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I’m kinda in love with VSCode at the moment, even though I have used Emacs (or at least some mac customized version, maybe SpaceEmacs?) for agda-mode When I tr

I’m kinda in love with VSCode at the moment, even though I have used Emacs (or at least some mac customized version, maybe SpaceEmacs?) for agda-mode When I tried to go outside of the agda-mode documentation, to try to learn emacs properly, I kinda struggled to find a reliable tutorial or introduction that got me started on how emacs and the culture/ecosystem works. (Maybe it was just me who got tripped up by my unfamiliarity with it.) Do you have a good recommendation for a way or a book to get into emacs? It does seem nice to run your editors in terminals, instead of the other way around.. haha

monroewalker 6y ago
I've had a similar experience to yours. Even when I'm curious and motivated to learn, I find it hard to learn more and improve. There seems to be a lot of assumed knowledge from most tutorials and articles about where to place code snippets, configure things, what ui elements are called, etc. One thing I'd recommend is joining the spacemacs discord/slack and just asking for help on the questions you get stuck on.
submeta 6y ago
I do admit VSCode is a very polished product. Just like the other tools I mentioned (PyCharm, Kaleidoscope for diffs, Tower App as git client etc). What makes Emacs different - when you look beyond the simple looking interface - is the possibility to make the packages / plugins work together not intended by the original authors by creating hooks that change the return value of the packages, and you can tie together the tools by writing Elisp scripts. As to where to start: There are many young and ambitious hackers who are re-developing Emacs + Lisp for creating their custom dev / hacking / writing environment, and who create wonderful youtube videos. Magnar Sveen started doing this several years ago (emacsrock.com), then there are (among others) Protesilas Stavrou or the channel of "System Crafters". When you prefer reading books: "An Introduction To Programming In Emacs Lisp" from Robert Chassell is excellent for learning the basics of Elisp. Mickey Petersens "Mastering Emacs" is excellent. Harley Hahn's Emacs Field Guide is recommended as well. Also, r/emacs and r/orgmode are excellent communities. Give yourself time. Don't hurry. Emacs is a tool that will keep your company in twenty years from now, when all the hyped tools are long gone (Textmate users moved to Sublime, then some of them to VS Code, who know's what's next?).
- 1MachineElf 6y ago
  >Magnar Sveen started doing this several years ago (emacsrock.com) Great comment! But you were missing an s in this FQDN. Here's a working link: http://emacsrocks.com/ http://emacsrocks.com/
- aprdm 6y ago
  Textmate users moved to sublime because they felt it was better, so did sublime users to vscode. They could get a better experience with very minimal time of training or mastery, because the next tool they used was user friendly and better for them. What’s wrong with that ? If new tools that are better and easy to use keep coming then that is something to celebrate.
holri 6y ago
Emacs has great interactive tutorials built in: C-h t and has a great info system and help functions: C-h h also: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ There is really a lot of excellent documentation built in and the source code is very easy to find and read.

monroewalker 6y ago

I've had a similar experience to yours. Even when I'm curious and motivated to learn, I find it hard to learn more and improve. There seems to be a lot of assumed knowledge from most tutorials and articles about where to place code snippets, configure things, what ui elements are called, etc. One thing I'd recommend is joining the spacemacs discord/slack and just asking for help on the questions you get stuck on.

submeta 6y ago

I do admit VSCode is a very polished product. Just like the other tools I mentioned (PyCharm, Kaleidoscope for diffs, Tower App as git client etc). What makes Emacs different - when you look beyond the simple looking interface - is the possibility to make the packages / plugins work together not intended by the original authors by creating hooks that change the return value of the packages, and you can tie together the tools by writing Elisp scripts. As to where to start: There are many young and ambitious hackers who are re-developing Emacs + Lisp for creating their custom dev / hacking / writing environment, and who create wonderful youtube videos. Magnar Sveen started doing this several years ago (emacsrock.com), then there are (among others) Protesilas Stavrou or the channel of "System Crafters". When you prefer reading books: "An Introduction To Programming In Emacs Lisp" from Robert Chassell is excellent for learning the basics of Elisp. Mickey Petersens "Mastering Emacs" is excellent. Harley Hahn's Emacs Field Guide is recommended as well. Also, r/emacs and r/orgmode are excellent communities. Give yourself time. Don't hurry. Emacs is a tool that will keep your company in twenty years from now, when all the hyped tools are long gone (Textmate users moved to Sublime, then some of them to VS Code, who know's what's next?).

1MachineElf 6y ago
>Magnar Sveen started doing this several years ago (emacsrock.com) Great comment! But you were missing an s in this FQDN. Here's a working link: http://emacsrocks.com/ http://emacsrocks.com/
aprdm 6y ago
Textmate users moved to sublime because they felt it was better, so did sublime users to vscode. They could get a better experience with very minimal time of training or mastery, because the next tool they used was user friendly and better for them. What’s wrong with that ? If new tools that are better and easy to use keep coming then that is something to celebrate.

holri 6y ago

Emacs has great interactive tutorials built in: C-h t and has a great info system and help functions: C-h h also: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ There is really a lot of excellent documentation built in and the source code is very easy to find and read.