6 ms·

I only just understood Emacs about a year ago, despite being a nerd for at least 30 years. I like to think I don't have too many regrets in life - but I'm kicki

I only just understood Emacs about a year ago, despite being a nerd for at least 30 years. I like to think I don't have too many regrets in life - but I'm kicking myself for not realizing what Emacs was way back then - or at any of the times I've tried it out in the past (writing it off as "a text editor")! Never too late though, and on the plus side I've now got decades of hidden Emacs goodies still to discover!

zikzak 8y ago
I am excited for you but that "journey of discovery" is way, way too addictive for me. I find myself chasing edge case requirements in my config rather than getting work done. To each thier own, of course! I still use Emacs when I ssh into my vps and, if I want primarily on Windows doing dev if Visual Studio, would likely use it for everything (as I did back when I was primarily on UNIX systems). Just writing this makes me think "maybe I'll install it on Windows on more time". The core issue for me is context switching between Emacs and VS. Even with various keybinding tricks it is always awkward. Best of luck on your journey with Emacs. Do it for me! :)
- Arelius 8y ago
  I setup the VS Emacs bindings and then always bind C-X C-E to open current file/line in Emacs from VS. With that I get along pretty well combining VS and Emacs.
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    Are you using one of the VS Emacs bindings available in the library or a custom one? I've found all of the most popular ones to not be good enough to use VS like Emacs in Windows.
    - Arelius 8y ago
      The MS provided Emacs Emulation. You have to jump through some hoops to update it for 2017. It's not perfect, but it gets me close enough until I need to open in Emacs.
azinman2 8y ago
Just imagine when you discover vim!! :)
- giggles_giggles 8y ago
  M-x package-install RET evil
- jasonm23 8y ago
  Vim is with respect, just an editor. Emacs is often confused as being an editor, but it's not. It certainly houses a few different editors, including Vim (as people will often point out eVil is Vim inside Emacs) Emacs is basically a text centric computing platform, built with a flavor of Lisp. At this point there's several thousand apps / packages. It used to be a joke that Emacs is an Operating System that lacks a decent text editor. These days it has several. The joke now should be that it lacks a decent logo and marketing department. Or perhaps the joke should be that Vim users are terrified they're missing out on something they don't get so they use snark as a defense mechanism.
  - azinman2 8y ago
    > “Emacs is basically a text centric computing platform, built with a flavor of Lisp.” That’s actually the best explanation of Emacs I’ve heard. Thank you.
    - schwurb 8y ago
      I always think of Emacs (never used it tho) as a Smalltalk system without images and with Lisp instead of Smalltalk as the underlying language. Every visible and invisible think is inspectable and changable at runtime, yup - pretty cool and I loved it for programming! Not sure whether I want to get on the emacs train tho. I have problems mantaining efficiency either way already... And I favor tools that work without set-up. Then again I am still young enough that learning investments pay off by a huge margin... tough.
  - phillord 8y ago
    "Text-centric computing platform" is lovely. Why don't you send that to Nicolas Petton -- it would great on the website.
TypingStuff 8y ago
+1. I recall thinking it was a text editor with inferior key bindings to vim, and with a bunch of unnecessary weirdness. I'm glad I took the time to investigate this discoverable interactive programmatic keyboard-oriented UI platform, that also happens to have a great editor (evil). A uniquely empowering tool for programmers.
- mrspeaker 8y ago
  I've gone all in, I'm in for life. Emacs has already deprecated at least a dozen apps, web apps, and websites I used to frequent. I'm starting to despise any other software... ...so when does someone teach me the secret handshake?
  - oska 8y ago
    Mind sharing some examples of what Emacs has deprecated for you?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Not OP, but: e-mail client, calculator, calendar app, TODO list app, terminal app, file browsing app, invoicing app, Jupyer notebooks (org mode can do you better), Git client and - obviously - text editor with syntax highlighting. Some people even replace their window manager with Emacs (see: EXWM), but I'm not ready for this just yet (I run stumpwm now, which is a tiling WM written in Common Lisp, so it's just another lispy environment with similar levels of live interop).
