10 ms·

Get things done with Emacs

292 points by ducktective 4y ago

ayayaweird 4y ago
- bitlax 4y ago
  I don't even think you read the title. Edit: Downvote me all you want. I'm not the one using VSCode to manage my emails!
- daptaq 4y ago
  VSCode is a common denominator. While enough for most, it doesn't do the job for everyone. There is nothing bad about it one way or another.
  - bitlax 4y ago
    This is an article about productivity software, not editors. Emacs blows VSCode out of the water here.
- chrsig 4y ago
  i don't think so...vscode has been a bit hard for me to adopt ..because it doesn't have a good emacs keybinding. In general, I find it kind of cluttered, and overwhelming. I definitely don't like that it's made by microsoft. If i'm working on a big project, I don't see a reason not to use a jetbrains ide. If i'm on something smaller, or just need to edit some text, it's much easier in emacs than vscode
  - thom 4y ago
    I’ve been able to get decent Emacs like key bindings to work in VS Code but that’s never been my complaint. My complaint is just that every extension seems to want to show custom UI and even where they have a keyboard and text based workflow it’s wildly inconsistent with everything else. I just can’t… _be_ in VS Code, everything’s so jarring. In Emacs my code, my database client, my terminal, everything is just text in the same sort of buffer that supports the same sort of navigation and manipulation. VS Code’s community (or API) doesn’t seem to value this. Maybe the abstractions will come with time. Either way, good luck to them.
- benreesman 4y ago
  I use VSCode sometimes, it’s very cool. But emacs/vi pros are fucking fast. It looks like magic the first few times you see it (are u a wizard?) and for some it’s worth the learning curve.
todd8 4y ago
Thank you for the detailed write up. (I hope the author sees this) I'm always impressed with Emacs users that are capable of such discipline. I've use Emacs well over forty years, with only a few years of interruption, but I have never had a stable or well organized configuration. It's inspirational to see other's use of Emacs. I'm disorganized, and I'm a hoarder (right now, my bedroom has at least 100 books stacked on the floor in different piles). Like my fluid Emacs configuration, the books are all attractive possibilities of what to read or try out next.
- mikrl 4y ago
  As a fellow emacser, I’m also incredibly scatterbrained and just kind of intuit my way through things. When I make plans, systems and processes I do better with less stress until the inevitable stressor completely wrecks my flow and I forget to get back on track. Luckily emacs lets you save a bunch of useful processes and workflows in a VCS that works the same across multiple environments (modulo 15 minutes here and there to resolve major version conflicts)
- b3morales 4y ago
  Sounds like you have a flourishing Anti-library: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilibrary/ https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antili... > Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there.
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    Sorry for being dense, but I couldn’t deduce from the source; does the “anti” just mean “unread”?
    - shrimpx 4y ago
      Yeah. It comes off as a playful/tentative term, not a precise one. If a "library" is a collection of read books, an "anti-library" is a collection of unread books.
f1shy 4y ago
Sorry, off-topic question: does somebody happen to know what tool was used to make this page? I really like the style.
- nebqr 4y ago
  It looks like it was exported straight from org-mode, using the author's custom css.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  The layout and styling are very nice. However, the main text color is lacking contrast, either the font is too thin or its color too light. I can read it, but it is borderline uncomfortable. I don't mind a bit of softened contrast, but in this case, this is a bit too much.
  - jonnycomputer 4y ago
    I find it refreshing and very readable. But everyone's eyes and preferences are different, not to mention screens.
  - tmtvl 4y ago
    The enumerations (Chapter 1, 1.1,...) are a bit too soft for me, I prefer decent contrast a la Modus Operandi over some of the barely visible text of Nano themes.
cocacola1 4y ago
His nano-emacs is one of the cleanest I’ve seen: https://github.com/rougier/nano-emacs https://github.com/rougier/nano-emacs I did a short interview with Nicolas not long ago (very short): https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/ https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/
- User23 4y ago
  Anyone that loves emacs and loves pretty should basically look at everything on Nicolas’s github profile that’s emacs related. He’s an inspiration.
ctrlrsf 4y ago
How do you save screenshots?
- abudabi123 4y ago
