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Emacs 29 is nigh

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Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#91

Post by jcpst »

luxcem wrote: post #82
jcpst wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it was org-mode. Emacs is basically my org mode interface.

I've used emacs for ~15 years now and never really get into org-mode, I have a directory of org files that I use for writing and keeping some kind of personal wiki but it's just a bunch of org files. I never successfully build a workflow around it. I see that I'm missing something but I don't know where to start. Org-roam seems interesting. Do you have any recommendation for how to use org-mode productively?

Probably going through Rainer König‘s org-mode tutorial series on youtube. I like that it’s all with vanilla org-mode. That way you can dig deeper into anything he’s doing in the org-mode docs or on worg.

I don’t have a very rigid workflow with it. Typically one org file will be a project I’m working on. I use custom “TODO” tags to show the state of items. I also love the table functionality. It basically replaces spreadsheets for me and it lives with the rest of the text.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVtKhBrRV_ZkPnBtt_TD1Cs...

https://orgmode.org/worg/

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#92

Post by ParetoOptimal »

luxcem wrote: post #82
jcpst wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it was org-mode. Emacs is basically my org mode interface.

I've used emacs for ~15 years now and never really get into org-mode, I have a directory of org files that I use for writing and keeping some kind of personal wiki but it's just a bunch of org files. I never successfully build a workflow around it. I see that I'm missing something but I don't know where to start. Org-roam seems interesting. Do you have any recommendation for how to use org-mode productively?

> Do you have any recommendation for how to use org-mode productively?

I have a treat for you!

Free video course:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVtKhBrRV_ZkPnBtt_TD1Cs...

Paid udemy course (improved?) version:

https://www.udemy.com/course/getting-yourself-organized-with...

Something different blending org-mode and org-roam:

https://d12frosted.io/posts/2020-06-23-task-management-with-...

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#93

Post by hiq »

esparrohack wrote: post #89
teucris wrote: post #50

Watching the Emacs community, I’m always just blown away by the love and adoration it gets. It’s clear to me that there’s something magical in it, but I can’t seem to tap that magic for myself. I’ve tried - really tried, including relearning lisp - to adopt Emacs roughly four times over my career; it never stuck. I understand the basic benefits, eg keyboard-optimized workflows, deep customization/malleability, etc. B…

Emacs was a great editor just like Nirvana was a great band. It’s influenced every other editor after it. People are always going to love it. But I think all the best ideas from that era have been taken. I like Vim but EMacs won the editor wars

I guess you can make the same statements about vim, given that there's a vim mode in most popular IDEs.

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#94

Post by G3rn0ti »

teucris wrote: post #50

Watching the Emacs community, I’m always just blown away by the love and adoration it gets. It’s clear to me that there’s something magical in it, but I can’t seem to tap that magic for myself. I’ve tried - really tried, including relearning lisp - to adopt Emacs roughly four times over my career; it never stuck. I understand the basic benefits, eg keyboard-optimized workflows, deep customization/malleability, etc. B…

Maybe you just haven’t found a killer feature for you yet that blew you away. Personally, I also can’t give you THE one use case that sold me on Emacs. It’s more the integration of a diverse set of tools together with its robustness that really makes it shine.

I have used vanilla Emacs for a long time with only a couple of packages installed (basically flyspell and web-mode) and everything worked for me although it was quite boring. That’s because I managed most of my dev workflow outside of Emacs. The JS dev server took care of reloading and transpiling, the linter ran as a test step and I used git on the command line for version management.

These days I do a lot of backend work, most importantly REST APIs. So have to tweak server code, restart the server (not always written in JS), test out new end points. So I am using the built-in „compile mode“ running a bash script automatically deploying my code changes using ssh upon two key strokes (C-c C-r). Emacs returns syntax errors including file names and lines, so I can jump straight into the code to fix the issue. Once running I switch over to a „restclient.el“ session to try my code. With another two key strokes (C-c C-c) I execute a request (however complicated) and receive the JSON response in a temporary side buffer which I can filter using „jq“ with another key stroke thanks to restclient-jq.el. I can inspect runtime errors on the server by opening the remote log file using TRAMP mode (alternatively, I open a „term“ session and invoke „tail -f“). Once the code works I press „C-x g“ to switch over to „magit“ to stage or commit my changes. If I have to work on two or three things in parallel I use „perspective.el“ to maintain something akin to virtual desktops, so I don’t have to re-order my buffers all the time. I also do teaching on REST APIs which I do using „org-mode“ together with „org-babel“ and „org-tree-slide“ allowing to inline actual restclient.el sessions among text or graphical slides. I also use org-mode for technical documentation including executable code and for explorational SQL development. You see, in Emacs many packages just glue together seamlessly thanks to its brilliant API that stood the test of times.

I didn’t start using all of this on a single day but Emacs sucked me into its eco system very slowly until I just couldn’t imagine using anything else anymore. It just takes time to get to know these things and getting comfortable with Emacs‘ configuration system.

