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Spacemacs uses a "layers" feature which sort of groups together different packages from all over the emacs ecosystem into somewhat cohesive all-inclusive-packag

Spacemacs uses a "layers" feature which sort of groups together different packages from all over the emacs ecosystem into somewhat cohesive all-inclusive-packages. Things like layers for specific languages which would include syntax hilighting, code completion, snippets, etc... Generally, this makes things super convenient for you. It takes a fraction of the effort and research to get a new language or feature going. It also means that if you need something different from the defaults, it's another thing to learn how to modify a layer to suit your needs (not as simple as I had hoped). Also, if the package you want isn't available as a layer, you have to create your own custom layer for it. This gets you trying to think about organizing your packages, which while maybe useful, can be a big time sink too. Using it for about 3 months now, it's quickly become my go-to editor. I'm very happy with the defaults provided by spacemacs layers, and haven't yet felt the need to modify them much. I did look into it once and got scared away. All the customizations I've made are in regard to Emacs defaults themselves, and fit nicely into my .spacemacs file. Learning emacs and vim from decades old documentation is quite a journey. Keep an eye out for Stackoverflow answers. They tend to be the most up to date and relevant.

throwanem 11y ago
> Learning emacs and vim from decades old documentation is quite a journey. Can't speak for Vim, but the Emacs documentation has hardly succumbed to the sort of obsolescence your description of it implies. (It's also built in to the editor, and reachable via M-x info.) You might want to take a look at it, before you go on consigning novices unfortunate enough to heed your bad advice to the hell that is Stack Overflow. (And if you're going to point people in even that general direction, at least point them at Emacs SE, which unlike SO isn't overrun with garbage and lies.)
- _delirium 11y ago
  I agree, for emacs, I find the official documentation nicer to use, because it's about the version I'm actually using, while a lot of the web stuff is years out of date, whether it's in blog posts, StackOverflow, or EmacsWiki. This matters for some things more than others of course, since some stuff hasn't changed in years, and other things have been overhauled more recently (like packages).
- bigmanwalter 11y ago
  Emacs documentation is good for exploring modes, but I found StackOverflow way better when I have no idea what the name of the feature I'm looking for even is.
  - throwanem 11y ago
    Apropos and describe-{function,variable,key} argument expansion can help a lot here.
- marklgr 11y ago
  Vim documentation is solid too: it's included in the editor (like Emaces), and you can look things up with `:help` org `:helpgrep`. There are both tutorials, end-user-oriented pages and comprehensive references. IMO, Emacs is still slightly ahead with its C-h a/f/c` commands, but both projects boast quite good documentation.

throwanem 11y ago

> Learning emacs and vim from decades old documentation is quite a journey. Can't speak for Vim, but the Emacs documentation has hardly succumbed to the sort of obsolescence your description of it implies. (It's also built in to the editor, and reachable via M-x info.) You might want to take a look at it, before you go on consigning novices unfortunate enough to heed your bad advice to the hell that is Stack Overflow. (And if you're going to point people in even that general direction, at least point them at Emacs SE, which unlike SO isn't overrun with garbage and lies.)

_delirium 11y ago
I agree, for emacs, I find the official documentation nicer to use, because it's about the version I'm actually using, while a lot of the web stuff is years out of date, whether it's in blog posts, StackOverflow, or EmacsWiki. This matters for some things more than others of course, since some stuff hasn't changed in years, and other things have been overhauled more recently (like packages).
bigmanwalter 11y ago
Emacs documentation is good for exploring modes, but I found StackOverflow way better when I have no idea what the name of the feature I'm looking for even is.
- throwanem 11y ago
  Apropos and describe-{function,variable,key} argument expansion can help a lot here.
marklgr 11y ago
Vim documentation is solid too: it's included in the editor (like Emaces), and you can look things up with `:help` org `:helpgrep`. There are both tutorials, end-user-oriented pages and comprehensive references. IMO, Emacs is still slightly ahead with its C-h a/f/c` commands, but both projects boast quite good documentation.