101–110 of 301 posts
One feature I particularly like in emacs is "chord mode". You can bind double keystrokes to features, eg I have @@ to save file. I haven't noticed this available in other editors.
nnoremap @@ :update
vnoremap @@ :updategv
inoremap @@ :update
I used Emacs for a while and now I use Intellij. Now I don't understand the appeal of customizing the editor to such degree. I'm not that unique. I just want stuff that works. Give me the same setup as everyone else so that when issues arise everyone will push for them to get fixed and everyone can help each other.
I use IntelliJ for writing Java code. Emacs can do a lot, [1] is a good 5 minute introduction, but I think I prefer a GUI-first mouse-first UI.
I use Emacs for general text editing, so for most non-Java code. I occasionally edit individual Java classes with Emacs if I have something repetitive to do, and I know an Emacs macro (F3, do things, F4 to save, F4 to run) can do it.
I use Kate when I want its nice tabbed views with a terminal at the bottom. Often this is things like moving content between 20 different documentation files.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also get the benefit of everyone else’s hard work with Emacs. One of the differences is that it’s such an established ecosystem, that instead of individual extensions just getting better, with Emacs they’ve yielded shared abstractions that make _new_ extensions trivial and much more consistent than with VSCode (which is nevertheless still an excellent editor these days). I also don’t understand why people think s…
> If your time is so limited, eliminating toil seems essential. The counter point to this is usually: What exactly is your toil as a professional software developer (or associated profession) that is eliminated with a "better"[1] editor in 2023? Refactoring is more powerful with an IDE, for mainstream languages. For non-mainstream languages 95% of what Emacs enables can be done using multi-cursors and a macro languag…
For non-mainstream languages 95% of what Emacs enables can be done using
multi-cursors and a macro language built in to the editor, and we're in
2023. Those kinds of editors are a dime a dozen :-)
But other than emacs and vim, which other editors allow me to interactively automate portions of my editing workflow? All the other IDEs and editors that you've cited, like IntelliJ or VSCode require you to either find or write a package. That's a much bigger step than just interactively evaluating some lisp to do a one-off thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The M1 MacBook Air is under $1k.
> and comes with a walled garden. look, you go and support apple, and thats fine, but i really dont see the point in choosing hardware that is looking at locking its users in somehow.
I'm more of a vim guy, but "I get it". I started using these "serious" editors back in college and eventually settled with vim over emacs. I don't wanna get into the whole editor wars - it's like picking a Pokemon at the start of the game. I went through the whole phase of adding a bunch of plugins, custom macros and have a huge .vimrc file that, once in a while, would break if I was using the wrong vim variant {vi,…
Personally, most vim emulations in most editors are "good enough", so I generally use Intellij (Java) or VSCode (everything else) with Vim modes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also get the benefit of everyone else’s hard work with Emacs. One of the differences is that it’s such an established ecosystem, that instead of individual extensions just getting better, with Emacs they’ve yielded shared abstractions that make _new_ extensions trivial and much more consistent than with VSCode (which is nevertheless still an excellent editor these days). I also don’t understand why people think s…
> If your time is so limited, eliminating toil seems essential. The counter point to this is usually: What exactly is your toil as a professional software developer (or associated profession) that is eliminated with a "better"[1] editor in 2023? Refactoring is more powerful with an IDE, for mainstream languages. For non-mainstream languages 95% of what Emacs enables can be done using multi-cursors and a macro languag…
Emacs isn't an editor, it's a (very) rapid development environment for textual UI applications. Text editing is a large class of such applications but there are plenty of others.
Case in point: at work we use a job scheduler with a horrid web UI. I knocked something together in a couple of hours in emacs that eliminated that pain from my life and allowed me to explore our environments much more freely. If more of my colleagues used emacs they could share in the joy. I don't have anywhere near the time I would need to make something they could use without it.
Meetings, reporting and "social stuff" isn't much of an issue for me as I've been very clear in every interview I've had that I have no desire to take on managerial responsibilities at any stage of my career.
For example, when it comes to emailing, MailMate is an excellent tool that I have found to be much more effective. And for programming, VS Code is unbeatable for the overall experience. When it comes to my personal wiki, I find that Obsidian is simply too good to use Emacs + Orgmode. And for quickly capturing ideas, the Drafts app with its javascript extensibility is sweet, and a big plus: it's also available on my mobile phone.
Ultimately, I have come to realize that tinkering is a luxury that not everyone can afford. While I still use Emacs extensively as an editor with macros for transforming text, I find that those who want to focus on the task at hand cannot afford to spend more time tinkering than doing the job.
In conclusion, Emacs will always have a special place in my heart, but I have learned to recognize the value of specialized tools that offer a superior user experience with less effort. However, I should note that when it comes to regex-replace across files, BBEdit is the only thing that can beat Emacs.
I'm more of a vim guy, but "I get it". I started using these "serious" editors back in college and eventually settled with vim over emacs. I don't wanna get into the whole editor wars - it's like picking a Pokemon at the start of the game. I went through the whole phase of adding a bunch of plugins, custom macros and have a huge .vimrc file that, once in a while, would break if I was using the wrong vim variant {vi,…
I'd love to use VSCode for the completion and other polished conveniences that just work. I detest having to manually configure anything. But vim moves and keybinds are just too good. If there was a combination that actually worked well, I'd switch in a heartbeat. But so far I haven't encountered an option with all of: * vim bindings (no compromises) * great completion / IDE experience * no configuration Currently my…
Seriously, it feels unproductive a bit at first. But the productivity potential is 10x higher than any other tool or editor out there.
With org-mode, Magit, Projectile and dired, I already feel more productive than in VSCode or neovim. And more importantly, I feel like I'm shaping reflexes around the editor and thus creating my own workflow.
And evil-mode is the best emulation out there. I tried neovim inside VSCode but it's not yet there. So as a vim lover, I have two options (Neovim or Emacs).
The deal breaker was org-mode, It made me switch ... My organization skills are quite poor and I tend to forget everything all the time. But org-mode is a magical tool that's probably the best piece of software written to date !! And org-babel is quite cool too!
Anyway, the key takeaway is that my relationship with emacs is two-way shaping ... Meaning I can configure it to my liking with no barriers (other than elisp, I ask ChatGPT for help) and Emacs helps me shape my workflow and improve it.
It's not for everyone. It's not for most people. But it was a match for me :)
I have been a faithful Emacs user for more than fifteen years now, even using a version of Emacs on my Amiga back in the 80s when I was just a kid. Over time, I have ported almost every aspect of my computational life to Emacs, including my editor, IDE, git-client, writing, documenting, and workflow automation. While I love the tool and enjoy tinkering with it, I have come to realize that there are dedicated tools ou…
1. Old folks who are used to working with them and don't bother switching.
2. Young fellas who spend a significant amount of time tinkering and playing with config files.
VScode (VScodium really :) offers everything that emacs or vim has to offer (as far as editing file is concerned) with much less time spent in the config files. With that in mind, I still use emacs bacause I belong to that second category.