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Emacs 26.1 released

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61–70 of 105 posts

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#61
post #34

I am not a programmer but have been learning programming since last 2 years. Only yesterday, I installed emacs and spent half an hour on it. Even opened a tutorial to learn the basics. But I got irritated pretty soon and gave it up. Now I am thinking about people who use it like a pro. How the hell did they master this beast?

1) realize you may never “master this beast” 2) commit to it for a few weeks and become proficient 3) keep learning

1) realize you may never “master this beast”

Damn, I've been using it for a bit over 21 years and was hoping that I'd almost gotten a handle on it! Oh well, might as well resign myself to it.

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#62
post #35

I am not a programmer but have been learning programming since last 2 years. Only yesterday, I installed emacs and spent half an hour on it. Even opened a tutorial to learn the basics. But I got irritated pretty soon and gave it up. Now I am thinking about people who use it like a pro. How the hell did they master this beast?

We spent a whole hour. Okay, more seriously, it took me about a month to stop hating Emacs in 2002. I only started because I thought I had no choice. I was a math undergrad, I wanted to write math, and they plopped me in front of Emacs and LaTeX running on Debian. Alright then, I'm here to learn new mathematics, so I'm also going to learn new ways to type mathematics. This is just how we do things in university, I th…

> I can't do any serious writing without it.

Well that's too bad, as people have done some serious writing using simper tools - a pen, a typewriter... Isn't Notepad (on Windows) a sufficiently good tool to type, say, a novel in? Less distracting it is, for sure. (Well, I heard some people say that Notepad requires an OS to run, whereas Emacs is an OS in its own right, but really?)

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#63
post #40
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that RMS refuses to endorse What's his rationale?

That Emacs should not give an advantage to non-free operating systems. Now, because Emacs is free software, this doesn't prevent anyone such as Yamamoto to go and modify Emacs. Rms doesn't want his officially-sanctioned version to have Mac-only improvements, but he also defends the GPL which allows other people to do so. Rms isn't going to go and tell Yamamoto to take down his fork or anything (but he probably will t…

It might be abusive in the sense that it's nonfree but at least it's functional.

Year of the Linux desktop jokes aside, I've just lately got sick of how broken Linux is on most laptops, even ThinkPads which are supposed to be the gold standard.

My ThinkPad never had working suspend resume, for example, which is just basic stuff that Linux can't seem to get right.

I'm not 24 and childfree any more. I don't have time to fiddle with acpi or systemd.

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#64
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs and other editors are like cars. Some like small cars, some others like fast cars or foreign cars, etc. Use what you like the best. I use Emacs for some tasks, but for example, for Android development I use Android Studio, because that is more suitable for the task. (BTW, default Emacs is very foreign. I wouldn't use that. It takes a while until one configures Emacs to one's own taste.)

I wonder what kind of car Emacs would be... maybe an unimog? Or a VW bus. And what would Vim be? And NeoVim? And XEmacs? And Atom? JetBrains? Nano? Ed?

> Emacs

A car with a steam engine inside!

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#65
post #63
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Emacs should not give an advantage to non-free operating systems. Now, because Emacs is free software, this doesn't prevent anyone such as Yamamoto to go and modify Emacs. Rms doesn't want his officially-sanctioned version to have Mac-only improvements, but he also defends the GPL which allows other people to do so. Rms isn't going to go and tell Yamamoto to take down his fork or anything (but he probably will t…

It might be abusive in the sense that it's nonfree but at least it's functional. Year of the Linux desktop jokes aside, I've just lately got sick of how broken Linux is on most laptops, even ThinkPads which are supposed to be the gold standard. My ThinkPad never had working suspend resume, for example, which is just basic stuff that Linux can't seem to get right. I'm not 24 and childfree any more. I don't have time t…

Still the only way to run Linux on your laptop and remain sane is to run it full-screen inside VirtualBox on OSX or Windows.

I have been trying to do this for nearly 20 years now...

