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Let's just use Emacs

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Re: Let's just use Emacs

#11

Post by dexen »

va_coder wrote: post #9

You think 20 years from now people will still be voting up articles about Emacs and Vim? just curious

Yes. They are bound to be discovered and re-discovered by every generation. They are the kind of tools that get the job done. There's also still a lot to be discovered about those editors themselves.

Besides, to quote Wikipedia:

EMACS: initial release: 1976, 34–35 years ago

Vim: initial release 1991, 19–20 years ago

vi: was written by Bill Joy in 1976 (as extension of `ex' editor)

The debacle's been raging for way longer than 20 years.

----

On the other hand, if you want something more modern: http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/acme

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#13

Post by sigzero »

va_coder wrote: post #9

You think 20 years from now people will still be voting up articles about Emacs and Vim? just curious

We had a programming intern a couple years ago, he was doing some Python stuff for us. One day he comes to me all excited about this awesome editor he found that was x-platform and had syntax highlighting for everything and was scriptable. I like editors so I asked him what it was..."It's called Vim!".

The editor I had been using for years. :)

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#14

Post by bad_user »

va_coder wrote: post #9

You think 20 years from now people will still be voting up articles about Emacs and Vim? just curious

Also, 20 years for now people will still engage in arguments about which is better - it's the ultimate flame war :)

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#15

Post by EdiX »

to3m wrote: post #10
arnorhs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He mentioned being affected by cognitive dissonance when referencing other editors - he was probably thinking of vim :)

A lot of modern IDEs provide features that are pretty close to magic, compared to what emacs sports. The emacs user response to this generally seems to be something like, "Code navigation can't be as good as M-x rgrep", and "How can refactoring ever be as good as C-M-%?" This reminds me of various people I have worked with in the past who have wondered why I ever bothered with the complexity of searching and replacin…

> A lot of modern IDEs provide features that are pretty close to magic, compared to what emacs sports.

Which modern IDEs and what features? I have used eclipse for months before deciding I was better off with emacs with eclim-mode anyway to provide the only two features of eclipse I liked: the compiler and the ability to see the members of an object (occasionally).

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#16

Post by codeup »

hsmyers wrote: post #6

Haven't peeked under the covers in years---this is enough to make me go take a look. Now if someone would write a mode for time-lines then that would pretty much finish up the usual writer (fiction) shopping list.

Org Mode's agenda has something like that: http://orgmode.org/manual/Timeline.html

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#17

Post by dasil003 »

to3m wrote: post #10
arnorhs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He mentioned being affected by cognitive dissonance when referencing other editors - he was probably thinking of vim :)

A lot of modern IDEs provide features that are pretty close to magic, compared to what emacs sports. The emacs user response to this generally seems to be something like, "Code navigation can't be as good as M-x rgrep", and "How can refactoring ever be as good as C-M-%?" This reminds me of various people I have worked with in the past who have wondered why I ever bothered with the complexity of searching and replacin…

>A lot of modern IDEs provide features that are pretty close to magic, compared to what emacs sports.

This is true, so why did I go with vim?

Well first, I'm primarily using Ruby not Java, so the magic available in IDEs is somewhat diminished. But more to the point, vim is really well optimized for the widest array of types of editing. It also has the advantage of critical mass open source immortality.

So when I hone my vim/emacs skills, it's an investment for the next 50 years, during which time I'll have no problem using my preferred editor on my preferred platform with whatever languages happen to be striking my fancy.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#18

Post by raganwald »

Articles about why anything you can do in a "simpler" text editor can and should be done in emacs strongly resemble articles about why anything you can do in a less powerful programming language can and should be done in Lisp.

I don't think it's a coïncidence.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#19

Post by RexRollman »

evangineer wrote: post #5

tl;dr Use Emacs 23 to create a distraction-free writing environment using org-mode, darkroom-mode & markdown-mode.

I'm not directing this at you personally, even though I am responding to your comment, but do we really need "tl;dr" type comments here on Hacker News?

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#20

Post by parfe »

I use Emacs for coding, wanderlust mail, rcirc and jabber-el. All which are provided as packages in the distros I run.

I've been trying to get into clojure which entails installing clojure-mode, swank-clojure, leiningen (which brings the pain of maven) and slime. This is where emacs has always broken down for me. Once I step outside the distro provided packages I find broken tutorials, unspecific versions, and instructions written like:

    First install package.el.
    Add to your .emacs: (add-to-list 'package-archives '("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/"))
    C-x C-e to evaluate it, and you're good to go!
http://marmalade-repo.org/

Except that didn't work in two of the three emacs installs I have. Any time I need to download an elisp file I dread reading the instructions. Too often the author forgot that he loads some other required package in his 1000 line .emacs/init.el file. Then you end up with half a set of instructions.

I think the only solution to the problem would be package maintainers providing instructions for how to install their package in a specific vanilla version of emacs from scratch with no other changes. But if they have to give up their custom emacs configs they won't be able to write up an explanation.

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