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Mastering Emacs

masteringemacs.org

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Re: Mastering Emacs

#31

Post by j7ake »

goku12 wrote: post #29
j7ake wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems admin people who deal with computing clusters often use vim.

The availability of vim in some systems is not reliable. Often only either vi or nano is available. Containers may not have even that (not that it's a good practice to edit files inside containers. It's just for experiments). Emacs meanwhile, has tramp. It lets you edit files remotely and transparently - even inside Kubernetes pods. And you still get to use all your Emacs customization.

Someone who uses vim daily will surely not struggle with vi.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#32

Post by sleiben »

I saw people (in their 30s) using emacs for almost everything. Coding, reading mails, organizing their todos and so on. It was impressive to see their workflow.

The only thing which hold me back to really learn it, were the stories about repetitive strain injuries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36718793

Re: Mastering Emacs

#33

Post by goku12 »

yawpitch wrote: post #18
lbj wrote: post #15

It's crazy that here in 2023, Emacs is still the absolute beast when it comes to developer productivity. I had a colleague review one of my workflows the other week and after a minute or so he said "Whoa, I would have been in 5 different tools by now". If you're not into Emacs, I suggest you give it a whirl. For most development, nothing else will get you close to the joy and productivity that a well configured Emacs…

^ with the caveat that a well-configured emacs requires a well-configured emacs, often leading to an infinite loop.

How is that true at all? I started with plain Emacs and gradually updated the configuration to the level of polish I wanted. Even if you're impatient and want something modern up front, the advise given is to start with a starter pack like Doom Emacs.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#34

Post by yaantc »

aacid wrote: post #26
fayalalebrun wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in my early 20s and started using Emacs when I was 18. The reason I use Emacs instead of a more "modern" tool is because nothing else comes close in terms of ease of extensibility. I would be interested to hear if you know of any modern editors where extending my editor is as easy as writing one line and running "eval-buffer".

What should I imagine under term "extending"? Is that adding new extensions (like in vscode)? I never felt that this is something I often enough to need quickest possible way to do it. Or do you mean more like changing how editor looks, how many windows/panes/tabs are displayed and where are they displayed?

Literally changing the editor code, to do whatever you want. Emacs is a lisp (elisp) environment mostly with a small C based core for performance sensitive primitives. But the user code is at the same "level" as the Emacs core code.

This is very different from most extensible editors, where extensions are sandboxed and have a limited, controlled API to the core editor, which is kept separate.

This makes Emacs very "malleable", and it's likely easier than with most other tool to change it in custom, specific ways. It may seem dangerous, but it comes from a culture where this extensibility is very front and center, with documented design pattern to support it (hooks, customization settings...).

Re: Mastering Emacs

#35

Post by raincole »

goku12 wrote: post #22
raincole wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using JetBrains IDEA 12 years ago and I'm still using it today. My confidence of it being available 12 years later is high. Yes, if you're talking about a timeframe of ~50 years, use vim and emacs. I just don't care that level of future proof.

> Yes, if you're talking about a timeframe of ~50 years, use vim and emacs. There isn't any compromises that make vim or emacs less useful than those tools with much less longevity. They are just as good as an editor to even those who don't care if they will be around 50 years from now.

I used vim (and still using it for non-coding text editing today) but I just don't feel it's so powerful that it's comparable to IDEA. Of course it's probably because I haven't properly taken time to learn and configure it. I only know how to move cursor around, search/replace and enable syntax highlighting.

But that's the point: I don't want to take a significant amount of time to learn and configure an editor. I want a IDE that works well almost out of box.

Maybe my opinion will change if one day I decide to try a more batteries-included vim/emacs like Doom.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#36

Post by Given_47 »

botanical wrote: post #24
psunavy03 wrote: post #4

I don't see why people are still using 1970s-era IDEs in 2023. Sure, it's a joke that emacs and vim users are at loggerheads, but name me one user of either who isn't a graybeard at this point. And specifically a graybeard who refuses to use more modern tools.

