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Don't forget: New employee 6 workflow at company X: 1. Install Spacemacs, don't bother fiddling with the config 2. Spend a few hours working through the tu

Don't forget: New employee 6 workflow at company X: 1. Install Spacemacs, don't bother fiddling with the config 2. Spend a few hours working through the tutorial or reviewing the excellent docs [1] 3. Work. Become a better developer [2]. [1]:https://www.spacemacs.org/doc/DOCUMENTATION.html https://www.spacemacs.org/doc/DOCUMENTATION.html [2]:https://blog.osteele.com/2004/11/ides https://blog.osteele.com/2004/11/ides

dmix 7y ago
+1 I was really attached to my vim config but decided to try out SpaceVim [1] (the vim version of SpaceMacs) after a stint using VSCode and after reinstalling my OS (before pulling in my usual vim .git) and I was surprised it was almost the same as what I spent years perfecting but with a far better and logical key mapping scheme that fit neatly across plugins + a nice programming language extension/layer scheme. It's the oh-my-zsh of vim/emacs. After a year of SpaceVim, when I finally found time, I ended up switching back to my more lightweight and stripped down version of NeoVim but copied the keymapping approach and some of the individual configs. It was a great starting point. If you're a) new to vim/emacs or b) tired of maintaining your own config for w/e reason, Space[x] is entirely usable in it's default state with good documentation. It also updates often and stays on the cutting edge of various plugins and progression in the community, but with the stability of a larger community. It defeats a lot of the learning/config curve arguments again vim/emacs. [1] https://spacevim.org/ https://spacevim.org/
- 6c696e7578 7y ago
  Weird. I tried spacevim, via their docker container. First impressions were 100% CPU use after entering: int main( I'll stick to tried and tested vim.
  - _vbdg 7y ago
    If one needs a docker container to run a text editor, I think that says all that needs to be said about it.
    - 6c696e7578 7y ago
      Well, sort of. Something like spacevim requires some dependencies I imaging. Docker is sort of a package manager, so it makes sense to run the 1.1G docker image to see what you're getting into. Anyway, this way I saw an issue early on that stopped me from going any further, and saved me much time and heart ache. Sticking to my plain old .vimrc for now.
_peeley 7y ago
I cannot recommend Spacemacs enough. I was a pretty dedicated Vim user for years but grew tired of the brittle tooling and subpar extensibility and decided to give Emacs a try. My first experience with Emacs was dreadful - the default keybinds were counter-intuitive and hard to use (no, I should not have to remap my control key to caps lock just to avoid carpal tunnel), basic features were absent yet included was a web browser, mail client, etc. A month or two later I gave Spacemacs a try, and I've been using it ever since. Not only does it have sane defaults like evil-mode for Vim emulation, but a lot of terrific packages like Magit and Org-mode are builtin. I also use the Spacemacs docs as my first resort when I want to install something new or fiddle with settings, rather than the subpar GNU Emacs documentation which never quite tells me the exact information I'm looking for.
clarry 7y ago
1. Install Spacemacs. 2. Observe a flurry of errors every time you start emacs. Ignore and hope it works because no idea how to fix any of it. 3. Find, among a million others, the command that seems to do what exactly what you want. Command gives an error. Dunno how to debug. 4. Watch emacs features that should work ootb not work because spacemacs or evil or one of the three bazillion packages did something that broke it. Dunno how to debug. 5. Complain on HN, get told you need to be using the master/develop version of packages because upstream devs don't care about maintaining stable releases. 6. Use unstable packages. Observe new errors whenever you update or do anything. Hope it doesn't break more than it's already broken.
- pantulis 7y ago
  This. While Spacemacs is an admirable effort, I think it misses the point: Emacs is an editor for power users from another era, so it requires huge effort by the user to become truly productive by todays standards. Trying to create layers upon layers of "friendlines" and eye candy is not going to solve the complexity. I've always said that it's better to grasp Emacs with a vanilla config or a small starter kit and see if you can make it grow step by step in a journey that takes years. vim is a similar rabbit hole, maybe less deep. The real question is: can VS Code make you productive enough in less time?
  - throwanem 7y ago
    Pretty much, yeah, from what I've seen. Against the shockingly low ambient baseline of "editors that aren't Vim or Emacs", VS Code's highly usable OOTB experience and broad extension ecosystem are enough of an improvement to constitute a real win despite being so poor by comparison with a thoroughly evolved configuration of either of the Two True Editors. I stick with Emacs because, now having invested more than a decade in learning to get the most out of it, I can do a lot of things in seconds that take VS Code users minutes or hours. But the converse is also true, and I think will only become more so. Especially in the realm of remote collaboration and mentorship, which has never been more important than it is today, VS Code does things that Emacs simply can't, and almost certainly never will. That's fine, of course. That different tools should specialize in different things is perfectly reasonable, and I don't have the kind of emotional attachment to Emacs that would give me cause to be upset with its dwindling user share or its lack of broad appeal. It serves me very well, but it's not something I advocate, although of course I mentor those who take an interest. I am looking at picking up VS Code, with suitably Emacs-esque keybindings, for the mentoring-in-programming aspect of my role. That's where pretty much everyone else is, or is going. And in that context, its less fluent and less extensible user interface is probably a boon, once I get over being frustrated by it. In the context of teaching someone less experienced, acting with the speed of thought is really best avoided; if you don't explain why you're doing what you're doing, or offer the chance for questions and discussion, essentially the entire point is lost.
rk06 7y ago
I tried spacemacs last month. It didn't work. So I gave up. PS: I am on windows.
dragandj 7y ago
While the most practical employee 7 installs Prelude[1]: 1. Install Prelude 2. Work [1] http://batsov.com/prelude/ http://batsov.com/prelude/
IceDane 7y ago
Sorry, but that's not true anymore. The spacemacs project has kind of gone off the rails and it doesn't seem like they have any idea about what they really want to do. The next release has been coming for several years and it's not yet there. This means that you can either choose between the master branch and get hopelessly outdated stuff or the development branch which is so chaotic that you better be ready for things to break constantly. I used spacemacs for years, then I tried doom emacs and it took me all of 15 seconds to realize that I should switch.