  On KDE/Debian/Linux I use the Spectacle Screenshot Capture Utility. The next version Emacs 29.0 may get screenshot builtin and a better way to keep the configuration file manageable. See https://planet.emacslife.com https://planet.emacslife.com
  - jhoechtl 4y ago
    > The next version Emacs 29.0 may get screenshot builtin That would be sooo darn nice
  - _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
    from Emacs 27.1, it's possible to do Emacs internal screenshots with a little config, see: https://paste.debian.net/1255637/ https://paste.debian.net/1255637/ (based on from https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/idz35e/emacs_27_can_take_svg_screenshots_of_itself/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/idz35e/emacs_27_can_... )
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  org-download is really good for this.
aurelien 4y ago
Nice job!
Forge36 4y ago
Taking a quick peak at managing email in emacs I think I'll keep two separate programs. I really like the agenda view, I'll need to reconsider using Outlook tasks (I'm using a split system between Outlook, emacs, and my corporate bug tracker). The cleaner history tracking +easy ability to add notes/reorganize makes this such a clear progress update. Might try using this as my future workplan update. The breakouts by people is also interesting. I've not categorized my interactions in this way (I'm also not mentoring anyone directly or managing someone else's work).
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  I have a hard time imagining being able to use Emacs as effortlessly with Microsoft Exchange emails as I can with Outlook. I use org-mode todos, and Outlook tasks, and it might be nice to integrate, but I'm not going to bother trying, tbh. Outlook notes are terrible, imo. Switched to using org-mode with org-crypt, and its worked pretty well, except I have an entry that won't decrypt anymore, and I'm not sure what has happened.
  - gleenn 4y ago
    That's pretty bad if you put your life into notes or docs or whatever you're encrypting and then it just won't decrypt anymore. Do you think the file just got corrupted? Or is it actually the plug-in that's failing?
jonnycomputer 4y ago
Side comment about the presentation on the blog. Looks like old type-written page, with color. Very clean style, very readable. I like it. The CSS style sheet has the author's name on it, so I guess it is their work. Good job!
- Narishma 4y ago
  It was hard to read for me due to low contrast.
  - WaffleIronMaker 4y ago
    Agreed. I also had trouble reading the content. Especially the blockquotes.
- flobosg 4y ago
  The CSS stylesheet is available at https://github.com/rougier/emacs-gtd/blob/master/GTD.css https://github.com/rougier/emacs-gtd/blob/master/GTD.css
djha-skin 4y ago
Richard stallman himself got repetitive strain injury from emacs. So many people have. They tell you to remap the key to caps lock they tell you to use your palm instead of your finger they tell you to get a weird keyboard but at the end of the day it was just poorly designed. Vim is only slightly slower but so much easier on my hands. Yes, I could get emacs evil or spacemacs or whatever but bolting on modality to an editor that was never meant for it, especially when all the docs basically ignore their existence, is not something I'm interested in. Native vim is just better. But I do miss that you can configure emacs using lisp. There is hope, though. I've heard there is a plug-in for neovim that allows you to write configuration files using common lisp.
- ducktective 4y ago
  > Vim is only slightly slower Both vim and neovim (be it in TUI or GUI form) are faster than Emacs. https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/#summary https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/#summary
  - hollerith 4y ago
    Your URL is about how fast the software is at responding to the user's keystrokes. In contrast, the person you are replying to is writing about the effect of key binding on how quickly a user can get common tasks done.
  - iLemming 4y ago
    Arguing that Vim or Neovim run faster than Emacs is like saying that your single-engine sport aircraft moves faster than my best aircraft carrier. An average Emacs user installs and loads a few hundred packages, ranging from Org-mode and version control extensions to PDF tools, and natural language assistants. I bet Vim wouldn't be "faster" if you feed it up with even half of that number of plugins. Vim and Emacs have different use-cases, philosophies and mechanics. Each has its own pros and cons. There's no point in debating if one has better speed, aesthetics or popularity. I suggest we stop this nonsensical debate of Vim vs. Emacs and instead focus on their strength. What people very often miss is that both Vim and Emacs are absolutely free. Free to use, free to copy, free to change. And that freedom is worth protecting and worth fighting for. Because no matter how MSFT, JetBrains, et al. paint it - VSCode