In emacs, you can `C-h` for everything, and this program will always run properly, because you're using functions that are used by emacs internally. You'd have to consult the docs for writing this trivial function in literally any other text editor. "Insert string for the current time formatted like '2:34 PM' or 1507121460" However, after realizing how easy it was to write functions in elisp, I more or less moved all my text / file editing to Emacs, along with most batch functions.įor example, here's a function to insert a formatted date in the current buffer: Depending on what you need, you can be perfectly satisfied with vim and a couple of plugins. Writing functions in lua is fine, but nvim and the like still suffer from being just text editors, and most things that interact with the operating system / syscalls or change/traverse the UI require quite a lot of legwork. You don't get penalized for writing your own functions, they exist at the same rank as what emacs ships with. This makes writing functions an extension of the text editing process itself. There are some primitive functions that written in C that everything builds on top of. Elisp is very well-integrated with the editor itself, because that's what emacs is written in. But over time my workflow fragmented, until the extra effort never made sense, and my emacs setup stopped growing.Ĭopying the setup of somebody who has already invest the time to get everything working together sounds like a nice compromise. When my workflow revolved entirely around emacs, it made sense to make the extra effort. Nowadays, everything I could do in emacs I can do with other freely available software as well, and I have to ask myself whether it makes more sense to invest the time figuring out how to do it in emacs, or to install an easier and more polished special-purpose tool. I don't think that's a wise or attractive route for new emacs users today. The daily effort to do turns you into an emacs master, like turning the wheel of pain turned the boy Conan into a 1970s bodybuilder. Tackle every challenge head-on, and solve them one by one to make emacs do what you need. This is the traditional way to master emacs: by going back and forth between writing your own modifications and struggling to incorporate other people's code. What he means by that is that if you try to configure emacs yourself, without yet being a master, half of the functionality you try to use will be broken, and you'll spend countless hours reading code and figuring out how to fix your broken setup. > Don’t try to be “creative” at this stage. What turned me off of emacs as my daily driver, after using it from college through the first ten years of my career, was the large number of packages that came highly recommended by the community but which were half-baked or required debugging and subtle adjustments to coexist with other packages. Think of it as using a Linux distro instead of building your own Linux from scratch. If you are looking for motivation to learn emacs, watch the short 2 minute demo videos on the Youtube Channel the setup of an emacs guru sounds like a great idea to me. Once you have worked through that textbook, you will find it a piece of cake to study other people's configurations on github and learn more. Mickey walks you chapter by chapter, while you build your own emacs configuration as you learn new things. Trust me, that book is well worth the price tag. In my opinion, as of 2023, the best way to learn emacs the right way is through the textbook 'Mastering Emacs' by Mickey Petersen. every master uses the package smex to remember keybindings Some of the opinions of the author have been stated as facts:. If it happens to be “friendly”, it’s just the coincidence.Īlso, cargo culting everybody to use the Evil mode for Vim bindings in Emacs is also probably bad advice, unless you are teaching emacs to a vim user.Īs a beginner, you are better off starting your emacs config from scratch. I’m NOT saying the master’s setup is “newbieįriendly”. When I say “on the shoulders of giants”, I’m stressing that you need I’m lucky to stick to his setup because pullingįrom his git branch gets me updated with the latest cool things in Since Steve Purcell loves new technologies and update his setupįrequently, it may be a little harder to follow him for beginners.
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