dmix 7y ago

+1 I was really attached to my vim config but decided to try out SpaceVim [1] (the vim version of SpaceMacs) after a stint using VSCode and after reinstalling my OS (before pulling in my usual vim .git) and I was surprised it was almost the same as what I spent years perfecting but with a far better and logical key mapping scheme that fit neatly across plugins + a nice programming language extension/layer scheme. It's the oh-my-zsh of vim/emacs. After a year of SpaceVim, when I finally found time, I ended up switching back to my more lightweight and stripped down version of NeoVim but copied the keymapping approach and some of the individual configs. It was a great starting point. If you're a) new to vim/emacs or b) tired of maintaining your own config for w/e reason, Space[x] is entirely usable in it's default state with good documentation. It also updates often and stays on the cutting edge of various plugins and progression in the community, but with the stability of a larger community. It defeats a lot of the learning/config curve arguments again vim/emacs. [1] https://spacevim.org/ https://spacevim.org/

6c696e7578 7y ago
Weird. I tried spacevim, via their docker container. First impressions were 100% CPU use after entering: int main( I'll stick to tried and tested vim.
- _vbdg 7y ago
  If one needs a docker container to run a text editor, I think that says all that needs to be said about it.
  - 6c696e7578 7y ago
    Well, sort of. Something like spacevim requires some dependencies I imaging. Docker is sort of a package manager, so it makes sense to run the 1.1G docker image to see what you're getting into. Anyway, this way I saw an issue early on that stopped me from going any further, and saved me much time and heart ache. Sticking to my plain old .vimrc for now.