and IntelliJ are not free products. And not just the money at stake here - the entire ideology and the idea of being a hacker with control over computational power and the tools is something worth protecting. I (just like many others) am so fed up with proprietary services and corporations taking your data hostage. Tired of being locked in and losing control over my data; tired of the status quo, of that infamous: "people don't know what they want..." I chose Vim & Emacs not because they are technologically superior to VSCode or IntelliJ (even though they are), but because I've seen the other side. I've used Jetbrains' products for many years. I loved them, blindly. Do you know what grants you a huge amount of satisfaction? Not when you see that bug ticket you filed in 2008 gets finally fixed in IntelliJ, fourteen years later (by that time you're already forced to learn how to avoid the workflow leading to that bug). Satisfaction is what you feel when you learn Emacs to the point that even though you know there's a bug, you've accumulated enough knowledge to sit down and figure out a workaround for it, writing fifty lines of Lisp. That's freedom. That's being a programmer. Choosing to pay for a proprietary product and ecosystem (because it has emojis and pizzzaz) is like jumping into a slow melting pot; willingly checking-in into a mental prison.
ChildOfChaos 4y ago
I'm tired just reading the article. That process sounds exhausting, after working through it, I think I'd want a nap rather than to go do some actual worthwhile work.
- bitlax 4y ago
  By contrast, the author was able to both read and write the post without such exhaustion, perhaps due to the fact that he wasn't wasting mental energy on recurring tasks.
- dandy23 4y ago
  Here is an easier approach: https://easyorgmode.com/blog/a-workflow-for-using-org-mode-with-easyorg https://easyorgmode.com/blog/a-workflow-for-using-org-mode-w...
- m463 4y ago
  The idea is when you need to get work done, you procra^H^H^H^H^H^H work on your emacs startup files...
d3nj4l 4y ago
I really like emacs, and I want to use it. I really loved the way I could mix my thoughts and tasks in org and have an agenda view that shows me a todo list. However, I spend so much time without a computer that it doesn’t make sense for me to use org mode. I’ve tried a mobile app for org mode but it didn’t work as well for me as a task tracker that has a mobile app. How are others in this situation working with org?
- ashton314 4y ago
  Beorg (https://beorg.app/ https://beorg.app/) 100% for me. (iOS only) Amazing agenda—even shows you events from your Reminders and iCloud calendars as well. (Configurable)
  - Scarbutt 4y ago
    Another iOS one is: https://plainorg.com/ https://plainorg.com/
- m4lvin 4y ago
  Which app did you try? I use Orgzly http://www.orgzly.com/ http://www.orgzly.com/ for getting the agenda on my phone and for small edits. And whenever I want the full experience I run a real emacs on my phone in Termux. For syncing I use Syncthing.
  - wanderingmind 4y ago
    Use syncthing-fork and Tailscale and you can do realtime syncing on mobile networks of org mode files across multiple devices as well
    - m4lvin 4y ago
      Any reason you use syncthing-fork for that and not the original? I think mine syncs fine even on mobile data. Sometimes I turn on ZeroTier doing the same job as Tailscale/WireGuard, but syncthing seems to work already without that.
kkfx 4y ago
I have a much more chaotic structure and do not use time tracking / effort estimate but as a suggestion for going beyond: Emacs for me works very well as a file manager, not much in the sense of using dired but in the sense of org-attach anything, sometimes small trees to be seen/treated via dired [1], accessing them via org-roam search&narrow UI (i.e. org-roam-node-find). I've hesitated a lot at first, especially since migrating a decade old curated home taxonomy with symlinks, TMSU etc in the middle, it's not so easy nor much automate but in the end it pay back very well since not only add much more flexibility and much more level of indirection than symlinking/TMUS fuse fs queries but also offer the ability to search & filter for much more textual information easily. Doing so allow integrating essentially anything else. [1] org-id-get-create then renaming (moving) or copy etc a small set of files and directories to be linked in org-mode notes
aslak 4y ago
I can just use VS Code.
- bitlax 4y ago
  You literally can't.
- iLemming 4y ago