      - mkl 8y ago
        > Jupyter notebooks (org mode can do you better) That seems pretty far-fetched. Very few of the things I use Jupyter notebooks for seem possible in org mode.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        I'll bite. Name some things you believe are impossible. You may very well be right, but myself I yet haven't found a thing for which I wouldn't prefer Org Mode (except maybe that Github renders .ipynb files nicer than .org). Org Mode can execute blocks of code in any language you can hook up to Emacs, correctly handling sessions if language supports them. Org Mode document itself can serve as a glue for exchanging data between different runtimes if you're using multiple different languages in a single document. Literate programming capabilities let you include other source blocks or even their results as code. Emacs can display images inline, and has some capability for UI widgets (though I haven't use it in org-mode context). The kind of Jupyter notebooks I've seen in the wild, I can reproduce in Org Mode with ease.
cmehdy 8y ago
Any suggestions to pick it up without wanting to give up due to convoluted shortcuts?
- nsilvestri 8y ago
  If you're already familiar with vim, I've heard good things about Spacemacs: http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/
  - ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
    I installed spacemacs a couple of weeks ago. I’m enjoying it but I have to keep switching back to sublime to get things done quickly then switching back when I can afford to take time doing things.
    - anotheryou 8y ago
      same here. I'm totally fluid in org, but navigating files, a simple search and replace, finding the spell check suggestions: all still hard
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        Basically just start flyspell mode in the modes you prefer including only for comments with flyspell-prog-mode and configure as desired. (use-package flyspell :config (setq ispell-program-name "/usr/sbin/aspell") (setq flyspell-consider-dash-as-word-delimiter-flag t) (define-key flyspell-mode-map (kbd "C-:") 'flyspell-correct-wrapper) ) (use-package flyspell-correct) (use-package flyspell-correct-ivy) you may want a binding to add the word at point to your dictionary I swiped this function for somewhere (defun my-save-word () (interactive) (let ((current-location (point)) (word (flyspell-get-word))) (when (consp word) (flyspell-do-correct 'save nil (car word) current-location (cadr word) (caddr word) current-location))))
  - vector_spaces 8y ago
signa11 8y ago
may you please share your wisdom and insight here ? thank you kindly!
plg 8y ago
Most useful things you’ve discovered? Best resources you’ve used to discover things?
- truncate 8y ago
  I moved from Vim work roughly 6 years ago. I think Magit was the most mindblowing discovery I made after the switch. It is much more common now, and there is even a Vim equivalent I hear. I can't imagine using Emacs (or any editor) without Magit. `org-mode` and `org-agenda` is pretty cool and I wish I could use it, but I just gave up trying to configure and integrate it with my calendar, multiple devices and what not. `shell-pop` is incredibly basic and useful to pop up terminal at bottom. Trying to get my popup windows to show up where I want them using `popwin` and `shackle` (still WIP, as it's far from perfect). There is `lsp-mode` for Language Server, which makes the auto-completion and code-browsing far better. I was super surprised by how well `dumb-jump` worked in most cases (I mainly used that for C++). I usually discover things by looking at random Emacs configuration. IIRC there is a repo on Github which keeps track of popular configuration out there.
  - mark_l_watson 8y ago
    When I worked managing a machine learning team I really relied on org-mode to keep myself organized. I didn't have a multiple device problem because I just had org setup on my work laptop. When I 'retired' a few weeks ago I tried org-mode in a dropbox folder. Works great from my Linux and macOS laptops but iOS is a nuisance: I can read notes from the dropbox app and edit them with Textastic, but this is not 'ready at hand' tooling. Since I 'retired' I am doing much more of my personal coding in Common Lisp and Haskell which means more Emacs use (although I also have VSCode set up for fantastic Haskell and Python dev experiences). I need to take another look at Magit. I replaced org-mode with all-in use of G Suite (really enjoying functionality, high productivity, and security, cringing a little on privacy issues).
    - tra3 8y ago
      Take a look at beorg for iOS, I haven't fully explored it yet, but it supports some org-mode. https://beorgapp.com https://beorgapp.com