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#66

I am not a programmer but have been learning programming since last 2 years. Only yesterday, I installed emacs and spent half an hour on it. Even opened a tutorial to learn the basics. But I got irritated pretty soon and gave it up. Now I am thinking about people who use it like a pro. How the hell did they master this beast?

> irritated pretty soon and gave it up

I have spent a lot of time using it, still irritated.

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#67
post #63
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Emacs should not give an advantage to non-free operating systems. Now, because Emacs is free software, this doesn't prevent anyone such as Yamamoto to go and modify Emacs. Rms doesn't want his officially-sanctioned version to have Mac-only improvements, but he also defends the GPL which allows other people to do so. Rms isn't going to go and tell Yamamoto to take down his fork or anything (but he probably will t…

It might be abusive in the sense that it's nonfree but at least it's functional. Year of the Linux desktop jokes aside, I've just lately got sick of how broken Linux is on most laptops, even ThinkPads which are supposed to be the gold standard. My ThinkPad never had working suspend resume, for example, which is just basic stuff that Linux can't seem to get right. I'm not 24 and childfree any more. I don't have time t…

I've used two Thinkpads. I'm currently on an X1 5th gen running Debian stable and it's the most blissful computer experience I've ever had. Everything works, the damn thing is fast, 12 hours of battery life and it's so light. I don't understand this magic but I'm glad it's there.

Previously I was on an x250 also on Debian stable which also worked flawlessly until I dropped it hard. It was just a little heavier and a little slower than my current X1.

On the topic of Macs being stable; I've seen my coworkers experience a lot of grief during the past few months with some macOS updates.

I'm not saying that the experience is in general better with one setup or another, just that mine has been good. I'm sure your experiences are valid too.

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#68
post #62
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We spent a whole hour. Okay, more seriously, it took me about a month to stop hating Emacs in 2002. I only started because I thought I had no choice. I was a math undergrad, I wanted to write math, and they plopped me in front of Emacs and LaTeX running on Debian. Alright then, I'm here to learn new mathematics, so I'm also going to learn new ways to type mathematics. This is just how we do things in university, I th…

> I can't do any serious writing without it. Well that's too bad, as people have done some serious writing using simper tools - a pen, a typewriter... Isn't Notepad (on Windows) a sufficiently good tool to type, say, a novel in? Less distracting it is, for sure. (Well, I heard some people say that Notepad requires an OS to run, whereas Emacs is an OS in its own right, but really?)

Correcting mistakes on a pen is labourious, same with a typewriter. I find Notepad severely limiting too when it comes editing text (how do I set a mark? how do I kill the current line? or what about just the current word? how do I access the kill ring?) not to mention that all of the keybindings are wrong.

I can use something other than Emacs if I have to, but it all feels like I'm tying both arms behind my back and writing with a pen held in my teeth.

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#69
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the improvements?

Here is the repo: https://bitbucket.org/mituharu/emacs-mac Skimming the readme, I see that it's almost entirely mac specific and mostly UX. I can't say they are completely useless but nothing really vital, except the features inherited from Carbon, which seem useful (I really like the concept of AppleScript, i.e. all programs responding to a single programming interface; I guess DBus is supposed to do sth. similar on…

If anyone else is confused, "sth" is an abbreviation for "something" that was popularised in some countries by dictionaries for non-native English speakers. It's common in continental Europe and the Middle East but obscure in English-speaking countries; "smth", and "sthg" are other common abbreviations that also came from bilingual dictionaries.

Re: Emacs 26.1 released

#70

I am not a programmer but have been learning programming since last 2 years. Only yesterday, I installed emacs and spent half an hour on it. Even opened a tutorial to learn the basics. But I got irritated pretty soon and gave it up. Now I am thinking about people who use it like a pro. How the hell did they master this beast?

I also am trying to use Emacs since everyone says that is so good. Recently i found spacemacs.org . It makes things much easier
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