I'm not an old greybeard (in my 20s) and I solely use Emacs. What's "modern tools"? Emacs has everything; with the Language Server Protocol it is exactly like VS Code and the like, with autocomplete, find definitions, native tree-sitter support. It can even read PDFs, images, man/info pages, browse the web. I don't see any advantage that VS Code has over Emacs. PS. Try Doom Emacs and evil-mode: https://github.com/doo…

> browse the web

Been using Vim for a few months now but I was checking out eww the other day (along with learning more about emacs in general) and it’s certainly interesting…

Re: Mastering Emacs

#37

Post by jgilias »

sleiben wrote: post #32

I saw people (in their 30s) using emacs for almost everything. Coding, reading mails, organizing their todos and so on. It was impressive to see their workflow. The only thing which hold me back to really learn it, were the stories about repetitive strain injuries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36718793

Try Doom Emacs and configure it with evil mode (vim keybindings). Presto, problem solved!

Re: Mastering Emacs

#38

Post by globular-toast »

aacid wrote: post #26
fayalalebrun wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in my early 20s and started using Emacs when I was 18. The reason I use Emacs instead of a more "modern" tool is because nothing else comes close in terms of ease of extensibility. I would be interested to hear if you know of any modern editors where extending my editor is as easy as writing one line and running "eval-buffer".

What should I imagine under term "extending"? Is that adding new extensions (like in vscode)? I never felt that this is something I often enough to need quickest possible way to do it. Or do you mean more like changing how editor looks, how many windows/panes/tabs are displayed and where are they displayed?

So your editor works exactly the way you want it to? Just yesterday I made a tiny tweak to a package that I use (doom-modeline). I haven't thought about it enough to make a pull request, so that tweak now lives on my fork on GitHub. It took me all of five minutes to find out where to make the change, have the code open, and the change made, loaded into my running Emacs session and uploaded to GitHub. And bear in mind I'd never looked at the code for doom-modeline before.

Good tools change the way you work because they make certain workflows possible. If it was that easy for you to tweak your editor, you would too.

Re: Mastering Emacs

#39

Post by goku12 »

samuell wrote: post #20

Anybody who read it? Is it any good? (I'm a Vim user, but have sometimes half-pondered the thought of getting into Emacs, (using evil-mode of course), for the org-mode & co)

I'm a regular Emacs user. I haven't read the book, but considered buying it once. The ToC and some intro is given in their books page [1]. I didn't buy it because I was already familiar with most of the things in the ToC. The book would be a good intro for beginners and those who want to do things in pure Emacs fashion. However, if you are also a vim user (like me), you're likely to end up using 'evil' package for vim keybindings. Evil is actually very good at emulating vim features inside Emacs.

Emacs is also extensively documented and highly discoverable - even within Emacs. There is a built-in tutorial (like vimtutor). And once you get past a few lessons using their info pages or website, you will have enough skill to pull up the documentation for all core features. The info pages are often books on their own right.

I personally never felt the need for a book. That said, I do recommend buying the book to support the author. Their articles on the masteringemacs website are pleasant and high quality stuff.

[1] https://www.masteringemacs.org/book

Re: Mastering Emacs

#40

Post by k4r1 »

samuell wrote: post #20

Anybody who read it? Is it any good? (I'm a Vim user, but have sometimes half-pondered the thought of getting into Emacs, (using evil-mode of course), for the org-mode & co)

I'm made the transition from Vim to Emacs. I now primarily use Emacs with Evil mode and still use Vim for quick edits with the Vim configuration as a subset of my Emacs configuration. It's the best of both worlds. The Emacs text editing platform is on another level regarding automation, integration and productivity. I have my own config, but I recommend trying the Doom Emacs configuration system if you want to get up and running quickly.

I have read the book and it is the best Emacs book I know of. Highly recommended.

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