zikzak 8y ago

I am excited for you but that "journey of discovery" is way, way too addictive for me. I find myself chasing edge case requirements in my config rather than getting work done. To each thier own, of course! I still use Emacs when I ssh into my vps and, if I want primarily on Windows doing dev if Visual Studio, would likely use it for everything (as I did back when I was primarily on UNIX systems). Just writing this makes me think "maybe I'll install it on Windows on more time". The core issue for me is context switching between Emacs and VS. Even with various keybinding tricks it is always awkward. Best of luck on your journey with Emacs. Do it for me! :)

Arelius 8y ago
I setup the VS Emacs bindings and then always bind C-X C-E to open current file/line in Emacs from VS. With that I get along pretty well combining VS and Emacs.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  Are you using one of the VS Emacs bindings available in the library or a custom one? I've found all of the most popular ones to not be good enough to use VS like Emacs in Windows.
  - Arelius 8y ago
    The MS provided Emacs Emulation. You have to jump through some hoops to update it for 2017. It's not perfect, but it gets me close enough until I need to open in Emacs.

azinman2 8y ago

Just imagine when you discover vim!! :)

giggles_giggles 8y ago
M-x package-install RET evil
jasonm23 8y ago
Vim is with respect, just an editor. Emacs is often confused as being an editor, but it's not. It certainly houses a few different editors, including Vim (as people will often point out eVil is Vim inside Emacs) Emacs is basically a text centric computing platform, built with a flavor of Lisp. At this point there's several thousand apps / packages. It used to be a joke that Emacs is an Operating System that lacks a decent text editor. These days it has several. The joke now should be that it lacks a decent logo and marketing department. Or perhaps the joke should be that Vim users are terrified they're missing out on something they don't get so they use snark as a defense mechanism.
- azinman2 8y ago
  > “Emacs is basically a text centric computing platform, built with a flavor of Lisp.” That’s actually the best explanation of Emacs I’ve heard. Thank you.
  - schwurb 8y ago
    I always think of Emacs (never used it tho) as a Smalltalk system without images and with Lisp instead of Smalltalk as the underlying language. Every visible and invisible think is inspectable and changable at runtime, yup - pretty cool and I loved it for programming! Not sure whether I want to get on the emacs train tho. I have problems mantaining efficiency either way already... And I favor tools that work without set-up. Then again I am still young enough that learning investments pay off by a huge margin... tough.
- phillord 8y ago
  "Text-centric computing platform" is lovely. Why don't you send that to Nicolas Petton -- it would great on the website.

TypingStuff 8y ago

+1. I recall thinking it was a text editor with inferior key bindings to vim, and with a bunch of unnecessary weirdness. I'm glad I took the time to investigate this discoverable interactive programmatic keyboard-oriented UI platform, that also happens to have a great editor (evil). A uniquely empowering tool for programmers.

mrspeaker 8y ago
I've gone all in, I'm in for life. Emacs has already deprecated at least a dozen apps, web apps, and websites I used to frequent. I'm starting to despise any other software... ...so when does someone teach me the secret handshake?
- oska 8y ago
  Mind sharing some examples of what Emacs has deprecated for you?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Not OP, but: e-mail client, calculator, calendar app, TODO list app, terminal app, file browsing app, invoicing app, Jupyer notebooks (org mode can do you better), Git client and - obviously - text editor with syntax highlighting. Some people even replace their window manager with Emacs (see: EXWM), but I'm not ready for this just yet (I run stumpwm now, which is a tiling WM written in Common Lisp, so it's just another lispy environment with similar levels of live interop).
    - mkl 8y ago
      > Jupyter notebooks (org mode can do you better) That seems pretty far-fetched. Very few of the things I use Jupyter notebooks for seem possible in org mode.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        I'll bite. Name some things you believe are impossible. You may very well be right, but myself I yet haven't found a thing for which I wouldn't prefer Org Mode (except maybe that Github renders .ipynb files nicer than .org). Org Mode can execute blocks of code in any language you can hook up to Emacs, correctly handling sessions if language supports them. Org Mode document itself can serve as a glue for exchanging data between different runtimes if you're using multiple different languages in a single document. Literate programming capabilities let you include other source blocks or even their results as code. Emacs can display images inline, and has some capability for UI widgets (though I haven't use it in org-mode context). The kind of Jupyter notebooks I've seen in the wild, I can reproduce in Org Mode with ease.