  > I can just use VS Code. So how many VS Code extensions have you written? How many workarounds have you invented to make your workflow more productive? Do you use VS Code for automation? Does it run any tasks for you? Can you for example open a page in your browser, send it to VS Code instance and let it collect all the links on that page and show them? Can VS Code work as a window manager? Email client? Maybe RSS reader? Do you read PDFs in VS Code and make notes and annotations? What about epubs? djvu maybe? Do you do project management in VS Code? Is there a way to calculate the number of days between the two dates? Convert that to hours? Do you test HTTP requests in VS Code? Can you send a request, then feed the results to a Python Script, then based on that - create a SQL query and send it to a DB, then transform the data with Clojure and finally create a table with the final results? Can you do that in VS Code? Because I do something like that in Emacs quite often. Do you plot sequence diagrams in VS Code? Or do you write math formulas? Do you work with research papers? Does VS Code have support for scientific citations? What about prose? Do you write plain text in VS Code? I'm typing this in Emacs. I have syntax and spell checkers, integration with Grammarly (I know VS Code can do that one); I have Google translate integration, have dictionaries and thesauri. What about some advanced version control? Can you change the editor settings depending on what git worktree you're in? Can you select a few files in the directory tree and see the git log pertaining only those? Can you edit the directory tree using regexp-replace or multiple cursors, or do something like "find all the files larger than 3Mbs that were created between two days in March, and rename them all?" --- Whenever anyone claims that they can perfectly do anything that you can do in Emacs, they probably have no idea what you can do in Emacs.
r3tr0 4y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/xshis8/browser_emacs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/xshis8/browser_emacs... someone put emacs in the browser.
KryDos 4y ago
I love such readings, they often inspire me to start (at this moment "to keep") my "digital organizers" in shape but I always been wondering for how long people can keep such dedication to the process and how the process becomes useful later. I started with GTD a long time ago, I don't even remember what digital tool I used at that time. Then I switched to Todoist, then Wunderlist, then some cli tools like Taskwarrior, then org-mode, then Evernote + various todo apps then Obsidian + org-mode (org-roam is awesome but I need GOOD mobile support) so my GTD is not even a GTD now in it the original sense. And I still don't see any serious benefits from the process. Sure, tasks are there and I'm aware of them, I look at them and do them. But that's it. For some reason, I expected super productivity from myself while doing all this. I don't see myself productive still. Especially comparing to the author and many other authors of similar posts. I'm pretty sure I could track all those tasks in one Evernote note or Obsidian file or one Org file or even in one piece of paper (no mobile support though) and stay on the same level of productivity I am right now. My question(s) is. Is there anyone who make notes or track tasks for a more than a year period? How often do you change your workflow? Do you find it all useful and how the tracking helps you now? Was there any time you thanked yourself for doing all this during a long period of time? p.s. I'm of course not talking about a "project" tasks in Jira or issues on Github. I'm talking about tracking/notting of your life(todos) and thoughts(notes).
- nequo 4y ago
  The author himself seems to have given up on following the described GTD process strictly.[1] I have wondered this about productivity systems and hacks, too. With GTD, the key seems to be to get yourself over the edge of your resistance to get your tasks done. If you fundamentally resist the tasks you think you ought to be doing, GTD will probably not work long-term. For example because you hate some aspect of your job or you’re afraid about the outcomes of your tasks. If you just need a way to organize all the little actionable items because otherwise you lose track of them, GTD might work. I also wonder if people that we normally see as productive (Nobel prize winners, etc.) need to force themselves to stick to a special GTD system, too, or if for them the resistance is weaker and their tasks end up getting done one way or another. In any case, Emacs and Vim are great outlets for tinkering with productivity hacks. But the long-term solutions might need to be deeper. [1] https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/ https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/
mszcz 4y ago
A little OT but that is one beautifully put together website. The fonts, font weights, colors, layout, the way the different block types are visually distinctive. A joy to look at, really. edit: Does anyone know if this is some kind of a style framework that's available publicly or authors own doing?
- douglasdrumz 4y ago
  At section 0.3, the author links to his CSS file: https://www.labri.fr/perso/nrougier/GTD/GTD.css https://www.labri.fr/perso/nrougier/GTD/GTD.css It seems to be of his own authorship, not a framework.

