4 ms·

I did the same thing and stuck with it for a year. In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing and wasting so much time

I did the same thing and stuck with it for a year. In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing and wasting so much time and compromise by using the tools that allow me to be the most productive. I dropped my highly customized emacs for Omni Focus (org-mode), Mail.app (mu4e), SublimeText (general emacs, org-mode), Mendeley (org-ref, helm), MS Word (LaTeX-mode). I never stopped using PowerPoint because it’s the standard in science and the couple times I tried Beamer (directly and through org-export) were a nightmare for having multiple figures per slide. I also sometimes use Excel now, though Python is still more often the better tool. I have not found a good personal knowledge base; right now I am using Evernote. I have several collaborations and projects. Keeping my tasks organized needed to be easier than org. Working with other people in formats that will make them happy to work with me was also critical. Even with things like Overleaf and ShareLaTeX, it is too hard to collaborate with others. Giving up plain text formats and version control are challenges.

cup-of-tea 9y ago
Wow, I just can't imagine how anyone could do that. Some of those tools I can understand but MS Word? Powerpoint? I use org-mode and I make exports for nontechnical people. I use org-mode and Pandoc to make MS Word files which does everything I would ever want to do. Org-mode and ox-reveal (using reveal.js) is great for slides. I would say just use whatever works for you, but it makes me sad that I can convert my things to your format but you can't convert your things to mine.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- globuous 9y ago
  Ok, so cooooolest thing ever with org mode I found out the other day is that you can refer table cell results from your paragraphs: #+CAPTION: Constants #+NAME: tab_constants | Constant | Value | |---------------------------+-------| | A | 1 | | B | 90 | | C | 90 | | D | 12 | | *Total* | 240. | #+TBLFM: @6$2=@2 * @5 / ((@3 + @4) / 60 / 60) We come to the conclusion that with src_emacs-lisp[:var d=tab_constants[2,1]]{d} VR rig constantly busy for src_emacs-lisp[:var d=tab_constants[5,1]]{d} hours. Resulting in src_emacs-lisp[:var d=tab_constants[6,1]]{d} people going through the experience. And with this, whenever I change the constants in my table, my whole document updates. I find that insane. No more having to update numbers everywhere in the document everytime I change an input in my tables. Then you can just export to anything (I do org->html->princexml->pdf for easy CSS styling, but you can do org->latex->pdf beem). I've also been giving it a try for brainstorming code and todos on side projects. Here's an example, it started by being pseudo code for some code, then basic python (because it was so close to my pseudo code, then I started implementing elisp in TDD inside my ord-mode doc. So it evolved like that: notes->pseudo code->tdd in the same doc: * Flow.el TODOs ** DONE projectile-find-type-file CLOSED: [2018-03-07 Wed 22:12] ... *** Check buffer file ends with test #+begin_src emacs-lisp (defun get-styles-file () ...) ;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;; Tests ;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;; (get-styles-file) ; /..path../notesStyles.org #+end_src #+RESULTS: : /home/thomas/config/spacemacs/flow/notesStyles.org What's really cool about orgmode rather than MS word is that it's text, so easily portable and gitable. You get powerful track changes for your documents.
look_lookatme 9y ago
Same, though I switched off Emacs due to moving to a consultancy and working every couple of months on a different project in a different language. For this kind of work the Jetbrains products were a godsend. The switch to OmniFocus followed logically (bonus points for phone sync). Now that I'm back to working on one product (Ruby/Javascript) again I tried VS Code, since that's what my coworkers use, and it's been fine. Having ripgrep as the search backend is awesome and the built in terminal gets the job done. I tried going back to Emacs but I got fed up with the mental overhead of remembering rectangle behavior and emacs regexps.
danieldk 9y ago
I have also tried to live with Emacs for about a year. In most respects it is absolutely great, inline LaTeX rendering, org-mode is like having Jupyter in your text editor (and a lot more), Magit is hands-down the best Git porcelain. However, I have found that both with Spacemacs and vanilla Emacs + packages I basically end up with a Rube Goldberg machine where it is hard to see how things work and fit together. Combined with the tendency of packages to break very often, I frequently had the feeling that the ground was crumbling under my feet. I am mostly back to vim now for editing (+ Things for todos). For presentations and text I use one of {LaTeX, pandoc Markdown, Deckset.app Markdown}.
- confounded 9y ago
  Packages breaking is a real problem. I’ve found that explicitly versioning them (eg comitting their source) has made this much less of a problem.
  - ethelward 9y ago
    You may be interested by the straight.el package manager. https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el
    - confounded 9y ago
      Thank you!
- bocklund 9y ago
  I forgot about Magic. I almost want to have emacs open in parallel just to have my projects open in Magit. You never have to tweak it and it’s more effective than anything else.
- cat199 9y ago
  > org-mode is like having Jupyter in your text editor (and a lot more) more like: jupyter is like having emacs in your browser (but a lot less)
zeveb 9y ago
> In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing That's why I use emacs Prelude[0], a set of defaults which are, all-in-all, pretty great. I much prefer having the same environment for everything. The fact that you have three different, presumably incompatible pieces of software replacing parts of Org mode is itself pretty revealing. [0] https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude
Myrmornis 9y ago
I’ve used emacs for over 15 years and my init file does have plenty of custom code but yes, I also decided several years ago to drop all fancy org-mode config. There is a risk of spending way too much time configuring and dealing with breakage, and the TODO stuff didn’t have the magical effect I’d hoped. As a programmer, I eventually found org-mode too much of a violation of the Unix do-one-thing well design philosophy. However I still use org-mode as an outliner, containing little code blocks and informal TODOs, and I love using emacs and writing modest Elisp modifications and have successfully introduced people to it. I wish more people knew how to try it out in server mode with emacsclient as there is still a widespread misunderstanding that it is slow to start up. One final comment: the rise of markdown was a huge blow to org-mode. It doesn’t always make sense for me to draft notes in org when they ultimately will become comments on github (or JIRA for that matter, oh god).
- markc 9y ago
  Github renders .org files just fine. Example: https://github.com/josteink/csharp-mode/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/josteink/csharp-mode/blob/master/README.o...
  - Myrmornis 9y ago
    It renders them (but only the README, not PRs or issues or comments), but ultimately it’s only ever going to support basic org-mode features because: (1) org-mode is a format native to emacs. The org parser and HTML formatter are written in elisp. (2) github is not going to run emacs processes server-side, in order to render user content in org format.
lazyjones 9y ago
> In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing and wasting so much time Isn't that exactly the same thing vim pundits are doing these days? Typical vim installations now load megabytes of macros and settings. I've always stuck with plain vi / nvi (until the encoding problems became too much) and never bothered with all the autocomplete scripts etc. ...
- camgunz 9y ago
  I think the noisiest ones are yeah, but most Vim users I know (including myself) have a tiny .vimrc and a handful of plugins. I think generally if you're a Vim user you're a "less is more" person so that probably permeates through.
- bocklund 9y ago
  Yeah. I usually just use vanilla vi/vim on any servers I remote in on and for small couple line edits locally. Everything else in SublimeText or PyCharm. One reason I moved to emacs in the first place is that vim plugins hardly ever worked well and together.
z0r 9y ago
I understand the choices you've made. I wouldn't make them myself, but I can tell my needs aren't as complex as yours (appreciate that you haven't had to resort to anything that only runs in a browser). The emacs buffer abstraction (and bag of commands) is what makes it so good for me. Having everything in one place is great, and having everything (mostly) just text is also great. I hope more people with your type of workflow needs have the patience and free time to write good emacs packages.
nemoniac 9y ago
> In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing and wasting so much time and compromise by using the tools that allow me to be the most productive. There's a great reddit posting today about tweaking your emacs config. https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/83baf5/i_find_tweaking_my_emacs_config_a_soothing/dvgwgf6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/83baf5/i_find_tweaki...

