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I interpreted it as beginners who mistakenly use Emacs in a terminal, possibly not knowing that there's a GUI mode as well. I don't think he means that running

I interpreted it as beginners who mistakenly use Emacs in a terminal, possibly not knowing that there's a GUI mode as well. I don't think he means that running Emacs in a terminal is a mistake in itself. But who knows...

to3m 13y ago
I suspect you're right. It's not hard to find numerous stack overflow questions clearly posed by people trying to learn emacs, who've mistakenly run the terminal version - and who now, as they say, have two problems. But even for more experienced emacs users I'd argue that the terminal version probably is a mistake. Think of it as akin to eating out-of-date food: even if the only other option is starvation, it still probably won't taste very nice, and it could even make you ill. About all you can say about terminal emacs it is that (unlike vim) it does at least use the familiar emacs keys... provided you can remember that the meta key probably doesn't work. Along with some (random) set of key chords that involve shift. Sometimes by playing with your terminal program's options you can change which half of the keyboard shortcuts are broken. Still, I'm sure some people like it, and they shouldn't listen to me. It takes all sorts.
- roadnottaken 13y ago
  I frequently use emacs when SSHed into remote servers where terminal mode is the only option. When I run it locally I still prefer terminal mode out of familiarity, I guess. Also, I'm usually working on shell scripts or the like. And I like being able to drop to a bash prompt with a keystroke (ctrl-Z).
  - mickeyp 13y ago
    Emacs can do all this and so much more; it can be a far more inclusive and flexible "screen" replacement. I will have to write an article explaining why I feel using Emacs to handle all that is "the more Emacsy way."
- cstejerean 13y ago
  Fixing meta is easy, if for some reason it's broken, and it has the nice effect of also allowing you to use it for shortcuts in Bash and other readline enabled programs, not just in emacs. For best compatibility have your terminal output +Esc on Option/Alt. The only other problem I had in terminal was getting combinations involving arrow keys to come across properly, but even that was a relatively easy fix.

to3m 13y ago

I suspect you're right. It's not hard to find numerous stack overflow questions clearly posed by people trying to learn emacs, who've mistakenly run the terminal version - and who now, as they say, have two problems. But even for more experienced emacs users I'd argue that the terminal version probably is a mistake. Think of it as akin to eating out-of-date food: even if the only other option is starvation, it still probably won't taste very nice, and it could even make you ill. About all you can say about terminal emacs it is that (unlike vim) it does at least use the familiar emacs keys... provided you can remember that the meta key probably doesn't work. Along with some (random) set of key chords that involve shift. Sometimes by playing with your terminal program's options you can change which half of the keyboard shortcuts are broken. Still, I'm sure some people like it, and they shouldn't listen to me. It takes all sorts.

roadnottaken 13y ago
I frequently use emacs when SSHed into remote servers where terminal mode is the only option. When I run it locally I still prefer terminal mode out of familiarity, I guess. Also, I'm usually working on shell scripts or the like. And I like being able to drop to a bash prompt with a keystroke (ctrl-Z).
- mickeyp 13y ago
  Emacs can do all this and so much more; it can be a far more inclusive and flexible "screen" replacement. I will have to write an article explaining why I feel using Emacs to handle all that is "the more Emacsy way."
cstejerean 13y ago
Fixing meta is easy, if for some reason it's broken, and it has the nice effect of also allowing you to use it for shortcuts in Bash and other readline enabled programs, not just in emacs. For best compatibility have your terminal output +Esc on Option/Alt. The only other problem I had in terminal was getting combinations involving arrow keys to come across properly, but even that was a relatively easy fix.