292 points by ducktective 4y ago

bitlax 4y ago
I don't even think you read the title. Edit: Downvote me all you want. I'm not the one using VSCode to manage my emails!
daptaq 4y ago
VSCode is a common denominator. While enough for most, it doesn't do the job for everyone. There is nothing bad about it one way or another.
- bitlax 4y ago
  This is an article about productivity software, not editors. Emacs blows VSCode out of the water here.
chrsig 4y ago
i don't think so...vscode has been a bit hard for me to adopt ..because it doesn't have a good emacs keybinding. In general, I find it kind of cluttered, and overwhelming. I definitely don't like that it's made by microsoft. If i'm working on a big project, I don't see a reason not to use a jetbrains ide. If i'm on something smaller, or just need to edit some text, it's much easier in emacs than vscode
- thom 4y ago
  I’ve been able to get decent Emacs like key bindings to work in VS Code but that’s never been my complaint. My complaint is just that every extension seems to want to show custom UI and even where they have a keyboard and text based workflow it’s wildly inconsistent with everything else. I just can’t… _be_ in VS Code, everything’s so jarring. In Emacs my code, my database client, my terminal, everything is just text in the same sort of buffer that supports the same sort of navigation and manipulation. VS Code’s community (or API) doesn’t seem to value this. Maybe the abstractions will come with time. Either way, good luck to them.
benreesman 4y ago
I use VSCode sometimes, it’s very cool. But emacs/vi pros are fucking fast. It looks like magic the first few times you see it (are u a wizard?) and for some it’s worth the learning curve.

Thank you for the detailed write up. (I hope the author sees this) I'm always impressed with Emacs users that are capable of such discipline. I've use Emacs well over forty years, with only a few years of interruption, but I have never had a stable or well organized configuration. It's inspirational to see other's use of Emacs. I'm disorganized, and I'm a hoarder (right now, my bedroom has at least 100 books stacked on the floor in different piles). Like my fluid Emacs configuration, the books are all attractive possibilities of what to read or try out next.

mikrl 4y ago
As a fellow emacser, I’m also incredibly scatterbrained and just kind of intuit my way through things. When I make plans, systems and processes I do better with less stress until the inevitable stressor completely wrecks my flow and I forget to get back on track. Luckily emacs lets you save a bunch of useful processes and workflows in a VCS that works the same across multiple environments (modulo 15 minutes here and there to resolve major version conflicts)
b3morales 4y ago
Sounds like you have a flourishing Anti-library: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilibrary/ https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antili... > Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Sorry for being dense, but I couldn’t deduce from the source; does the “anti” just mean “unread”?
  - shrimpx 4y ago
    Yeah. It comes off as a playful/tentative term, not a precise one. If a "library" is a collection of read books, an "anti-library" is a collection of unread books.

f1shy 4y ago

Sorry, off-topic question: does somebody happen to know what tool was used to make this page? I really like the style.

nebqr 4y ago
It looks like it was exported straight from org-mode, using the author's custom css.
stephc_int13 4y ago
The layout and styling are very nice. However, the main text color is lacking contrast, either the font is too thin or its color too light. I can read it, but it is borderline uncomfortable. I don't mind a bit of softened contrast, but in this case, this is a bit too much.
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  I find it refreshing and very readable. But everyone's eyes and preferences are different, not to mention screens.
- tmtvl 4y ago
  The enumerations (Chapter 1, 1.1,...) are a bit too soft for me, I prefer decent contrast a la Modus Operandi over some of the barely visible text of Nano themes.

cocacola1 4y ago

His nano-emacs is one of the cleanest I’ve seen: https://github.com/rougier/nano-emacs https://github.com/rougier/nano-emacs I did a short interview with Nicolas not long ago (very short): https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/ https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/

User23 4y ago
Anyone that loves emacs and loves pretty should basically look at everything on Nicolas’s github profile that’s emacs related. He’s an inspiration.

ctrlrsf 4y ago

How do you save screenshots?

