3 ms·

My usage of emacs is so vim-like that I’ve tried switching a few times. Vim is definitely faster, and overlays and cursor placement is much simpler and more int

by wwarner 5mo ago

My usage of emacs is so vim-like that I’ve tried switching a few times. Vim is definitely faster, and overlays and cursor placement is much simpler and more intuitive. But there were still feature gaps and configuration issues that prevented full adoption.

fingerlocks 5mo ago
can you elaborate? Heavy vim user here, have considered using emacs in vim mode to quell a decades long nagging curiosity. Just need a compelling nudge.
- cyphenatic 5mo ago
  +1
- jwrallie 5mo ago
  Check out Doom Emacs if you are looking for a good starting point. The defaults make sense coming from Vim.
- MiiMe19 5mo ago
  I don't know how much this applies to everyone else, but the ability to display images inline is really nice for notetaking. I cannot write properly, so org-mode (a notetaking tool that can export to a variety of formats) with embedded rendered latex equations makes it really easy to take notes and write things up in a plaintext format without needing to export every 30 seconds to view equations. The ability to embed code that can actually run is also very nice.
- kqr 5mo ago
  Emacs is primarily a platform for developing Lisp applications. Lisp applications are immensely hackable, meaning an Emacs configuration can be tailored in detail to specific desires. There is also an ecosystem of applications for Emacs that are really good. They don't require you to use Emacs as your editor (you can run, say, Magit as a standalone instance) but if you do, they integrate really well with each other.
- johntash 5mo ago
  If you haven't used it before, give it a shot. Worst case you waste a few years of your life. Doom emacs and Spacemacs are both good starter kits to give you an idea of what you could do.
  - i_think_so 5mo ago
    > Worst case you waste a few years of your life. Yeah, come on. NBD yo. ;-)
- iLemming 5mo ago
  I'm a die-hard vimmer. I use vim motions in my editors, my IDEs, my browsers, my WMs, my terminals. I use vim-like navigation system-wide - e.g. for the volume control I switch to "media" mode and press "j/k". Neovim is great, I use it almost every day. But it just can't replace Emacs. That is the most annoying part of Emacs - there's simply no alternative to it. If you accept it with all its quirks and weirdness and embrace the malleability, stick with it for a while - at some point you may discover some enormous feeling of empowered liberation from years of bullcrap you had to deal with without even realizing. Here's a comment I posted on /r/emacs couple of weeks ago: So yes, Neovim is snappier, and so what? I'm genuinely curious, I consider myself a die-hard, hardcore vimmer. Yes, I use Emacs today, but I'm still a vimmer. I sometimes use Neovim too - having vim skills comes handy with pure terminal workflows. So, honest question - why should it appeal to me - the idea of ditching Emacs and moving to Neovim (or whatever) full-time? - I have a few thousand notes in my Org-Roam note taking system. My notes can contain anki-cards - my spaced-repetition content is just my notes; my pdf annotations - they are just my notes; my health records - are just my notes; I don't need to use Postman - my API investigations - are just my notes. - I don't need to use Ansible, Chef or Nix to maintain my dotfiles - they are tangled from an .org file - I just need Emacs to bootstrap the whole system. - I read Reddit and Hackernews in Emacs. - I manage my email in Emacs. - My Telegram is in Emacs. - I search Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, DuckDuckGo, and more without leaving Emacs. - I write everything in Emacs (even this very comment), because I have thesaurus, spellchecking, definition and etymology lookup, translation, dictionaries, LLM integration - I can ask AI at the point of typing text (in just about any buffer). - My AI coding assistant is in Emacs. - My PR reviews happen in Emacs. Everything git related happens in Emacs. I go through my GitHub notifications in Emacs. - I watch videos with Emacs - it allows me to control them directly - I can speed up, mute, pause the video, extract transcript - all while taking some notes. - I do my Jira in Emacs. - I open and search through Slack threads in Emacs. - I learn programming languages through exercism.io in Emacs. - My file manager is in Emacs - I have tried so many different ones - mc, yazi, ranger - nothing beats Dired in customizability and capabilities. - I access my browser history and even browse and switch tabs of my browser - in Emacs. - I even OCR text out of screenshots with Emacs. So now tell me, why should I care that there is something, anything, whatever - snappier, prettier, shinier, more popular? Why should I ever feel FOMO, if it can never do even the small subset of what my current system is capable of doing today?
- wwarner 5mo ago
  I run emacs without graphics from this docker image i maintain https://hub.docker.com/r/wwarner/emacs-native https://hub.docker.com/r/wwarner/emacs-native I just use emacs for programming, not note taking or email reading or the other things people love it for. Strengths: magit, wgrep, vterm, buffer management, plugins & packaging. Weaknesses, irritations, embarrassments: yaml-mode, responsiveness, overlays & mini-buffers.
troad 5mo ago
You may get good bang for your buck out of neovim. With only a very minimal set of plugins, it has replaced all other IDEs for me. (They're also making good progress Sherlocking their core plugins, so the future is bright for those of us who dislike plugins for core functionality.)

