Mastering Emacs • Hacker News Board

Re: Mastering Emacs

#11

Post by oahziur » Sat, May 23, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

vladharbuz wrote: post #8

I would personally recommend using vim bindings in emacs, as they are (in my opinion) easier to make sense of and more intuitive. However, I'm sure this book is a great resource for all the other stuff and it seems very well put-together.

Learning some basic emacs bindings before using vim bindings is still valuable to me. Sometimes I have to use emacs bindings to do things.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#12

Post by vladharbuz » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

methehack wrote: post #10

vladharbuz wrote: post #8

I would personally recommend using vim bindings in emacs, as they are (in my opinion) easier to make sense of and more intuitive. However, I'm sure this book is a great resource for all the other stuff and it seems very well put-together.

spacemacs (includes evil) plug: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs Really great.

Yep, that's what I use as well!

Re: Mastering Emacs

#13

Post by 001spartan » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

methehack wrote: post #10

vladharbuz wrote: post #8

I would personally recommend using vim bindings in emacs, as they are (in my opinion) easier to make sense of and more intuitive. However, I'm sure this book is a great resource for all the other stuff and it seems very well put-together.

spacemacs (includes evil) plug: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs Really great.

I switched to using Spacemacs from vim a couple months ago. I find it's a huge boost to my productivity; letting me use vim modes/hotkeys that I'm used to, and adding the handy features that emacs and plugins can provide.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#14

Post by damontal » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:33 PM UTC

unknownzero wrote: post #2

I've always been an emacs user but have only recently gotten serious about customizing it to replace other applications I normally use. If anyone has bought this and at least skimmed through I'd love to hear your thoughts before I drop $35.99 to see for myself.

Swap your CTRL and caps lock keys. It will make it a lot easier to use.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#15

Post by brudgers » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

vladharbuz wrote: post #8

I would personally recommend using vim bindings in emacs, as they are (in my opinion) easier to make sense of and more intuitive. However, I'm sure this book is a great resource for all the other stuff and it seems very well put-together.

When considering a tool with which one will work for many hours a day and many days a month over the course of years, for some people it makes sense to use expressive power rather than initial ease of use as the primary criterion for choosing among alternative sets of bindings. In the case of a tool like Emacs, the user is always likely to encounter new alternative work flows or to invent them theirself. This is what Emacs offers as an alternative value to Vim's Unix philosophy based idea of doing one thing and only one thing well.

There's nothing wrong with Vim, and nothing implicitly wrong with using Vim shortcuts in Emacs so long as one is aware of its Fortran in any language style limitations.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#16

Post by bryanlarsen » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:40 PM UTC

vladharbuz wrote: post #8

I would personally recommend using vim bindings in emacs, as they are (in my opinion) easier to make sense of and more intuitive. However, I'm sure this book is a great resource for all the other stuff and it seems very well put-together.

Agreed. I'm a 20+ year emacs user. A couple of years ago I switched to using the VI bindings (evil). It really is the best of both worlds. I was using VI regularly before the switch -- it was available on servers and co-workers machines, and emacs generally wasn't. (Well, maybe it was on some, but the customizations definitely weren't). Now I have much lower switching costs, gain the quick access of VI bindings, and the huge number of emacs plugins. win-win-win.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#17

Post by htns » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

damontal wrote: post #14

unknownzero wrote: post #2

I've always been an emacs user but have only recently gotten serious about customizing it to replace other applications I normally use. If anyone has bought this and at least skimmed through I'd love to hear your thoughts before I drop $35.99 to see for myself.

Swap your CTRL and caps lock keys. It will make it a lot easier to use.

No, swap your alt-gr and ctrl.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#18

Post by Dewie3 » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

damontal wrote: post #14

unknownzero wrote: post #2

I've always been an emacs user but have only recently gotten serious about customizing it to replace other applications I normally use. If anyone has bought this and at least skimmed through I'd love to hear your thoughts before I drop $35.99 to see for myself.

Swap your CTRL and caps lock keys. It will make it a lot easier to use.

I guess this is if you use your pinky to hold down CTRL? I try to mostly use the knuckle below my pinky fingers[1] to hold down CTRL. This can be harder on certain keyboards, and I guess especially laptop keyboards. I think I learnt this from some kind of ErgoEmacs article/webpage.

I also use god-mode, and one of the tips is to swap ESC with CAPS-LOCK (ESC is used to toggle god-mode).

Nonetheless, I guess most of us can agree that CAPS-LOCK is in a too convenient position compared to its normal utility. :p

[1] I use my left hand to hold down CTRL when it's more comfortable to press the next key with my right hand (like in C-u), and vice versa.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#19

Post by molteanu » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:47 PM UTC

damontal wrote: post #14

unknownzero wrote: post #2

I've always been an emacs user but have only recently gotten serious about customizing it to replace other applications I normally use. If anyone has bought this and at least skimmed through I'd love to hear your thoughts before I drop $35.99 to see for myself.

Swap your CTRL and caps lock keys. It will make it a lot easier to use.

Nope, don't do that. Learn to proper touch-type instead. Use your palms to press the ctrl keys. See: http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html .

You can then use Ctrl+m instead of Enter at the command line, as well. Save both pinkies from the extra effort.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#20

Post by molteanu » Sat, May 23, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

Dewie3 wrote: post #18

damontal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swap your CTRL and caps lock keys. It will make it a lot easier to use.

I guess this is if you use your pinky to hold down CTRL? I try to mostly use the knuckle below my pinky fingers[1] to hold down CTRL. This can be harder on certain keyboards, and I guess especially laptop keyboards. I think I learnt this from some kind of ErgoEmacs article/webpage. I also use god-mode, and one of the tips is to swap ESC with CAPS-LOCK (ESC is used to toggle god-mode). Nonetheless, I guess most of us…

Yes, that was from ErgoEmacs. Very nice info in there.