abudabi123 4y ago
On KDE/Debian/Linux I use the Spectacle Screenshot Capture Utility. The next version Emacs 29.0 may get screenshot builtin and a better way to keep the configuration file manageable. See https://planet.emacslife.com https://planet.emacslife.com
- jhoechtl 4y ago
  > The next version Emacs 29.0 may get screenshot builtin That would be sooo darn nice
- _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
  from Emacs 27.1, it's possible to do Emacs internal screenshots with a little config, see: https://paste.debian.net/1255637/ https://paste.debian.net/1255637/ (based on from https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/idz35e/emacs_27_can_take_svg_screenshots_of_itself/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/idz35e/emacs_27_can_... )
hprotagonist 4y ago
org-download is really good for this.

aurelien 4y ago

Nice job!

Forge36 4y ago

Taking a quick peak at managing email in emacs I think I'll keep two separate programs. I really like the agenda view, I'll need to reconsider using Outlook tasks (I'm using a split system between Outlook, emacs, and my corporate bug tracker). The cleaner history tracking +easy ability to add notes/reorganize makes this such a clear progress update. Might try using this as my future workplan update. The breakouts by people is also interesting. I've not categorized my interactions in this way (I'm also not mentoring anyone directly or managing someone else's work).

jonnycomputer 4y ago
I have a hard time imagining being able to use Emacs as effortlessly with Microsoft Exchange emails as I can with Outlook. I use org-mode todos, and Outlook tasks, and it might be nice to integrate, but I'm not going to bother trying, tbh. Outlook notes are terrible, imo. Switched to using org-mode with org-crypt, and its worked pretty well, except I have an entry that won't decrypt anymore, and I'm not sure what has happened.
- gleenn 4y ago
  That's pretty bad if you put your life into notes or docs or whatever you're encrypting and then it just won't decrypt anymore. Do you think the file just got corrupted? Or is it actually the plug-in that's failing?

jonnycomputer 4y ago

Side comment about the presentation on the blog. Looks like old type-written page, with color. Very clean style, very readable. I like it. The CSS style sheet has the author's name on it, so I guess it is their work. Good job!

Narishma 4y ago
It was hard to read for me due to low contrast.
- WaffleIronMaker 4y ago
  Agreed. I also had trouble reading the content. Especially the blockquotes.
flobosg 4y ago
The CSS stylesheet is available at https://github.com/rougier/emacs-gtd/blob/master/GTD.css https://github.com/rougier/emacs-gtd/blob/master/GTD.css

djha-skin 4y ago

Richard stallman himself got repetitive strain injury from emacs. So many people have. They tell you to remap the key to caps lock they tell you to use your palm instead of your finger they tell you to get a weird keyboard but at the end of the day it was just poorly designed. Vim is only slightly slower but so much easier on my hands. Yes, I could get emacs evil or spacemacs or whatever but bolting on modality to an editor that was never meant for it, especially when all the docs basically ignore their existence, is not something I'm interested in. Native vim is just better. But I do miss that you can configure emacs using lisp. There is hope, though. I've heard there is a plug-in for neovim that allows you to write configuration files using common lisp.

ducktective 4y ago
> Vim is only slightly slower Both vim and neovim (be it in TUI or GUI form) are faster than Emacs. https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/#summary https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/#summary
- hollerith 4y ago
  Your URL is about how fast the software is at responding to the user's keystrokes. In contrast, the person you are replying to is writing about the effect of key binding on how quickly a user can get common tasks done.
- iLemming 4y ago
  Arguing that Vim or Neovim run faster than Emacs is like saying that your single-engine sport aircraft moves faster than my best aircraft carrier. An average Emacs user installs and loads a few hundred packages, ranging from Org-mode and version control extensions to PDF tools, and natural language assistants. I bet Vim wouldn't be "faster" if you feed it up with even half of that number of plugins. Vim and Emacs have different use-cases, philosophies and mechanics. Each has its own pros and cons. There's no point in debating if one has better speed, aesthetics or popularity. I suggest we stop this nonsensical debate of Vim vs. Emacs and instead focus on their strength. What people very often miss is that both Vim and Emacs are absolutely free. Free to use, free to copy, free to change. And that freedom is worth protecting and worth fighting for. Because no matter how MSFT, JetBrains, et al. paint it - VSCode and IntelliJ are not free products. And not just the money at stake here - the entire ideology and the idea of being a hacker with control over computational power and the tools is something worth protecting. I (just like many others) am so fed up with proprietary services and corporations taking your data hostage. Tired of being locked in and losing control over my data; tired of the status quo, of that infamous: "people don't know what they want..." I chose Vim & Emacs not because they are technologically superior to VSCode or IntelliJ (even though they are), but because I've seen the other side. I've used Jetbrains' products for many years. I loved them, blindly. Do you know what grants you a huge amount of satisfaction? Not when you see that bug ticket you filed in 2008 gets finally fixed in IntelliJ, fourteen years later (by that time you're already forced to learn how to avoid the workflow leading to that bug). Satisfaction is what you feel when you learn Emacs to the point that even though you know there's a bug, you've accumulated enough knowledge to sit down and figure out a workaround for it, writing fifty lines of Lisp. That's freedom. That's being a programmer. Choosing to pay for a proprietary product and ecosystem (because it has emojis and pizzzaz) is like jumping into a slow melting pot; willingly checking-in into a mental prison.

