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Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

lispcast.com

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Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#2

Post by r00k »

This is a great article for users of ANY editor. I'm a vim user and got a lot out of it.

Even more, many of these tips are abstract enough to be applicable to users of almost any complicated software tool, particularly ones used for hours a day.

Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#4

Post by videophile »

Ok, I'm not a PC-nazi but I think someone needs to call the article out:

This is generic claptrap ("use help"?! he, and it's pretty clear it's a he, could have at least looked at how hard emacs help is to use for beginners) interspersed with sexist pictures and commentary. It is offputting to many people, and I'd like to see my favorite editor associated with higher caliber tutorials.

Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#5

Post by kiba »

videophile wrote: post #4

Ok, I'm not a PC-nazi but I think someone needs to call the article out: This is generic claptrap ("use help"?! he, and it's pretty clear it's a he, could have at least looked at how hard emacs help is to use for beginners) interspersed with sexist pictures and commentary. It is offputting to many people, and I'd like to see my favorite editor associated with higher caliber tutorials.

I do not understand how these pictures are sexist.

Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#6

Post by dkarl »

videophile wrote: post #4

Ok, I'm not a PC-nazi but I think someone needs to call the article out: This is generic claptrap ("use help"?! he, and it's pretty clear it's a he, could have at least looked at how hard emacs help is to use for beginners) interspersed with sexist pictures and commentary. It is offputting to many people, and I'd like to see my favorite editor associated with higher caliber tutorials.

Each of the tips is an important and non-obvious point, and several are unusual and probably good advice: post a cheat sheet, write down interesting commands, update your cheat sheet. Tips for beginners are always pretty generic. I'm sure someone, somewhere has suggested the same thing, but I give him credit for 33% unpredictable content, which is actually pretty good.

As a longtime emacs user, I'm still working on a few of these. I often discover useful new commands and forget them by the time I need them again -- obviously I should have them posted on my cheat sheet. I don't use command-apropos or the included documentation as much or as well as I should, either. I think insufficient use of help is way too common -- a lot of people ask me for help as soon as Google fails them.

Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#7

Post by revertts »

I'm going to have to disagree with '6. Keep Your Keybindings Standard.'

When I started with emacs, there were some bindings that would make my hands ache after a day of use, usually from the transition between difficult keybindings, not any one key combination in isolation. One of the first things I did was add in the ergoemacs bindings, and I never regretted it. It's not as if doing so made me suddenly forget what the old bindings were, although I am slower during the rare cases when I'm on the normal keybindings. But it's a small price to pay for not having my fingers hate me.

Editors are meant to be customized to your workflow and what works best for you.

Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#8

Post by briancooley »

revertts wrote: post #7

I'm going to have to disagree with '6. Keep Your Keybindings Standard.' When I started with emacs, there were some bindings that would make my hands ache after a day of use, usually from the transition between difficult keybindings, not any one key combination in isolation. One of the first things I did was add in the ergoemacs bindings, and I never regretted it. It's not as if doing so made me suddenly forget what t…

I bought a Kinesis keyboard, and that solved most of my RSI issues with emacs. Thanks for the tip on ergoemacs; I still have some issues when using my laptop.

Re: Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy

#9

Post by billswift »

revertts wrote: post #7

I'm going to have to disagree with '6. Keep Your Keybindings Standard.' When I started with emacs, there were some bindings that would make my hands ache after a day of use, usually from the transition between difficult keybindings, not any one key combination in isolation. One of the first things I did was add in the ergoemacs bindings, and I never regretted it. It's not as if doing so made me suddenly forget what t…

That mostly depends on how much you use ONLY your own system. If you have to use different systems much, getting used to idiosyncratic keybindings will REALLY slow you down, and the faster and more instinctively you use them the more it will slow you down.

I do take some exception to his advocating the arrow keys - they slow you down less than the mouse, but ^P, ^N, ^F, and ^B do the exact same thing as the arrow keys and you don't have to take your hand off the keyboard at all.

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