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Actually, what's the fuss about Emacs being so good? I'm a hardcore vim user to the point that I've installed Vimium for browsers, use vim on my iPad as well.

Actually, what's the fuss about Emacs being so good? I'm a hardcore vim user to the point that I've installed Vimium for browsers, use vim on my iPad as well. Someone please enlighten me with links, guides or just a comment as to what's in Emacs that makes it productive and special.

psd1 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/ There's a lot of non-emacs filler but it's still the best emacs e-zine
- abhayhegde 4y ago
  I'll use Algolia and search maybe.
throwawaysalome 4y ago
Plenty of google-able info to answer your question. But to wax poetic for a moment, you may think of vim as chess and emacs as baduk. You can learn chess quickly, and the game goes as deep as you're willing to go. Absorbing baduk takes significantly more time, but once you get it, it's like peering into another dimension.
- sundarurfriend 4y ago
  > baduk (for people who don't know it by this name: this is apparently the Korean name of the board game Go.)
teddyh 4y ago
Start with the official Emacs Tour: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/
- abhayhegde 4y ago
  Sure, this might help. If you've had experience, what's unique about Emacs for you?
  - teddyh 4y ago
    You could think of Emacs as a mix between an integrated program suite (like Lotus Symphony, Ashton-Tate’s Framework or AppleWorks) and a Lisp Machine. Like an integrated program suite, you can move from program to program (Emacs modes), copying your data around easily, and using similar (or the same) commands and user interface for every program/mode, making data manipulation in many ways simple and fast. Like a Lisp Machine, Emacs is totally user programmable at every level, making both debugging easy when/if something breaks, and extensible with your own programs, ranging from simple keybindings, or macros, to full major modes. (Most major modes in Emacs started out as a single person’s personal customizations.)
    - lispm 4y ago
      > Like a Lisp Machine, Emacs is totally user programmable at every level It's just that the levels of GNU Emacs don't get as low-level as the Lisp operating system of Lisp Machine (which is an actual computer with its operating system, and not an programmable editor written on top of operating systems, which were written in C and a bunch of other languages). The levels of a Lisp Machines go all the way down to (for example) the network stack and the actual instructions interfacing with the hardware. GNU Emacs usually re-packages the underlying OS services (I/O, file system, GUI, ...) with a Lisp-based API and one programs with that.
      - teddyh 4y ago
        Well, yes, because GNU Emacs runs on Unix-compatible systems, and Emacs uses the Unix API to do its thing. For instance, Emacs does not implement TCP itself, it uses the Unix TCP/IP stack.
        lispm 4y ago
        It also on Linux/UNIX does not create a directory listing itself, but calls an external program, provided by the operating system: ls. Where on a Lisp Machine it calls the Lisp function FS:DIRECTORY-LIST, which underneath is implemented in Lisp via its object system.
abhayhegde 4y ago
I don't know why I am being downvoted. Sorry if you smelled snark in my comment. I am genuinely asking for an experiential guide/comment rather than a link to documentation.

psd1 4y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/ There's a lot of non-emacs filler but it's still the best emacs e-zine

abhayhegde 4y ago
I'll use Algolia and search maybe.

throwawaysalome 4y ago

Plenty of google-able info to answer your question. But to wax poetic for a moment, you may think of vim as chess and emacs as baduk. You can learn chess quickly, and the game goes as deep as you're willing to go. Absorbing baduk takes significantly more time, but once you get it, it's like peering into another dimension.

sundarurfriend 4y ago
> baduk (for people who don't know it by this name: this is apparently the Korean name of the board game Go.)

teddyh 4y ago

Start with the official Emacs Tour: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/

abhayhegde 4y ago
Sure, this might help. If you've had experience, what's unique about Emacs for you?
- teddyh 4y ago
  You could think of Emacs as a mix between an integrated program suite (like Lotus Symphony, Ashton-Tate’s Framework or AppleWorks) and a Lisp Machine. Like an integrated program suite, you can move from program to program (Emacs modes), copying your data around easily, and using similar (or the same) commands and user interface for every program/mode, making data manipulation in many ways simple and fast. Like a Lisp Machine, Emacs is totally user programmable at every level, making both debugging easy when/if something breaks, and extensible with your own programs, ranging from simple keybindings, or macros, to full major modes. (Most major modes in Emacs started out as a single person’s personal customizations.)
  - lispm 4y ago
    > Like a Lisp Machine, Emacs is totally user programmable at every level It's just that the levels of GNU Emacs don't get as low-level as the Lisp operating system of Lisp Machine (which is an actual computer with its operating system, and not an programmable editor written on top of operating systems, which were written in C and a bunch of other languages). The levels of a Lisp Machines go all the way down to (for example) the network stack and the actual instructions interfacing with the hardware. GNU Emacs usually re-packages the underlying OS services (I/O, file system, GUI, ...) with a Lisp-based API and one programs with that.
    - teddyh 4y ago
      Well, yes, because GNU Emacs runs on Unix-compatible systems, and Emacs uses the Unix API to do its thing. For instance, Emacs does not implement TCP itself, it uses the Unix TCP/IP stack.
      - lispm 4y ago
        It also on Linux/UNIX does not create a directory listing itself, but calls an external program, provided by the operating system: ls. Where on a Lisp Machine it calls the Lisp function FS:DIRECTORY-LIST, which underneath is implemented in Lisp via its object system.

abhayhegde 4y ago

I don't know why I am being downvoted. Sorry if you smelled snark in my comment. I am genuinely asking for an experiential guide/comment rather than a link to documentation.