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#95

Post by St_Alfonzo »

bergheim wrote: post #64
teucris wrote: post #50

Watching the Emacs community, I’m always just blown away by the love and adoration it gets. It’s clear to me that there’s something magical in it, but I can’t seem to tap that magic for myself. I’ve tried - really tried, including relearning lisp - to adopt Emacs roughly four times over my career; it never stuck. I understand the basic benefits, eg keyboard-optimized workflows, deep customization/malleability, etc. B…

What I tell my programming friends is that if you can see yourself molding your computer user-interface as sort of a hobby, then emacs is most definately for you. If you don't see that as a fun past-time activity, then I would not recommend emacs. For instance, (in my emacs email client) I just made a change where if I want to search the subject I am looking at, and it has a #XXX in it, then the subject search is jus…

> [...] if you can see yourself molding your computer user-interface as sort of a hobby, then emacs is most definately for you.

> If you don't see that as a fun past-time activity, then I would not recommend emacs.

If you don't see that as a fun past-time activity and still want to use emacs, then I would recommend spacemacs.

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#96

Post by BeetleB »

teucris wrote: post #50

Watching the Emacs community, I’m always just blown away by the love and adoration it gets. It’s clear to me that there’s something magical in it, but I can’t seem to tap that magic for myself. I’ve tried - really tried, including relearning lisp - to adopt Emacs roughly four times over my career; it never stuck. I understand the basic benefits, eg keyboard-optimized workflows, deep customization/malleability, etc. B…

It would help if you explain more what "accessible" means. What about it was a problem or left you dissatisfied.

BTW, the System Crafters Youtube channel has pretty good Emacs stuff - including for those with little experience. Although I've used Emacs for over a decade, I learned about fairly helpful packages via that channel.

https://systemcrafters.cc/

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#97

Post by zelphirkalt »

luxcem wrote: post #82
jcpst wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it was org-mode. Emacs is basically my org mode interface.

I've used emacs for ~15 years now and never really get into org-mode, I have a directory of org files that I use for writing and keeping some kind of personal wiki but it's just a bunch of org files. I never successfully build a workflow around it. I see that I'm missing something but I don't know where to start. Org-roam seems interesting. Do you have any recommendation for how to use org-mode productively?

You don't necessarily have to build your own workflow around org-mode. If it works fine for you as it is, then that's OK. It is a fine markup format in itself. Finer than some others. Emacs has exceptional support for org-mode of course, which allows for good navigation within a document and things like folding headings and showing an overview.

If you want to go further, you can use things like including other org-mode documents at specific heading levels or even write thesis in it, falling back to latex when needed. There is also a citation format now in org-mode.

Another thing you could explore is org-babel. Try out the ideas of literate programming. A bit of "write once, export to other formats" like HTML make a blog post or similar.

I also use org-mode for some spreadsheet capabilities. Not really huge spreadsheets, but usable. For example I have working hours time tracking in org-mode using a table with formulas (a spreadsheet). Or I have a repository with recipes, where I can let it calculate amounts of ingredients, depending on the number of people who want to eat.

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#98

Post by BeetleB »

jpe90 wrote: post #63

I really want to use Emacs but I can't get Company + any LSP to come close to vs code or coc.nvim. When I configure company to trigger instantly on a single keystroke, Emacs completely locks up pretty much every time I hit a key.

You can use Emacs for things other than programming :-)

Although I mostly use Emacs for my Python work, I still would use other IDEs for C++ work.

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#99

Post by bergheim »

luxcem wrote: post #82
jcpst wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it was org-mode. Emacs is basically my org mode interface.

I've used emacs for ~15 years now and never really get into org-mode, I have a directory of org files that I use for writing and keeping some kind of personal wiki but it's just a bunch of org files. I never successfully build a workflow around it. I see that I'm missing something but I don't know where to start. Org-roam seems interesting. Do you have any recommendation for how to use org-mode productively?

For me:

1. Learn org-agenda. And I do mean really learn it. I use a few of alphapapas amazing packages (org-super-agenda and org-ql). Learn the difference between just a TODO, scheduling, deadlining and tags. Don't overdo it on tags. Set up groups in the agenda for different things (STATE or TAGS, or something else)

2. Set up capture templates that fit you so you can instantly note things down in the right place

3. Learn org-attach so that you can have everything in your second brain

4. Do not fret to much about one large file or many small ones - use whatever you want. If you feel you want to change it, just change it. It is just plain text. This applies to everything in org-mode.

5. Learn org-store-link, which makes references to things like emails (even if they are moved/archived after the fact) or git or whatever to keep references.

I spent a lot of time getting this together myself. I empathise. But if I could not use org-agenda and the searches I have in the way I do, I would probably feel not get into org-mode either. Recall is key.

Re: Emacs 29 is nigh

#100

Post by BeetleB »

tgv wrote: post #2

One unrelated thing: the other day, I wanted to download emacs for windows. I got redirected to an http site. When I go through the list of GNU mirrors, I see this: 17 times ftp 74 times http 71 times https and 65 time rsync The majority (when using a browser) is "not secure". That seems unnecessary, and in this day and age, unwise.

I would recommend emax64 for Windows, not the standard Windows version.

https://github.com/m-parashar/emax64

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