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Master Emacs in one year

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Re: Master Emacs in one year

#31

Post by poolpool »

dublinben wrote: post #23
danso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you posted here...this is what I want to see in the OP's otherwise well-intentioned guide. I can say "yes" to a lot of those things, and "maybe" to the others...Don't get me wrong, I love learning new things, especially languages...but in this case, we're talking about a tool that is critical for me to learning other things...when writing an evangelism guide, the saying, "show don't tell", is even more urgent…

I think the learning curve of Emacs is much easier than vim. You still have a GUI that exposes most of the important functions, and can learn the key bindings as you go. You can start using Emacs for basic editing without actually knowing how to "use" it.

Like gvim or macvim.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#32

Post by sjolsen »

Goladus wrote: post #10

Once you have mastered Emacs, you are good at all other editors I haven't found that to be true at all. I find that due to archaic idiosyncrasies and the customization possible with emacs, the more time I spend with it the more difficult it becomes to use different editors.

I haven't found that Emacs has made it harder to use other editors. It's just made me realize how horrible it's always been to use them, hammering away at the arrow keys, using the mouse way more often than should be necessary, spending time on fixing whitespace that should be spent writing code…

Then there's the fact that Emacs really isn't an editor. If anything, it's a shell that runs elisp programs, chief among which is a text editor. Programs like magit and ansi-term (and gnus and compile and dired and TRAMP and…) are good examples of this.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#33

Post by Monkeyget »

dimillian wrote: post #29

I may be raging, but if you need one year to master an IDE/Text editor there is something wrong.

It takes a year because you learn it over time. Learning a tool progressively is the best way to go.

There is a wonderful presentation called '7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0' [1] explaining this philosophy. The idea is to get the basics down upfront and then get more proficient gradually over time. When you use the tool you stay aware of what you are doing. When you find an inefficiency in the way you use the tool, find a quicker way and make it an habit. This is the most efficient.

If you only care about the code you have to type right now and never read the editor's documentation nor learn new commands you'll keep using only basics commands and never will gain proficiency. Not efficient.

If on the other hand you try to learn every feature immediately you'll waste time learning things you won't use and forget most of them anyway. Not efficient.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6K4iIMlouI#t=2085

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#34

Post by derengel »

john2x wrote: post #13

I started with purcell's config as well. I did two separate attempts at getting started from scratch, and it was just too much. Using purcell's config made me somewhat productive in a week. Now I'm starting to do my own changes to his config, but there's still a lot of stuff I'm afraid to touch. I'm thinking of declaring ".emacs bankruptcy" soon, or maybe start from something more minimal like the Starter Kit linked…

I use emacs with tmux, why do you have to leave tmux if you move away from vim? about the emacs shell, yeah I don't use it, use tmux or screen ;)

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#35

Post by collyw »

tokenrove wrote: post #7
danso wrote: post #4

Reading guides like these makes me think about how I sound like when I implore novices to try out the command-line. Why should I? I'll peg myself as a half-competent developer, the kind who codes everyday and can lose a weekend to a spontaneous side project. I am completely in agreeance that tool mastery is vital for enjoying and being productive in programming, I just have no concept, not from this guide, and not fr…

> nevermind why I should consider taking a year (an eternity in technological time) to master it. I don't want to proselytise, but maybe that hints at one of the core appeals of emacs. A year is nothing in terms of the span of time emacs has been around, and so time invested in making emacs your editor is effort that won't be discarded in the next technological cycle. The other aspect is what I mean by "making emacs…

Visual Studio, or Eclipse have been around for a fair while as well now. Its not like they will disappear with the next text cycle. And you can get productive with them in far less than a year.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#36

Post by mbrock »

sjolsen wrote: post #32
Goladus wrote: post #10

Once you have mastered Emacs, you are good at all other editors I haven't found that to be true at all. I find that due to archaic idiosyncrasies and the customization possible with emacs, the more time I spend with it the more difficult it becomes to use different editors.

I haven't found that Emacs has made it harder to use other editors. It's just made me realize how horrible it's always been to use them, hammering away at the arrow keys, using the mouse way more often than should be necessary, spending time on fixing whitespace that should be spent writing code… Then there's the fact that Emacs really isn't an editor. If anything, it's a shell that runs elisp programs, chief among w…

I say it's a dynamic Lisp environment with a UI based on textual buffers. Compare it with Squeak, for example.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#37

Post by octopus »

A developer who is curious enough to try Lisp is possibly more intelligent than average

This is the kind of exaggeration that makes a lot of people to avoid even trying Lisp. Any programming language that uses a different programming paradigm than the one you are familiar with will make you a better programmer.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#39

Post by rikkus »

Goladus wrote: post #10

Once you have mastered Emacs, you are good at all other editors I haven't found that to be true at all. I find that due to archaic idiosyncrasies and the customization possible with emacs, the more time I spend with it the more difficult it becomes to use different editors.

I spent 5 years learning and using vi (n perhaps a dozen different Unix-like OSes, so they were all different, meaning I could only use a core set of features.

I then spent a few years working on Windows where I had Vim, but other editors I used were, well, 'standard'.

Then ViEmu came along and I now move between Vi-like editing in VS and Vim, and 'normal' editing in other apps.

It's not too bad, to be honest. I'm editing in a non-vi-like-manner in this comment box. I could probably install something to make Chrome do vi-like editing here, but my brain is happy to switch modes, if you'll forgive the pun.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#40

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

octopus wrote: post #37

A developer who is curious enough to try Lisp is possibly more intelligent than average This is the kind of exaggeration that makes a lot of people to avoid even trying Lisp. Any programming language that uses a different programming paradigm than the one you are familiar with will make you a better programmer.

I don't really have any desire to try lisp, and every time I see that kind of lisp advocacy I have even less.
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