by wwarner 5mo ago

fingerlocks 5mo ago

can you elaborate? Heavy vim user here, have considered using emacs in vim mode to quell a decades long nagging curiosity. Just need a compelling nudge.

cyphenatic 5mo ago
+1
jwrallie 5mo ago
Check out Doom Emacs if you are looking for a good starting point. The defaults make sense coming from Vim.
MiiMe19 5mo ago
I don't know how much this applies to everyone else, but the ability to display images inline is really nice for notetaking. I cannot write properly, so org-mode (a notetaking tool that can export to a variety of formats) with embedded rendered latex equations makes it really easy to take notes and write things up in a plaintext format without needing to export every 30 seconds to view equations. The ability to embed code that can actually run is also very nice.
kqr 5mo ago
Emacs is primarily a platform for developing Lisp applications. Lisp applications are immensely hackable, meaning an Emacs configuration can be tailored in detail to specific desires. There is also an ecosystem of applications for Emacs that are really good. They don't require you to use Emacs as your editor (you can run, say, Magit as a standalone instance) but if you do, they integrate really well with each other.
johntash 5mo ago
If you haven't used it before, give it a shot. Worst case you waste a few years of your life. Doom emacs and Spacemacs are both good starter kits to give you an idea of what you could do.
- i_think_so 5mo ago
  > Worst case you waste a few years of your life. Yeah, come on. NBD yo. ;-)
iLemming 5mo ago
I'm a die-hard vimmer. I use vim motions in my editors, my IDEs, my browsers, my WMs, my terminals. I use vim-like navigation system-wide - e.g. for the volume control I switch to "media" mode and press "j/k". Neovim is great, I use it almost every day. But it just can't replace Emacs. That is the most annoying part of Emacs - there's simply no alternative to it. If you accept it with all its quirks and weirdness and embrace the malleability, stick with it for a while - at some point you may discover some enormous feeling of empowered liberation from years of bullcrap you had to deal with without even realizing. Here's a comment I posted on /r/emacs couple of weeks ago: So yes, Neovim is snappier, and so what? I'm genuinely curious, I consider myself a die-hard, hardcore vimmer. Yes, I use Emacs today, but I'm still a vimmer. I sometimes use Neovim too - having vim skills comes handy with pure terminal workflows. So, honest question - why should it appeal to me - the idea of ditching Emacs and moving to Neovim (or whatever) full-time? - I have a few thousand notes in my Org-Roam note taking system. My notes can contain anki-cards - my spaced-repetition content is just my notes; my pdf annotations - they are just my notes; my health records - are just my notes; I don't need to use Postman - my API investigations - are just my notes. - I don't need to use Ansible, Chef or Nix to maintain my dotfiles - they are tangled from an .org file - I just need Emacs to bootstrap the whole system. - I read Reddit and Hackernews in Emacs. - I manage my email in Emacs. - My Telegram is in Emacs. - I search Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, DuckDuckGo, and more without leaving Emacs. - I write everything in Emacs (even this very comment), because I have thesaurus, spellchecking, definition and etymology lookup, translation, dictionaries, LLM integration - I can ask AI at the point of typing text (in just about any buffer). - My AI coding assistant is in Emacs. - My PR reviews happen in Emacs. Everything git related happens in Emacs. I go through my GitHub notifications in Emacs. - I watch videos with Emacs - it allows me to control them directly - I can speed up, mute, pause the video, extract transcript - all while taking some notes. - I do my Jira in Emacs. - I open and search through Slack threads in Emacs. - I learn programming languages through exercism.io in Emacs. - My file manager is in Emacs - I have tried so many different ones - mc, yazi, ranger - nothing beats Dired in customizability and capabilities. - I access my browser history and even browse and switch tabs of my browser - in Emacs. - I even OCR text out of screenshots with Emacs. So now tell me, why should I care that there is something, anything, whatever - snappier, prettier, shinier, more popular? Why should I ever feel FOMO, if it can never do even the small subset of what my current system is capable of doing today?
wwarner 5mo ago
I run emacs without graphics from this docker image i maintain https://hub.docker.com/r/wwarner/emacs-native https://hub.docker.com/r/wwarner/emacs-native I just use emacs for programming, not note taking or email reading or the other things people love it for. Strengths: magit, wgrep, vterm, buffer management, plugins & packaging. Weaknesses, irritations, embarrassments: yaml-mode, responsiveness, overlays & mini-buffers.

troad 5mo ago

You may get good bang for your buck out of neovim. With only a very minimal set of plugins, it has replaced all other IDEs for me. (They're also making good progress Sherlocking their core plugins, so the future is bright for those of us who dislike plugins for core functionality.)