I've been a Spacemacs devotee for years.
Joining the Church of Emacs
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#22His alignment formatting example is harder for me to read than what he started with. I have an eye tracking issue so I'm not always the best person to judge this. Is it harder for everyone else?
I was a bit surprised that the numbers didn’t get right-aligned: one = 1 fortyTwo = 42 elite = 1337 To answer your question, I tend to agree that it gets harder to read the wider the horizontal spacing is, unless the relation between the values in the same column is very important.
I, for one, like a "table-most" arrangement of text in the source code.
This layout falls apart when there is an error and the readout is a disaster, but it just goes to show: there is no perfect answer.
So I sigh and run the formatter on the code.
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#23With all the devotion on display from so many very clever people, it's hard not to be at least a little curious about Emacs. But I still have something holding me back. On the one hand, the entire environment that I've heard described might be very powerful. But at the same time, it is a whole new system to learn and get into, very specific to itself, on top of the operating system I'm already using. People say you will want to do everything in Emacs, and hold that idea up as a good thing, but I tend to be scared away instead. I don't like the idea of digging myself into a groove, even if it should be a comfy one. Powerful ecosystems can be hard to break out of, something I've found with Google and specific social media.
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#24With all the devotion on display from so many very clever people, it's hard not to be at least a little curious about Emacs. But I still have something holding me back. On the one hand, the entire environment that I've heard described might be very powerful. But at the same time, it is a whole new system to learn and get into, very specific to itself, on top of the operating system I'm already using. People say you w…
Still, with emacs, it's open source and runs almost anywhere. If you happen to LIKE that grove, you can be confident that you can bring it along wherever you go.
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#25With all the devotion on display from so many very clever people, it's hard not to be at least a little curious about Emacs. But I still have something holding me back. On the one hand, the entire environment that I've heard described might be very powerful. But at the same time, it is a whole new system to learn and get into, very specific to itself, on top of the operating system I'm already using. People say you w…
In my experience, this is one possible path for getting "into" Emacs:
1. Having a need for something where Emacs is one of the best. E.g. outline folding, git gui, etc.
2. learning the basic shortcuts and concepts; doing the basic config to remove any problems
3. deep customization and creation.
If you don't have the need (#1), I wouldn't worry about it. If you do and you try it out, I agree #2 can be a little discouraging, but not too much. You can also usually make it easier by learning only the concepts and then using the gui menus to navigate. You can skip #3, or at least delay it. At this point, it's still just a tool like most others, and that's fine. I think #3 is what you're thinking of. That's what tends to get written and blogged about.
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#26With all the devotion on display from so many very clever people, it's hard not to be at least a little curious about Emacs. But I still have something holding me back. On the one hand, the entire environment that I've heard described might be very powerful. But at the same time, it is a whole new system to learn and get into, very specific to itself, on top of the operating system I'm already using. People say you w…
You do not have to doeverything in emacs. At the end of the day it is a tool and it should make your life easier. Do in it only the bits that actually help you, if any. With time you might do more and more stuff. Or not, that's fine.
For example I have been using emacs for more than 20 years and only recently I got into the habit of actually running shells from inside it (it is very convenient, but just opening another terminal is an habit that is very hard to shake).
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#27Emacs is great all-around, but I would use it if it literally only had org-mode as a feature. That thing has saved my bacon.
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#28I’ve always been a vi/vim guy, it’s not a religious thing, it’s just a decently powerful editor available on most servers I managed to kind of get my head around enough to be productive. I find the weird holy war between the two strange and kind of a turn off.
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#29His alignment formatting example is harder for me to read than what he started with. I have an eye tracking issue so I'm not always the best person to judge this. Is it harder for everyone else?
Just to confirm that there are people who agree with the author: this tidbit actually kept me reading the article! It was the new eMacs thing I learned today. I thought it was much easier to read after aligning. As long as things stay within a reasonable width, that brand of consistency (read “columns”) makes it easier for me to read.
I like seeing assignments like this being aligned too but it's not great if you care about minimizing the number of lines that code reviewers will read when you make a change that introduces a new variable whose length is longer than any existing ones (or removing the longest one).
Re: Joining the Church of Emacs
#30With all the devotion on display from so many very clever people, it's hard not to be at least a little curious about Emacs. But I still have something holding me back. On the one hand, the entire environment that I've heard described might be very powerful. But at the same time, it is a whole new system to learn and get into, very specific to itself, on top of the operating system I'm already using. People say you w…
Is all about muscular memory, so you need to repeat and repeat, and take your time to develop it. Is normal not to grasp it after a few hours using the program. Nobody expects taking one karate class and exit being a master of katas.
First emacs kata should include this very simple concepts
1.Opening a file (the easy way) -> extra simple. Type "emacs /path/to/my-file" in a terminal. If a file with this name does not exist in the directory, a file image in memory will be created for it.
2.Do something with the file. Edit the file, see the image, read the pdf that you opened or take a look to the pdf code. Just use the keyboard and type something.
3.Close your file. Type Control and X at the same time. Then type C (for close): "ctrl-x c"
> "Your buffer (image in memory of the file) has been modified. Do you want to save the changes?"
Not: type N.
Yes: type Y.
Take in mind that if you open an extant file and type N, the old file will not be modified (you have still a file with this name).
But if you open a new file and type N, the image in memory will be discarded without a trace. Don't look for an empty file with that name in your directory. Will materialize only after you save it once. You can save an empty file.
Congratulations you are using emacs now. Here is your white belt.
Any time invested on using the program will payback later generously