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Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

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Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#221

Post by BeFlatXIII »

lawn wrote: post #49
ripe wrote: 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?

IRC chatrooms got me much more comfortable with touch-typing than programming. There is too much time spent thinking when programming to feel slowed down by looking at the keyboard. IRC chats mean you have to be fast if you don't want the conversation to have moved on before you finish your message.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#222

Post by BeFlatXIII »

a_e_k wrote: post #136
pronik wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by "touch-type". I can type without looking in three keyboard layouts, but that comes through a lot of keyboard time (and a lot of Police Quest I), so that I'm unable to use split keyboards because my right hand is overreaching to the left half of the keyboard. I also ignore home-row dancing, specific finger positions etc. I can type fast and blind, but I don't think I would qualify as a clas…

This is very much how I type as well. A couple of other factors for me: 1) I learned to type as a kid at the same time that I was getting into programming. So my typing style tends to optimize for quickly hitting numbers, operators, random punctuation characters, and editor movement/selection/command sequences every bit as much as ordinary letters. (And therefore, I tend to find obsessively staying near the home-row…

You and I have the same instinctual feel when we've hit the wrong key. I can even hit backspace (or just arrow over) when I'm typing on a slow remote session and have made a mistake three words back.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#223

Post by baby »

rgoulter wrote: post #157
baby wrote: post #2

I’m wondering if a vscode in the terminal could ever exist.

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro With the disclaimer that I haven't tried it.. this tool aims at being a successor to nano.

This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing. Not in front of laptop, wondering if there’s a command palette shortcut thing like in sublime/atom/vscode.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#224

Post by BlueTemplar »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #89
BlueTemplar wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that most of the writing is done on computers - but depending on the discipline - it isn't : computers aren't nowhere nearly good enough to compete with paper / chalk (/ even whiteboard !) when it comes to mathematics-heavy domains.

Pure maths is a pretty small niche. The vast majority of while collar work, university students, etc..., definitely type and use computers constantly.

I meant most STEM students plus some others (economics). While we do use computers constantly, it's not comparable to how much more is directly written / drawn on paper. (Well, pre-Covid at least.)

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#225

Post by randomswede »

agumonkey wrote: post #60
lc9er wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even public nuisances like vim. I love vim (err… Neovim), and this was great.

we all love vim, especially to mock it absurdly

I don't, it is a poor substitute for nvi, doesn't behave like the vim of old and defaults to angry fruit salad mode.

No, nvi or bust, man!

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#226

Post by dotancohen »

baby wrote: post #79
dotancohen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The vimtutor tutorial is very good, though it will feel cumbersome at first. It's fine to start and stop trying the tutorial a few times. Just start each time from the beginning again.

Other than that, most VIM plugins are documented very well.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#227

Post by dotancohen »

Eelongate wrote: post #111
dotancohen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like wondering if elephants could ever roam the depths of the oceans. If they did, they would no longer be elephants. What specific features of vscode would you like to see in a terminal editor?

Elephants can walk underwater using their trunks as snorkels. Maybe they would be too buoyant for it in sea water. It seems a fair thing to wonder though.

Are elephants' trunks long enough to use as a snorkel in the depths of the oceans? Never mind overcoming the water pressure with uncompressed air.

Re: Batteries included with Emacs (2020)

#228

Post by accelbred »

lqet wrote: post #6
teddyh wrote: post #3

I think many Vim users look at Emacs and go “Hmm, Emacs is a bit more clunky when I use Emacs to do the exact same things I do in Vim. Therefore, I’ll stick to Vim.”

As a vim user, I mostly look at this article and think, "Hmm, Emacs seems to include an artists mode for drawing ASCII images. I need a text editor. Therefore, I'll stick to vim."

As a vim/nvim user of many years, I used to have the same opinion. Then I decided to give emacs a chance, fully expecting to be back on nvim shortly. I never switched back. Evil mode was vim but better; it felt natural as a vim user, and was configurable in ways vim wasn't. The ability to have the editor have frames on multiple monitors, ability to just use cp to copy files between remote machines, emoji support, better spellcheck, magit, etc., all won me over.
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