ChildOfChaos 4y ago

I'm tired just reading the article. That process sounds exhausting, after working through it, I think I'd want a nap rather than to go do some actual worthwhile work.

bitlax 4y ago
By contrast, the author was able to both read and write the post without such exhaustion, perhaps due to the fact that he wasn't wasting mental energy on recurring tasks.
dandy23 4y ago
Here is an easier approach: https://easyorgmode.com/blog/a-workflow-for-using-org-mode-with-easyorg https://easyorgmode.com/blog/a-workflow-for-using-org-mode-w...
m463 4y ago
The idea is when you need to get work done, you procra^H^H^H^H^H^H work on your emacs startup files...

d3nj4l 4y ago

I really like emacs, and I want to use it. I really loved the way I could mix my thoughts and tasks in org and have an agenda view that shows me a todo list. However, I spend so much time without a computer that it doesn’t make sense for me to use org mode. I’ve tried a mobile app for org mode but it didn’t work as well for me as a task tracker that has a mobile app. How are others in this situation working with org?

ashton314 4y ago
Beorg (https://beorg.app/ https://beorg.app/) 100% for me. (iOS only) Amazing agenda—even shows you events from your Reminders and iCloud calendars as well. (Configurable)
- Scarbutt 4y ago
  Another iOS one is: https://plainorg.com/ https://plainorg.com/
m4lvin 4y ago
Which app did you try? I use Orgzly http://www.orgzly.com/ http://www.orgzly.com/ for getting the agenda on my phone and for small edits. And whenever I want the full experience I run a real emacs on my phone in Termux. For syncing I use Syncthing.
- wanderingmind 4y ago
  Use syncthing-fork and Tailscale and you can do realtime syncing on mobile networks of org mode files across multiple devices as well
  - m4lvin 4y ago
    Any reason you use syncthing-fork for that and not the original? I think mine syncs fine even on mobile data. Sometimes I turn on ZeroTier doing the same job as Tailscale/WireGuard, but syncthing seems to work already without that.

kkfx 4y ago

I have a much more chaotic structure and do not use time tracking / effort estimate but as a suggestion for going beyond: Emacs for me works very well as a file manager, not much in the sense of using dired but in the sense of org-attach anything, sometimes small trees to be seen/treated via dired [1], accessing them via org-roam search&narrow UI (i.e. org-roam-node-find). I've hesitated a lot at first, especially since migrating a decade old curated home taxonomy with symlinks, TMSU etc in the middle, it's not so easy nor much automate but in the end it pay back very well since not only add much more flexibility and much more level of indirection than symlinking/TMUS fuse fs queries but also offer the ability to search & filter for much more textual information easily. Doing so allow integrating essentially anything else. [1] org-id-get-create then renaming (moving) or copy etc a small set of files and directories to be linked in org-mode notes

aslak 4y ago

I can just use VS Code.

