5 ms·

Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

54 points by kirubakaran 17y ago

r00k 17y ago
This is a great article for users of ANY editor. I'm a vim user and got a lot out of it. Even more, many of these tips are abstract enough to be applicable to users of almost any complicated software tool, particularly ones used for hours a day.
- ljlolel 17y ago
  You're right. The article is good, and reminds me of some very good tips given by the creator of VIM (Bram Moolenaar) in a Google Tech Talk: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078
bkudria 17y ago
Thanks for posting this. The other content on the site is pretty good too!
videophile 17y ago
Ok, I'm not a PC-nazi but I think someone needs to call the article out: This is generic claptrap ("use help"?! he, and it's pretty clear it's a he, could have at least looked at how hard emacs help is to use for beginners) interspersed with sexist pictures and commentary. It is offputting to many people, and I'd like to see my favorite editor associated with higher caliber tutorials.
- kiba 17y ago
  I do not understand how these pictures are sexist.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Only men should be using computers, duh.
- dkarl 17y ago
  Each of the tips is an important and non-obvious point, and several are unusual and probably good advice: post a cheat sheet, write down interesting commands, update your cheat sheet. Tips for beginners are always pretty generic. I'm sure someone, somewhere has suggested the same thing, but I give him credit for 33% unpredictable content, which is actually pretty good. As a longtime emacs user, I'm still working on a few of these. I often discover useful new commands and forget them by the time I need them again -- obviously I should have them posted on my cheat sheet. I don't use command-apropos or the included documentation as much or as well as I should, either. I think insufficient use of help is way too common -- a lot of people ask me for help as soon as Google fails them.
- le_dominator 17y ago
  I've tried to get into emacs and vi but neither of them "feel right". Generally it seems like these editors take a particularly geeky sort of personality to get into in the first place, which is awesome. The nature of emacs isn't exactly user-friendly, so someone moving towards it would already be adventurous enough to parse the help files (and has probably read a fair share of man pages as well... blegh). As for the images and title of the article: what could have been (very often times these sorts of pieces ARE) a very drone-like, dry sack of shit for a paper that only someone with a robotic policeman's mentality could enjoy, I found to be humorous and filled with life. Will I be using emacs anytime soon? Probably not but it's encouraging to see that there are cool, funny, HUMAN community members out there who want to help get people excited and productive with something they enjoy.
revertts 17y ago
I'm going to have to disagree with '6. Keep Your Keybindings Standard.' When I started with emacs, there were some bindings that would make my hands ache after a day of use, usually from the transition between difficult keybindings, not any one key combination in isolation. One of the first things I did was add in the ergoemacs bindings, and I never regretted it. It's not as if doing so made me suddenly forget what the old bindings were, although I am slower during the rare cases when I'm on the normal keybindings. But it's a small price to pay for not having my fingers hate me. Editors are meant to be customized to your workflow and what works best for you.
- briancooley 17y ago
  I bought a Kinesis keyboard, and that solved most of my RSI issues with emacs. Thanks for the tip on ergoemacs; I still have some issues when using my laptop.
- billswift 17y ago
  That mostly depends on how much you use ONLY your own system. If you have to use different systems much, getting used to idiosyncratic keybindings will REALLY slow you down, and the faster and more instinctively you use them the more it will slow you down. I do take some exception to his advocating the arrow keys - they slow you down less than the mouse, but ^P, ^N, ^F, and ^B do the exact same thing as the arrow keys and you don't have to take your hand off the keyboard at all.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  I agree with you about the default keybindings (they're sadistic), but I think that people will have an easier time learning Emacs if they wait to start rebinding things until they're familiar with the conventions.* There are a lot of patterns in the way keybindings are defined for various major modes, for example, and rebinding everything to make it more like textmate or whatever obscures them. Also, it's a good idea to check if new bindings are replacing another highly useful command, particularly if one doesn't know how to access it otherwise. Some of this probably matters less if using Emacs on other peoples' computers isn't an issue, though. (Same with using Dvorak or other layouts.) * Perhaps around the time they start learning Elisp, rather than copying and modifying other peoples' config files. Nothing wrong with doing that, just, that comes much earlier.
dexen 17y ago
I can't agree with the `2. Don't use the mouse'. Unless Emacs' mouse support is completely broken (doubtful), mouse is only going to increase productiveness. http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/ind...
- ohwaitnvm 17y ago
  I can understand what you're saying, and I agree, but I think you miss the idea of abandoning the mouse. You're not doing it with intent to lose the marginal benefit of the mouse, rather, you need to give it up in order to become more efficient and familiar with the keybindings. Thus, once you are no longer a beginner (the guide's target audience) you may graduate to keyboard+mouse. I don't use emacs or vi(m) or anything truly in line with them (textmate is my closest) but I have no doubt that someone who uses only the keyboard for three months and then reintroduces the mouse will show a greater capability with the tools than the same person spending the same time using both keyboard and mouse.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Depends on what you are doing. If you want to kill a sexp, the keyboard is going to be faster. If you want to kill a random block of text that has no structure, then sure, the mouse is going to be faster. Guess which programmers usually do.
  - jimbokun 17y ago
    If you're programming Perl, then it's going to be "kill a random block of text that has no structure." Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
    - jrockway 17y ago
      Most language modes in emacs redefine the concept of "sexp", "sentence", "word", etc. so that "kill-sexp" and "kill-sentence" and "kill-word" work as you'd expect. cperl-mode is no exception. (If it is, submit a bug report at http://github.com/jrockway/cperl-mode http://github.com/jrockway/cperl-mode !)
dryicerx 17y ago
Don't forget the http://www.emacswiki.org/ http://www.emacswiki.org/ A bit messy site, but the single greatest resource for emacs user.