_peeley 7y ago

I cannot recommend Spacemacs enough. I was a pretty dedicated Vim user for years but grew tired of the brittle tooling and subpar extensibility and decided to give Emacs a try. My first experience with Emacs was dreadful - the default keybinds were counter-intuitive and hard to use (no, I should not have to remap my control key to caps lock just to avoid carpal tunnel), basic features were absent yet included was a web browser, mail client, etc. A month or two later I gave Spacemacs a try, and I've been using it ever since. Not only does it have sane defaults like evil-mode for Vim emulation, but a lot of terrific packages like Magit and Org-mode are builtin. I also use the Spacemacs docs as my first resort when I want to install something new or fiddle with settings, rather than the subpar GNU Emacs documentation which never quite tells me the exact information I'm looking for.

clarry 7y ago

1. Install Spacemacs. 2. Observe a flurry of errors every time you start emacs. Ignore and hope it works because no idea how to fix any of it. 3. Find, among a million others, the command that seems to do what exactly what you want. Command gives an error. Dunno how to debug. 4. Watch emacs features that should work ootb not work because spacemacs or evil or one of the three bazillion packages did something that broke it. Dunno how to debug. 5. Complain on HN, get told you need to be using the master/develop version of packages because upstream devs don't care about maintaining stable releases. 6. Use unstable packages. Observe new errors whenever you update or do anything. Hope it doesn't break more than it's already broken.

pantulis 7y ago
This. While Spacemacs is an admirable effort, I think it misses the point: Emacs is an editor for power users from another era, so it requires huge effort by the user to become truly productive by todays standards. Trying to create layers upon layers of "friendlines" and eye candy is not going to solve the complexity. I've always said that it's better to grasp Emacs with a vanilla config or a small starter kit and see if you can make it grow step by step in a journey that takes years. vim is a similar rabbit hole, maybe less deep. The real question is: can VS Code make you productive enough in less time?
- throwanem 7y ago
  Pretty much, yeah, from what I've seen. Against the shockingly low ambient baseline of "editors that aren't Vim or Emacs", VS Code's highly usable OOTB experience and broad extension ecosystem are enough of an improvement to constitute a real win despite being so poor by comparison with a thoroughly evolved configuration of either of the Two True Editors. I stick with Emacs because, now having invested more than a decade in learning to get the most out of it, I can do a lot of things in seconds that take VS Code users minutes or hours. But the converse is also true, and I think will only become more so. Especially in the realm of remote collaboration and mentorship, which has never been more important than it is today, VS Code does things that Emacs simply can't, and almost certainly never will. That's fine, of course. That different tools should specialize in different things is perfectly reasonable, and I don't have the kind of emotional attachment to Emacs that would give me cause to be upset with its dwindling user share or its lack of broad appeal. It serves me very well, but it's not something I advocate, although of course I mentor those who take an interest. I am looking at picking up VS Code, with suitably Emacs-esque keybindings, for the mentoring-in-programming aspect of my role. That's where pretty much everyone else is, or is going. And in that context, its less fluent and less extensible user interface is probably a boon, once I get over being frustrated by it. In the context of teaching someone less experienced, acting with the speed of thought is really best avoided; if you don't explain why you're doing what you're doing, or offer the chance for questions and discussion, essentially the entire point is lost.

rk06 7y ago

I tried spacemacs last month. It didn't work. So I gave up. PS: I am on windows.

dragandj 7y ago

While the most practical employee 7 installs Prelude[1]: 1. Install Prelude 2. Work [1] http://batsov.com/prelude/ http://batsov.com/prelude/

IceDane 7y ago

Sorry, but that's not true anymore. The spacemacs project has kind of gone off the rails and it doesn't seem like they have any idea about what they really want to do. The next release has been coming for several years and it's not yet there. This means that you can either choose between the master branch and get hopelessly outdated stuff or the development branch which is so chaotic that you better be ready for things to break constantly. I used spacemacs for years, then I tried doom emacs and it took me all of 15 seconds to realize that I should switch.