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Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

karthinks.com

71–80 of 228 posts

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#71

I've been using Emacs for about 4 years now, and some of the stuff on this list was news to me. Thank you, OP, for sharing this; I found it useful!

Same, more than 10 years and I really should have known M-\ earlier :-) (or remembered it, I think I read about it earlier).

The thing is with Emacs, you can really optimize every key stroke if you want, but usually I'm too busy using it to program so I optimize the workflow only time to time.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#72
post #49
post #45

For people who ask, "why use text-only editors like vim or Emacs, when I can use a full GUI IDE?": One of the reasons I haven't seen mentioned much is: I'm a touch typist, and I hate having to switch between mouse and keyboard! I have to take my attention off the screen. Slows me down. Disturbs my concentration. With Emacs, I can work for hours without ever having to hunt for the mouse, or without even having a mouse…

I find it amazing how common it is for programmers to not be touch typists (I mean typing without looking at the keys). Like, isn't that something you pick up by the sheer amount of keyboard time?

I can type without looking but I still have trouble placing my fingers over the keyboard in the right initial place so I’ll often start a little off and I type so fast that I’ll type half a dozen characters before I realize and have to correct.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#73
For me the killer aspect of Emacs (it applies even more to vi) is being able to use it in a terminal so being able to use it over a network connection.

I know X can export over a network connection, but text mode Emacs is much simpler and does not require X.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#74
post #55
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing how common it is for programmers to not be touch typists (I mean typing without looking at the keys). Like, isn't that something you pick up by the sheer amount of keyboard time?

I literally trained the correct technique as a child because I was so into computers. I'd argue children today are far less exposed to keyboards than people (well, nerds) my age were.

[deleted]

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#75
post #49
post #45

For people who ask, "why use text-only editors like vim or Emacs, when I can use a full GUI IDE?": One of the reasons I haven't seen mentioned much is: I'm a touch typist, and I hate having to switch between mouse and keyboard! I have to take my attention off the screen. Slows me down. Disturbs my concentration. With Emacs, I can work for hours without ever having to hunt for the mouse, or without even having a mouse…

I find it amazing how common it is for programmers to not be touch typists (I mean typing without looking at the keys). Like, isn't that something you pick up by the sheer amount of keyboard time?

I'm not that old (30's) but we were forced into learning how to touch-type throughout grade-school. Pretty much any white-collar work requires it. Getting through university basically requires it (even humanities courses; good luck writing long essays without it). It's shocking that anyone who went through school in a developed country can't touch-type.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#76
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing how common it is for programmers to not be touch typists (I mean typing without looking at the keys). Like, isn't that something you pick up by the sheer amount of keyboard time?

I can type without looking but I still have trouble placing my fingers over the keyboard in the right initial place so I’ll often start a little off and I type so fast that I’ll type half a dozen characters before I realize and have to correct.

Most keyboards have a little raised bump on the F and J keys ;)

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#77
post #45

For people who ask, "why use text-only editors like vim or Emacs, when I can use a full GUI IDE?": One of the reasons I haven't seen mentioned much is: I'm a touch typist, and I hate having to switch between mouse and keyboard! I have to take my attention off the screen. Slows me down. Disturbs my concentration. With Emacs, I can work for hours without ever having to hunt for the mouse, or without even having a mouse…

It's worth mentioning that Emacs is not a text-only editor, but is able to function in a text only environment if configured to. I think many people never consider giving Emacs a shot because they think it's purely a terminal based program. Modern Emacs can be (and mostly is) compiled with GTK support and features a GTK interface, but can be launched in text-mode with a command line argument. If you don't mind using…

> If you don't mind using bleeding edge versions, there is a branch called "PGTK" that allows the GTK interface to run natively on Wayland!

The two biggest Linux distros (Ubuntu and Fedora) are Wayland by default now. And the 'standard' Emacs distribution you install through the Software 'store' in both is GTK (which of course works). Wayland support isn't really a big deal anymore. I haven't come across any apps that don't work on Wayland.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#78

Great to see lists like these. I’m a long time Emacs user and recently learned to use neovim. I made the same mistake many new Emacs users make in that I installed a lot of plugins at once and lost control of the editor. Only by installing packages incrementally after you have discovered a real need, can you keep mentally on top of what your editor is capable of.

This is a very good point. I first tried to jump in Emacs by using Spacemacs, and was overwhelmed trying to manage the fairly huge and complex init.el that Spacemacs produces. I also had lots of trouble before realizing that Spacemacs and vanilla Emacs package configurations should really be treated as separate and not mixed together.

I'm sure if I went back to Spacemacs now, I'd understand things a whole lot better, but as a new user, it was far too much to figure out at once.

So I went Vanilla, and haven't looked back. I do think that there should be some more articles out there like "so you've decided to try Emacs? Here's what to do beyond opening and saving documents". With a heavy emphasis on, as you said, incrementally adding to your configuration. Something like "here's why you split your config file into 2, with automatic changes going into one file, and manual going into another" followed by "here's use-package" and "if you want to X, here are Y packages that do it" with comparisons between each different way. But broken down into small chunks so things can be done incrementally.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#79
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why not? Everything has a shortcut in vscode. And if it doesn’t you can use the command palette.

You might like VIM. In VIM everything has a shortcut as well. In fact, in VIM, everything _is_ a shortcut.

How do you find commands if you don’t know the shortcuts though? Or if you installed a new plugin? That’s my big problem with emacs and why I don’t use it anymore.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#80
post #55
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing how common it is for programmers to not be touch typists (I mean typing without looking at the keys). Like, isn't that something you pick up by the sheer amount of keyboard time?

I literally trained the correct technique as a child because I was so into computers. I'd argue children today are far less exposed to keyboards than people (well, nerds) my age were.

Maybe but I’ve typing since I was a kid on a Windows 95 and I still only know the gist of the keyboard and have to look down and correct myself every minute or so, so I don’t that’s they only reason. I actually think that typing without looking isn’t as important as people used to say it was for speed.
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