cmehdy 8y ago

Any suggestions to pick it up without wanting to give up due to convoluted shortcuts?

nsilvestri 8y ago
If you're already familiar with vim, I've heard good things about Spacemacs: http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/
- ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
  I installed spacemacs a couple of weeks ago. I’m enjoying it but I have to keep switching back to sublime to get things done quickly then switching back when I can afford to take time doing things.
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    same here. I'm totally fluid in org, but navigating files, a simple search and replace, finding the spell check suggestions: all still hard
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      Basically just start flyspell mode in the modes you prefer including only for comments with flyspell-prog-mode and configure as desired. (use-package flyspell :config (setq ispell-program-name "/usr/sbin/aspell") (setq flyspell-consider-dash-as-word-delimiter-flag t) (define-key flyspell-mode-map (kbd "C-:") 'flyspell-correct-wrapper) ) (use-package flyspell-correct) (use-package flyspell-correct-ivy) you may want a binding to add the word at point to your dictionary I swiped this function for somewhere (defun my-save-word () (interactive) (let ((current-location (point)) (word (flyspell-get-word))) (when (consp word) (flyspell-do-correct 'save nil (car word) current-location (cadr word) (caddr word) current-location))))
- vector_spaces 8y ago

signa11 8y ago

may you please share your wisdom and insight here ? thank you kindly!

plg 8y ago

Most useful things you’ve discovered? Best resources you’ve used to discover things?

truncate 8y ago
I moved from Vim work roughly 6 years ago. I think Magit was the most mindblowing discovery I made after the switch. It is much more common now, and there is even a Vim equivalent I hear. I can't imagine using Emacs (or any editor) without Magit. `org-mode` and `org-agenda` is pretty cool and I wish I could use it, but I just gave up trying to configure and integrate it with my calendar, multiple devices and what not. `shell-pop` is incredibly basic and useful to pop up terminal at bottom. Trying to get my popup windows to show up where I want them using `popwin` and `shackle` (still WIP, as it's far from perfect). There is `lsp-mode` for Language Server, which makes the auto-completion and code-browsing far better. I was super surprised by how well `dumb-jump` worked in most cases (I mainly used that for C++). I usually discover things by looking at random Emacs configuration. IIRC there is a repo on Github which keeps track of popular configuration out there.
- mark_l_watson 8y ago
  When I worked managing a machine learning team I really relied on org-mode to keep myself organized. I didn't have a multiple device problem because I just had org setup on my work laptop. When I 'retired' a few weeks ago I tried org-mode in a dropbox folder. Works great from my Linux and macOS laptops but iOS is a nuisance: I can read notes from the dropbox app and edit them with Textastic, but this is not 'ready at hand' tooling. Since I 'retired' I am doing much more of my personal coding in Common Lisp and Haskell which means more Emacs use (although I also have VSCode set up for fantastic Haskell and Python dev experiences). I need to take another look at Magit. I replaced org-mode with all-in use of G Suite (really enjoying functionality, high productivity, and security, cringing a little on privacy issues).
  - tra3 8y ago
    Take a look at beorg for iOS, I haven't fully explored it yet, but it supports some org-mode. https://beorgapp.com https://beorgapp.com