bitlax 4y ago
You literally can't.
iLemming 4y ago
> I can just use VS Code. So how many VS Code extensions have you written? How many workarounds have you invented to make your workflow more productive? Do you use VS Code for automation? Does it run any tasks for you? Can you for example open a page in your browser, send it to VS Code instance and let it collect all the links on that page and show them? Can VS Code work as a window manager? Email client? Maybe RSS reader? Do you read PDFs in VS Code and make notes and annotations? What about epubs? djvu maybe? Do you do project management in VS Code? Is there a way to calculate the number of days between the two dates? Convert that to hours? Do you test HTTP requests in VS Code? Can you send a request, then feed the results to a Python Script, then based on that - create a SQL query and send it to a DB, then transform the data with Clojure and finally create a table with the final results? Can you do that in VS Code? Because I do something like that in Emacs quite often. Do you plot sequence diagrams in VS Code? Or do you write math formulas? Do you work with research papers? Does VS Code have support for scientific citations? What about prose? Do you write plain text in VS Code? I'm typing this in Emacs. I have syntax and spell checkers, integration with Grammarly (I know VS Code can do that one); I have Google translate integration, have dictionaries and thesauri. What about some advanced version control? Can you change the editor settings depending on what git worktree you're in? Can you select a few files in the directory tree and see the git log pertaining only those? Can you edit the directory tree using regexp-replace or multiple cursors, or do something like "find all the files larger than 3Mbs that were created between two days in March, and rename them all?" --- Whenever anyone claims that they can perfectly do anything that you can do in Emacs, they probably have no idea what you can do in Emacs.

r3tr0 4y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/xshis8/browser_emacs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/xshis8/browser_emacs... someone put emacs in the browser.

KryDos 4y ago

I love such readings, they often inspire me to start (at this moment "to keep") my "digital organizers" in shape but I always been wondering for how long people can keep such dedication to the process and how the process becomes useful later. I started with GTD a long time ago, I don't even remember what digital tool I used at that time. Then I switched to Todoist, then Wunderlist, then some cli tools like Taskwarrior, then org-mode, then Evernote + various todo apps then Obsidian + org-mode (org-roam is awesome but I need GOOD mobile support) so my GTD is not even a GTD now in it the original sense. And I still don't see any serious benefits from the process. Sure, tasks are there and I'm aware of them, I look at them and do them. But that's it. For some reason, I expected super productivity from myself while doing all this. I don't see myself productive still. Especially comparing to the author and many other authors of similar posts. I'm pretty sure I could track all those tasks in one Evernote note or Obsidian file or one Org file or even in one piece of paper (no mobile support though) and stay on the same level of productivity I am right now. My question(s) is. Is there anyone who make notes or track tasks for a more than a year period? How often do you change your workflow? Do you find it all useful and how the tracking helps you now? Was there any time you thanked yourself for doing all this during a long period of time? p.s. I'm of course not talking about a "project" tasks in Jira or issues on Github. I'm talking about tracking/notting of your life(todos) and thoughts(notes).

nequo 4y ago
The author himself seems to have given up on following the described GTD process strictly.[1] I have wondered this about productivity systems and hacks, too. With GTD, the key seems to be to get yourself over the edge of your resistance to get your tasks done. If you fundamentally resist the tasks you think you ought to be doing, GTD will probably not work long-term. For example because you hate some aspect of your job or you’re afraid about the outcomes of your tasks. If you just need a way to organize all the little actionable items because otherwise you lose track of them, GTD might work. I also wonder if people that we normally see as productive (Nobel prize winners, etc.) need to force themselves to stick to a special GTD system, too, or if for them the resistance is weaker and their tasks end up getting done one way or another. In any case, Emacs and Vim are great outlets for tinkering with productivity hacks. But the long-term solutions might need to be deeper. [1] https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/ https://www.syntopikon.com/workflows/nicolas-rougier/

mszcz 4y ago

A little OT but that is one beautifully put together website. The fonts, font weights, colors, layout, the way the different block types are visually distinctive. A joy to look at, really. edit: Does anyone know if this is some kind of a style framework that's available publicly or authors own doing?

douglasdrumz 4y ago
At section 0.3, the author links to his CSS file: https://www.labri.fr/perso/nrougier/GTD/GTD.css https://www.labri.fr/perso/nrougier/GTD/GTD.css It seems to be of his own authorship, not a framework.