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Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

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Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#11

Minesweeper is a nice Emacs game I like to play. It gets you familiar with the basic Emacs movement keys. install it: M-x package-install minesweeper play it: M-x minesweeper movement (control key optional): n, p, f, b bigger movement across the field: M-f, M-b, C-a, C-e, M- step on unit: Space step on all surrounding units: c mark a mine: m

Ahh, brilliant find, thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#12

You should look into which-key, which is a popup showing active key bindings in the active context. And maybe start with a configuration-pack like doom-emacs or spacemacs, as they have good support for the vim-bindings, as also come with which-key pre-configured. And as I remember, they also allow deactivating vim-bindings if you want the pure Emacs-experience.

Thank you for pointing out which-key, that sounds extremely helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#13

Perhaps doom emacs ( vim & emacs )[1] or spacemacs[2]? [1] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZWm8B5t8B4 [2] : https://www.spacemacs.org/

Thanks. I do like the idea of best of both worlds, but I also feel the draw of starting from a blank slate in terms of configuration. I’ll check them out.

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#14
post #6

I'm sorry to hear about your injury, but it's great to see your determination to learn and adapt. You might want to check out emacs-tutor, a package that provides an interactive tutorial inside Emacs itself. This could be a good starting point to get used to the basic commands and gradually build up your muscle memory. Also, consider using god-mode. It's an Emacs package that allows you to reduce the number of key ch…

Was this comment by any chance written using an LLM? It really sounds like it was, but I could be wrong…

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#15
I recommend command log mode (tells you what command you just executed with that keypress), ‘embark-bindings’ (what keys can I press now), embark-act (“smart” what can I do at point), and maybe keyfreq (make common actions easier (haven’t tried this one myself yet)).

Also, if you decide to use evil (I like it), use evil-collection as well to make it play nicer with other functionality.

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#16
post #15

I recommend command log mode (tells you what command you just executed with that keypress), ‘embark-bindings’ (what keys can I press now), embark-act (“smart” what can I do at point), and maybe keyfreq (make common actions easier (haven’t tried this one myself yet)). Also, if you decide to use evil (I like it), use evil-collection as well to make it play nicer with other functionality.

Thanks for those recommendations, all sound useful.

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#17
post #6

I'm sorry to hear about your injury, but it's great to see your determination to learn and adapt. You might want to check out emacs-tutor, a package that provides an interactive tutorial inside Emacs itself. This could be a good starting point to get used to the basic commands and gradually build up your muscle memory. Also, consider using god-mode. It's an Emacs package that allows you to reduce the number of key ch…

Was this comment by any chance written using an LLM? It really sounds like it was, but I could be wrong…

It looks like it was. Ghostbuster.app reports 93% probability and gptzero.me reports 100%.

I was pleasantly surprised that the message started empathetically because none of the other responses did. But it makes more sense now, an LLM would do that.

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#18

The thing about Emacs isn't it's key bindings. It's the extensibility and integration of the overall system. As others say, begin with the built in tutorial. It should be as simple opening Emacs and pressing enter. If for some reason it's not that simple, open Emacs and press Control+h followed by 't'. The tutorial walks you through the basics. The tutorial mentions C-h v. There is also C-h f for functions. Next, whe…

> The thing about Emacs isn't it's key bindings. It's the extensibility and integration of the overall system.

Well, I guess Emacs is many things to different people. After using Helix for quite some time the single thing I missed was exactly the Emacs keybindings. Not plugins, although I've used quite a lot of them.

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#19

The thing about Emacs isn't it's key bindings. It's the extensibility and integration of the overall system. As others say, begin with the built in tutorial. It should be as simple opening Emacs and pressing enter. If for some reason it's not that simple, open Emacs and press Control+h followed by 't'. The tutorial walks you through the basics. The tutorial mentions C-h v. There is also C-h f for functions. Next, whe…

> The thing about Emacs isn't it's key bindings. It's the extensibility and integration of the overall system. Well, I guess Emacs is many things to different people. After using Helix for quite some time the single thing I missed was exactly the Emacs keybindings. Not plugins, although I've used quite a lot of them.

I like how I can use my Emacs-learned keybindings to navigate native text fields in the OS (e.g., CAPS(ctrl) + a, or + e, to get to line beginning and end; also +h instead of 'delete', keeping my fingers on the home row).

Re: Ask HN: Any fun ways to learn Emacs?

#20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this comment by any chance written using an LLM? It really sounds like it was, but I could be wrong…

It looks like it was. Ghostbuster.app reports 93% probability and gptzero.me reports 100%. I was pleasantly surprised that the message started empathetically because none of the other responses did. But it makes more sense now, an LLM would do that.

Indeed, LLMs have that distintive and slightly revolting quality of friendly, helpful and inoffensive tone that reminds me of American customer service ideals. Also the user's profile is equally toeing this line of uncanny valley.

I guess the only way to identify ourselves as human is to adopt a measure of rudeness, some grammatical mistakes and snark that those stupid AIs still try to avoid at all costs.

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