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Even more batteries included with Emacs

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Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#111

Post by neutronicus »

globular-toast wrote: post #18
buzzwords wrote: post #4

I saw orgmode once and I really loved it. Used Doomed and spacemacs. But dear Lord, does everything break on updates and need fixing. I had to give up as I just don't think it's feasible for me to fix my emacs when I want to get some work done.

What "updates" are you referring to? In more than 15 years of using Emacs I've not once been blocked from doing work due to any kind of breakage.

I'm a Spacemacs user, and I just tried to update all my packages and my emacs is now somehow broken. Luckily I only did that one one of my two work machines so I will just do without the mac until I have the time to unfuck it.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#113

Post by neutronicus »

antiframe wrote: post #64
tapete1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have asked LLMs several Emacs-related questions and _never_ got a reply that works. And at generating elisp code they are especially awful.

That is not my experience. I had Claude add a variety of useful functions to my init.el as well as refactor it for easier maintenance. I now have a more useful to use and pleasant to edit init for it.

Yeah, Claude has helped me fix a bunch of warts I was just living with.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#114

Post by dired_fan »

tptacek wrote: post #2

I have been using Emacs since 1994 (Lucid!) and I still don't understand Dired.

Like you, I've been using emacs (gnu) for decades, and dired is my directory/file manipulation tool, for both linux and windows. I never see a desktop with files/folders or anything like that, it's dired for everything.

For example: Just a few minutes ago, in a directory with lots of PDFs, I did:

- wdired to rename pdfs to a consistent convention. Did this with the awesome multiple-cursors package, then interactively spell-checked and corrected my renamed pdfs. All within writeable dired :-)

- delete several non-pdf files

- mark several possible duplicate files and dired-do-shell-command with sha512sum

- move several pdfs to another directory (split window and open target dir, mark files to move, one-button move using dired-dwim-target.

- mark several pdfs and open with reader app

Obviously that's all do-able with a shell or traditional file manager GUI, but dired was a total win here.

Multiply that win by a hundred times per week, and that's a quality of life enhancement.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#115

Post by pfortuny »

lycopodiopsida wrote: post #33
noelwelsh wrote: post #31

The biggest problem Emacs has will not be solved by blog posts like this. For most people the editor is a means to an end. They are invested in their end goal, not in hunting down blog posts telling them how to make better use of their tools. If Emacs wants wider adoption is needs a better out-of-the-box experience, which is something that distros like Doom Emacs and Spacemacs offer. That's the only way to make a den…

There is no "problem" in emacs (there are big technical problems, but not this one) and no need to get "most people" on emacs - the ecosystem is healthy by all means and only increasing. The "out of the box" experience could be better - but for emacs users. Those, who expect VS Code, should just install it and live happy.

On your first paragraph: exactly. This is not a competition, Emacs is just shared software, not part of a market.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#116

Post by wglb »

rpdillon wrote: post #86
arikrahman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that Emacs is actually the first mover on prime technologies. Just look at gptel and org-mode. Nothing else really even comes close. The reason some odd names exist like yank and kill or kill chain is because Emacs was the first and didn't have anything else to use as reference.

Kill chain is a military term relating to the sequence of events that lead up to the actual attack. You're probably thinking of kill ring, which I always thought was a neat term.

It's also used in security defense, where there is a search for how to stop the many steps of attack.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#117

Post by SoftTalker »

yxhuvud wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #2

I have been using Emacs since 1994 (Lucid!) and I still don't understand Dired.

It has a million features I don't use. But some features are really, really nice, like C-q for editing file names (C-x-s to persist changes once done). Rectangle editing is so, so nice to have when renaming multiple files.

C-q just tells me the buffer is read-only. How does that work?

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#118

Post by jr_isidore »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #102
jr_isidore wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

appears to receive stable funding from the FSF No, about ten underemployed or semi-retired graybeards on the emacs.devel mailing list burn most of their waking hours futzing with emacs. That's not an exaggeration. They receive no remuneration.

The emacs devel mailing list is way more active than that.. although you do see some regulars there for sure.

You misunderstand. Every mailing list has their healthy share of drive-by contributions, but emacs.devel contains a handful of dudes for whom *all they do* is emacs. We're talking nights, weekends, holidays. If they were indeed working a job, the inordinate time spent on the mailing list would constitute defrauding their employer.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#119

Post by cmrdporcupine »

tapete1 wrote: post #61
Paradigma11 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are a godsend in fixing emacs problems.

I have asked LLMs several Emacs-related questions and _never_ got a reply that works. And at generating elisp code they are especially awful.

Not my experience. I've had them write modes for new languages from scratch with excellent results.

And diagnose and fix up my emacs configuration.

Even back in pre-Opus 4.5 days I found them incredibly useful for elisp diagnostics, and these days I use Codex to great effect to enhance my emacs setup.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#120

Post by internet_points »

db48x wrote: post #103
internet_points wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...except ruler-mode uses dragging of middle mouse button to move the fill column, which on my system scrolls.

Then simply change the keybindings. Use `C-h k` and then middle click on the ruler-mode’s header to find out what command is bound to the middle mouse button, then bind that same command to a different mouse button: (keymap-set ruler-mode-map " " #'ruler-mode-mouse-grab-any-column)

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