can be easily gleaned Not only that, they're older (i.e., Emacs was there first).
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  > If you're a Mac user, they're actually - in all likelihood - not that obscure; you can use the same exact key combinations in pretty much every OS X application. Apple doesn't go out of their way to really point this out. Ordinary Mac users have no idea about this. None!
  - na85 11y ago
    That's because ordinary Mac users need to be spoonfed.
na85 11y ago
It's easy to learn C-x C-s to save, C-x C-c to quit, C-x C-f to open a file. That's how I got by with emacs for about 6 months, just because I liked the tab/indent behaviour so much. Then after that it's easy to learn the C-x chords for splitting windows, and you're at about the level where I used emacs for about 5 years, with maybe some C-c C-c to compile things. Honestly emacs is not that hard and you can be pretty productive with just the bare minimum. I still don't use the arcane commands to move the cursor around. I don't even know what they are. I use the arrow keys and pgup/pgdown.

by eudox 11y ago

melling 11y ago

The standard copy and paste work for me. Just use the arrow keys and page up/down keys to navigate. Skip the complicated stuff and pretend you're using Notepad.

WalterGR 11y ago
Skip the complicated stuff and pretend you're using Notepad. No? Being a beginner to Lisp doesn't imply being a beginner to programming. Why would an experienced non-Lisp programmer find being subjected to a Notepad-like development experience worth even the slightest consideration? (EDIT: And non-experienced non-Lisp programmers also have a preferred tool-set, which is likely superior to Notepad.) Emacs can be great - to some people. The "You have to use Emacs to program in Lisp" meme is not great.
- melling 11y ago
  So don't use it like Notepad. Give it the full hour. And I doubt if you have to use Emacs to write in Lisp. Let me Google it for you: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/94792/using-vim-for-lisp-development http://stackoverflow.com/questions/94792/using-vim-for-lisp-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19891
- pvaldes 11y ago
  "you have to use Emacs to program in lisp..." You don't. Nobody stops you to use vim and fire a clisp repl instead if you want. Older but much friendly to start than sbcl. Emacs as a barrier to lisp is an interesting concept. To me was exactly the opposite.
  - WalterGR 11y ago
    You don't. Nobody stops you to use vim and fire a clisp repl instead if you want. Of course. And there could very well be a service that accepts handwritten source code via the post, transcribes it, executes it, and mails you the output. In context, I'm responding to the following: • the article's preference for beginner-friendly suggestions (e.g. don't overwhelm beginners with an abundance of choice) • the specific text I quote in my original comment above, and • the fact that Emacs+SLIME is the de facto standard answer to every Lisp beginner who asks for an IDE.
    - pvaldes 11y ago
      "Emacs+SLIME is the de facto standard answer to every Lisp beginner who asks for an IDE" Is a good advice because emacs is awesome, multipurpose, and free. But, you have choices. You could use also slimv, the "slime for vim" for example. And Vim is also awesome, multipurpose and free. If you are a total beginner that do not want to learn neither vim nor emacs (something that you will regret when you finally learn one of them some years later) just forget all about superior modes, fire a clisp repl in bash and use your favourite text editor to write and copy-paste. If you want a simple plan to start, is pretty simple If you want it more simple, just save some bucks and buy a commercial lisp, like allegro for example that comes with a nice IDE: allegro-composer. You obtain what you pay for.
      - WalterGR 11y ago
        But, you have choices. Correct. It would be nice if they were appropriately presented to beginners. like allegro for example that comes with a nice IDE: allegro-composer. Do you... use Allegro? Do you find it good? Have you used LispWorks? In the past couple/few years, Franz introduced a single-stepper.[1] They released a video alongside the new feature, demonstrating it. Literally, by 20 minutes into the video, the narrator was still mucking about with configuration and such and hadn't gotten to the point of being able to single-step through Lisp code. (Also, Allegro's licensing terms require a runtime license fee for every unit of software developed with Allegro that you distribute. LispWorks' do not.) [1] (It's unconscionable to me that that could be a new-ish feature. I don't even know that I had heard of the term "single-stepper" prior to that - I always just assumed it was a natural v0.1 part of a debugger that didn't bear even mentioning. But what can you do...)
- aidenn0 11y ago
  "Why would an experienced non-Lisp programmer find being subjected to a Notepad-like development experience worth even the slightest consideration?" Is this any different from other IDEs? As a vim user, Eclipse certainly feels more-or-less like notepad.
- lispm 11y ago
  > Emacs can be great - to some people. The "You have to use Emacs to program in Lisp" meme is not great. You don't have to use GNU Emacs to write Lisp code. It just happens that a popular Editor written in Lisp and extensible in Lisp is somehow the natural choice for Lisp developers.
masukomi 11y ago
use what's possibly the world's most powerful editor... but pretend you're using notepad... ...
- melling 11y ago
  Just to get started. Many people are intimidated by Emacs because there is so much to learn. If it scares you, start off simple then let your knowledge grow organically.
  - fein 11y ago
    I've been coding in emacs for years and still have no idea what I'm doing. Lisp makes sense, but I'm aware that there are thousands of features in emacs that I'm unaware of. It makes life MUCH worse switching from linux to osx emacs and back though.

yellowapple 11y ago

> Specially when the official tutorial tells new users to move around the file using obscure key combinations If you're a Mac user, they're actually - in all likelihood - not that obscure; you can use the same exact key combinations in pretty much every OS X application. The built-in tutorial is indeed exceissively comprehensive, but those "obscure" keybindings are incredibly useful, particularly C-a and C-e (much faster than using "Home" or "End", respectively), which is why they're covered. And really, the Emacs bindings aren't any harder than the CUA bindings; they're just different, and can be easily gleaned (in graphical Emacs installations, at least) by poking around in the menu and looking at the shortcuts for certain commands, like opening/saving files or killing/yanking. > and even the standard copy/paste/kill key combinations don't work. This is easily fixable by going to Options -> Use CUA Keys, which enables C-x for kill, C-v for yank, and C-c for copy. OS X users can also just use Command-C/V/X like normal, with or without this option enabled.

vsync 11y ago
> And really, the Emacs bindings aren't any harder than the CUA bindings; they're just different, and can be easily gleaned Not only that, they're older (i.e., Emacs was there first).
engi_nerd 11y ago
> If you're a Mac user, they're actually - in all likelihood - not that obscure; you can use the same exact key combinations in pretty much every OS X application. Apple doesn't go out of their way to really point this out. Ordinary Mac users have no idea about this. None!
- na85 11y ago
  That's because ordinary Mac users need to be spoonfed.

na85 11y ago

It's easy to learn C-x C-s to save, C-x C-c to quit, C-x C-f to open a file. That's how I got by with emacs for about 6 months, just because I liked the tab/indent behaviour so much. Then after that it's easy to learn the C-x chords for splitting windows, and you're at about the level where I used emacs for about 5 years, with maybe some C-c C-c to compile things. Honestly emacs is not that hard and you can be pretty productive with just the bare minimum. I still don't use the arcane commands to move the cursor around. I don't even know what they are. I use the arrow keys and pgup/pgdown.