cup-of-tea 9y ago

Wow, I just can't imagine how anyone could do that. Some of those tools I can understand but MS Word? Powerpoint? I use org-mode and I make exports for nontechnical people. I use org-mode and Pandoc to make MS Word files which does everything I would ever want to do. Org-mode and ox-reveal (using reveal.js) is great for slides. I would say just use whatever works for you, but it makes me sad that I can convert my things to your format but you can't convert your things to mine.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
globuous 9y ago
Ok, so cooooolest thing ever with org mode I found out the other day is that you can refer table cell results from your paragraphs: #+CAPTION: Constants #+NAME: tab_constants | Constant | Value | |---------------------------+-------| | A | 1 | | B | 90 | | C | 90 | | D | 12 | | *Total* | 240. | #+TBLFM: @6$2=@2 * @5 / ((@3 + @4) / 60 / 60) We come to the conclusion that with src_emacs-lisp[:var d=tab_constants[2,1]]{d} VR rig constantly busy for src_emacs-lisp[:var d=tab_constants[5,1]]{d} hours. Resulting in src_emacs-lisp[:var d=tab_constants[6,1]]{d} people going through the experience. And with this, whenever I change the constants in my table, my whole document updates. I find that insane. No more having to update numbers everywhere in the document everytime I change an input in my tables. Then you can just export to anything (I do org->html->princexml->pdf for easy CSS styling, but you can do org->latex->pdf beem). I've also been giving it a try for brainstorming code and todos on side projects. Here's an example, it started by being pseudo code for some code, then basic python (because it was so close to my pseudo code, then I started implementing elisp in TDD inside my ord-mode doc. So it evolved like that: notes->pseudo code->tdd in the same doc: * Flow.el TODOs ** DONE projectile-find-type-file CLOSED: [2018-03-07 Wed 22:12] ... *** Check buffer file ends with test #+begin_src emacs-lisp (defun get-styles-file () ...) ;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;; Tests ;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;; (get-styles-file) ; /..path../notesStyles.org #+end_src #+RESULTS: : /home/thomas/config/spacemacs/flow/notesStyles.org What's really cool about orgmode rather than MS word is that it's text, so easily portable and gitable. You get powerful track changes for your documents.