54 points by kirubakaran 17y ago

r00k 17y ago

This is a great article for users of ANY editor. I'm a vim user and got a lot out of it. Even more, many of these tips are abstract enough to be applicable to users of almost any complicated software tool, particularly ones used for hours a day.

ljlolel 17y ago
You're right. The article is good, and reminds me of some very good tips given by the creator of VIM (Bram Moolenaar) in a Google Tech Talk: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078

bkudria 17y ago

Thanks for posting this. The other content on the site is pretty good too!

videophile 17y ago

Ok, I'm not a PC-nazi but I think someone needs to call the article out: This is generic claptrap ("use help"?! he, and it's pretty clear it's a he, could have at least looked at how hard emacs help is to use for beginners) interspersed with sexist pictures and commentary. It is offputting to many people, and I'd like to see my favorite editor associated with higher caliber tutorials.

kiba 17y ago
I do not understand how these pictures are sexist.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Only men should be using computers, duh.
dkarl 17y ago
Each of the tips is an important and non-obvious point, and several are unusual and probably good advice: post a cheat sheet, write down interesting commands, update your cheat sheet. Tips for beginners are always pretty generic. I'm sure someone, somewhere has suggested the same thing, but I give him credit for 33% unpredictable content, which is actually pretty good. As a longtime emacs user, I'm still working on a few of these. I often discover useful new commands and forget them by the time I need them again -- obviously I should have them posted on my cheat sheet. I don't use command-apropos or the included documentation as much or as well as I should, either. I think insufficient use of help is way too common -- a lot of people ask me for help as soon as Google fails them.
le_dominator 17y ago
I've tried to get into emacs and vi but neither of them "feel right". Generally it seems like these editors take a particularly geeky sort of personality to get into in the first place, which is awesome. The nature of emacs isn't exactly user-friendly, so someone moving towards it would already be adventurous enough to parse the help files (and has probably read a fair share of man pages as well... blegh). As for the images and title of the article: what could have been (very often times these sorts of pieces ARE) a very drone-like, dry sack of shit for a paper that only someone with a robotic policeman's mentality could enjoy, I found to be humorous and filled with life. Will I be using emacs anytime soon? Probably not but it's encouraging to see that there are cool, funny, HUMAN community members out there who want to help get people excited and productive with something they enjoy.

revertts 17y ago

I'm going to have to disagree with '6. Keep Your Keybindings Standard.' When I started with emacs, there were some bindings that would make my hands ache after a day of use, usually from the transition between difficult keybindings, not any one key combination in isolation. One of the first things I did was add in the ergoemacs bindings, and I never regretted it. It's not as if doing so made me suddenly forget what the old bindings were, although I am slower during the rare cases when I'm on the normal keybindings. But it's a small price to pay for not having my fingers hate me. Editors are meant to be customized to your workflow and what works best for you.

briancooley 17y ago
I bought a Kinesis keyboard, and that solved most of my RSI issues with emacs. Thanks for the tip on ergoemacs; I still have some issues when using my laptop.
billswift 17y ago
That mostly depends on how much you use ONLY your own system. If you have to use different systems much, getting used to idiosyncratic keybindings will REALLY slow you down, and the faster and more instinctively you use them the more it will slow you down. I do take some exception to his advocating the arrow keys - they slow you down less than the mouse, but ^P, ^N, ^F, and ^B do the exact same thing as the arrow keys and you don't have to take your hand off the keyboard at all.
silentbicycle 17y ago
I agree with you about the default keybindings (they're sadistic), but I think that people will have an easier time learning Emacs if they wait to start rebinding things until they're familiar with the conventions.* There are a lot of patterns in the way keybindings are defined for various major modes, for example, and rebinding everything to make it more like textmate or whatever obscures them. Also, it's a good idea to check if new bindings are replacing another highly useful command, particularly if one doesn't know how to access it otherwise. Some of this probably matters less if using Emacs on other peoples' computers isn't an issue, though. (Same with using Dvorak or other layouts.) * Perhaps around the time they start learning Elisp, rather than copying and modifying other peoples' config files. Nothing wrong with doing that, just, that comes much earlier.

dexen 17y ago

I can't agree with the `2. Don't use the mouse'. Unless Emacs' mouse support is completely broken (doubtful), mouse is only going to increase productiveness. http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/ind...

ohwaitnvm 17y ago
I can understand what you're saying, and I agree, but I think you miss the idea of abandoning the mouse. You're not doing it with intent to lose the marginal benefit of the mouse, rather, you need to give it up in order to become more efficient and familiar with the keybindings. Thus, once you are no longer a beginner (the guide's target audience) you may graduate to keyboard+mouse. I don't use emacs or vi(m) or anything truly in line with them (textmate is my closest) but I have no doubt that someone who uses only the keyboard for three months and then reintroduces the mouse will show a greater capability with the tools than the same person spending the same time using both keyboard and mouse.
jrockway 17y ago
Depends on what you are doing. If you want to kill a sexp, the keyboard is going to be faster. If you want to kill a random block of text that has no structure, then sure, the mouse is going to be faster. Guess which programmers usually do.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  If you're programming Perl, then it's going to be "kill a random block of text that has no structure." Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Most language modes in emacs redefine the concept of "sexp", "sentence", "word", etc. so that "kill-sexp" and "kill-sentence" and "kill-word" work as you'd expect. cperl-mode is no exception. (If it is, submit a bug report at http://github.com/jrockway/cperl-mode http://github.com/jrockway/cperl-mode !)

dryicerx 17y ago

Don't forget the http://www.emacswiki.org/ http://www.emacswiki.org/ A bit messy site, but the single greatest resource for emacs user.