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Master Emacs in one year

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Re: Master Emacs in one year

#111

Post by qu4z-2 »

msg wrote: post #43
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…

Also, and this is weird, you can get vi bindings in emacs through editing modes like viper-mode or evil. So if you want, in emacs you can have both. In contrast, you will never see emacs inside of vim.

Hah! The way vim extensions are going you'll have emacs-in-vim soon enough. Not that I think it's a good idea, mind you. People spend too much time in vim as-is. (it's fine for emacs; that one's essentially a desktop environment)

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#112

Post by octopus »

glynch wrote: post #93
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.

That quote is taken out of context and was written by someone who's first language is obviously not English. I took the paragraph to mean that Emacs users are possibly more technical because it attracts those who are curious enough to research less mainstream programming languages.

The entire paragraph is about Lisp if you read carefully. The mother tongue of the author is irrelevant, he clearly thinks that Lisp is a superior language for a possibly more intelligent coder:

Emacs is developed by Lisp whose syntax is different from common programming languages. A developer who is curious enough to try Lisp is possibly more intelligent than average. Lisp is often the third language he/she learns (Java/C/C# is the first, a script language like Bash/Python/Perl/Ruby is the second).

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#113

Post by mechanical_fish »

joeclark77 wrote: post #109
mechanical_fish wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should absolutely rebind Caps Lock to Ctrl. I guess it's time once again to mention the Kinesis Advantage keyboard on HN. You can rebind every key. You can rebind control and meta to keys that are under your thumbs, and put one copy under each thumb so you don't have to use the same thumb all the time. And everyone who walks by your desk will have an excuse to start a conversation about your incredibly strange ke…

Looks interesting, but at $269 I don't think I'll be able to try one out. Maybe after I make that first million. Glad to hear my instinct about capslock isn't crazy.

If you think that's bad, don't get me started on chairs and desks:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=105026

(Incidentally, since writing that N years ago a physical therapist talked me out of the Aeron, which has poor upper back support. I've got a Steelcase Leap now.)

If you ever find yourself getting a job as a programmer, convince them to buy you a fancy keyboard and a proper chair and some Ergotron products. These things all last at least half a decade, so it's not as if you're spending that money every month.

Or buy them yourself... But if your company can't be convinced to budget $750 per year to keep you healthy and happy as you sit at your desk all day pounding out code for them at ludicrous speed, I've got bad news about your company.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#114

Post by dobbsbob »

rikkus wrote: post #39
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 ed…

There is a browser with VI key bindings https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#115

Post by parfe »

MarcScott wrote: post #104
parfe wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you will be teaching Intro to Emacs. Why else would you impose a text editor on students?

I'm confused as to why I wouldn't teach students how to use a text editor. What else would you suggest they write their code using?

You aren't teaching them to use a text editor. You are teaching them to use emacs. A choice based on your personal preference that wastes lots of their time learning what is a very complicated environment. You need to write lisp just to make emacs auto indent on return.

Nano or gedit in comparison would be sensible choices if you were interested in teaching students about the language rather than indoctrination in the editor wars.

Unless of course it's a lisp class in which case Emacs is a sensible choice, but i think you would have mentioned that if it were the case.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#116

Post by collyw »

scottlocklin wrote: post #54

A friend of mine asked me this recently: are there many young programmers investing in emacs? I only know a few... it's kind of depressing.

Why is it depressing?

I have asked before if I will gain anything moving from Eclipse / Aptana to Emacs or VI. It will take a lot of learning, and while Eclipse is far from perfect, I have wrestled with it enough to know what I am doing. And it has lots of plugins.

(I am a not especially young programmer).

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#117

Post by klibertp »

parfe wrote: post #115
MarcScott wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused as to why I wouldn't teach students how to use a text editor. What else would you suggest they write their code using?

You aren't teaching them to use a text editor. You are teaching them to use emacs. A choice based on your personal preference that wastes lots of their time learning what is a very complicated environment. You need to write lisp just to make emacs auto indent on return. Nano or gedit in comparison would be sensible choices if you were interested in teaching students about the language rather than indoctrination in th…

> You need to write lisp just to make emacs auto indent on return.

I wanted to say that it's not true, but fortunately I went and checked and found this (in my programming-mode hook):

    (local-set-key (kbd "") 'newline-and-indent)
in my Emacs config. I thought that it's configurable via `customize-*` interface, which is as nice as any other editor "settings" dialog, but apparently it's not...

OTOH I'd rather write Lisp than JSON or Python for editor configuration, but you're right in that it's personal preference.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend making Emacs the required editor for any programming course (if not using Lisp). Just disallow using IDEs and let the students choose their editors. Make a list of mandatory features, like syntax highlighting, and let them use whatever they feel comfortable with. That way you can focus on teaching programming instead of teaching how to use an editor.

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#118

Post by lispm »

kansface wrote: post #94
mentos wrote: post #42

Can anyone share what they feel are their top 3 greatest workflow improvements in productivity going from a point and click IDE to a shortcut based IDE like emacs?

Emacs is not an IDE- its a text editor. It would be nuts to use Emacs to edit Java compared to Intellij or even Eclipse. Having said that, it is no more productive than any other text editor at editing text (as compared to Vim or Sublime Text 3). Even if that weren't true, would you really invest years into learning a new editor to make editing text a few percent faster? Programming is limited by thought, not typing…

Last I looked Emacs comes with a million lines of Lisp code extending Emacs way beyond normal editing.

Emacs easily is a text-based IDE. I for example use the SLIME extension with GNU Emacs to make it into a Common Lisp IDE.

Now we can ask if the depth of GNU Emacs makes sense and if the UI usable. But there is little doubt that Emacs is WAY beyond being a simple text editor. See ORG mode, GNUS, ...

Re: Master Emacs in one year

#119

Post by recoil »

teddyh wrote: post #79
Goladus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True I rarely have a problem editing in web text boxes, I never really committed to using emacs as a word processor. But I'd be lying if I said I've never accidentally closed a browser tab when absent-mindedly trying to do a backward-kill-word ('ctrl-w'). I was thinking more about programming and system administration. After years of using emacs, I find it harder to adapt to the popular mainstream tools like Visual S…

Ctrl-w as “backward-kill-word” is a Unixism from the classic Unix TTY, you can’t blame Emacs for that one.

Indeed. Ctrl-w in Emacs is actually "kill-region".
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