look_lookatme 9y ago

Same, though I switched off Emacs due to moving to a consultancy and working every couple of months on a different project in a different language. For this kind of work the Jetbrains products were a godsend. The switch to OmniFocus followed logically (bonus points for phone sync). Now that I'm back to working on one product (Ruby/Javascript) again I tried VS Code, since that's what my coworkers use, and it's been fine. Having ripgrep as the search backend is awesome and the built in terminal gets the job done. I tried going back to Emacs but I got fed up with the mental overhead of remembering rectangle behavior and emacs regexps.

danieldk 9y ago

I have also tried to live with Emacs for about a year. In most respects it is absolutely great, inline LaTeX rendering, org-mode is like having Jupyter in your text editor (and a lot more), Magit is hands-down the best Git porcelain. However, I have found that both with Spacemacs and vanilla Emacs + packages I basically end up with a Rube Goldberg machine where it is hard to see how things work and fit together. Combined with the tendency of packages to break very often, I frequently had the feeling that the ground was crumbling under my feet. I am mostly back to vim now for editing (+ Things for todos). For presentations and text I use one of {LaTeX, pandoc Markdown, Deckset.app Markdown}.

confounded 9y ago
Packages breaking is a real problem. I’ve found that explicitly versioning them (eg comitting their source) has made this much less of a problem.
- ethelward 9y ago
  You may be interested by the straight.el package manager. https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el
  - confounded 9y ago
    Thank you!
bocklund 9y ago
I forgot about Magic. I almost want to have emacs open in parallel just to have my projects open in Magit. You never have to tweak it and it’s more effective than anything else.
cat199 9y ago
> org-mode is like having Jupyter in your text editor (and a lot more) more like: jupyter is like having emacs in your browser (but a lot less)

zeveb 9y ago

> In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing That's why I use emacs Prelude[0], a set of defaults which are, all-in-all, pretty great. I much prefer having the same environment for everything. The fact that you have three different, presumably incompatible pieces of software replacing parts of Org mode is itself pretty revealing. [0] https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude

Myrmornis 9y ago

I’ve used emacs for over 15 years and my init file does have plenty of custom code but yes, I also decided several years ago to drop all fancy org-mode config. There is a risk of spending way too much time configuring and dealing with breakage, and the TODO stuff didn’t have the magical effect I’d hoped. As a programmer, I eventually found org-mode too much of a violation of the Unix do-one-thing well design philosophy. However I still use org-mode as an outliner, containing little code blocks and informal TODOs, and I love using emacs and writing modest Elisp modifications and have successfully introduced people to it. I wish more people knew how to try it out in server mode with emacsclient as there is still a widespread misunderstanding that it is slow to start up. One final comment: the rise of markdown was a huge blow to org-mode. It doesn’t always make sense for me to draft notes in org when they ultimately will become comments on github (or JIRA for that matter, oh god).

markc 9y ago
Github renders .org files just fine. Example: https://github.com/josteink/csharp-mode/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/josteink/csharp-mode/blob/master/README.o...
- Myrmornis 9y ago
  It renders them (but only the README, not PRs or issues or comments), but ultimately it’s only ever going to support basic org-mode features because: (1) org-mode is a format native to emacs. The org parser and HTML formatter are written in elisp. (2) github is not going to run emacs processes server-side, in order to render user content in org format.

lazyjones 9y ago

> In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing and wasting so much time Isn't that exactly the same thing vim pundits are doing these days? Typical vim installations now load megabytes of macros and settings. I've always stuck with plain vi / nvi (until the encoding problems became too much) and never bothered with all the autocomplete scripts etc. ...

camgunz 9y ago
I think the noisiest ones are yeah, but most Vim users I know (including myself) have a tiny .vimrc and a handful of plugins. I think generally if you're a Vim user you're a "less is more" person so that probably permeates through.
bocklund 9y ago
Yeah. I usually just use vanilla vi/vim on any servers I remote in on and for small couple line edits locally. Everything else in SublimeText or PyCharm. One reason I moved to emacs in the first place is that vim plugins hardly ever worked well and together.

z0r 9y ago

I understand the choices you've made. I wouldn't make them myself, but I can tell my needs aren't as complex as yours (appreciate that you haven't had to resort to anything that only runs in a browser). The emacs buffer abstraction (and bag of commands) is what makes it so good for me. Having everything in one place is great, and having everything (mostly) just text is also great. I hope more people with your type of workflow needs have the patience and free time to write good emacs packages.

nemoniac 9y ago

> In the last couple months I decided that I needed to stop tweaking every last thing and wasting so much time and compromise by using the tools that allow me to be the most productive. There's a great reddit posting today about tweaking your emacs config. https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/83baf5/i_find_tweaking_my_emacs_config_a_soothing/dvgwgf6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/83baf5/i_find_tweaki...