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OK, so somebody had to ask...
What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
(I mean, aside from the obvious fact that "Emacs" is actually just a
Lisp interpretter that defaults to running a text editor application
written in Lisp...)
Presumably there is a way of making Emacs read the content of a text
file, use the various keys on the keyboard to edit that text, and save
the result. But hey, Notepad can do that too! So what is it that Emacs
does that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?
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Invisible wrote:
> OK, so somebody had to ask...
>
> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
>
> (I mean, aside from the obvious fact that "Emacs" is actually just a
> Lisp interpretter that defaults to running a text editor application
> written in Lisp...)
>
> Presumably there is a way of making Emacs read the content of a text
> file, use the various keys on the keyboard to edit that text, and save
> the result. But hey, Notepad can do that too! So what is it that Emacs
> does that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?
Customizable
Extensible/Programmable
Ported to many platforms
Internationalization
Runs in both text terminals and GUI environments
Many editing modes
Self documenting with built in tutorial
Detailed and well written manulas
Free and open source
AFAIK notepad is/has none of the above.
Try it for a while - and I bet you won't regret it.
--
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com
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My editor of choice is currently SciTE, so let's see how it compares
against this checklist...
> Customizable
Check. (If only it didn't take so damned long to configure each time you
install it...)
> Extensible/Programmable
Well, not so much. You can reprogram the syntax hilighting to handle
some unknown language if it matches a known one closely enough. And you
can program it to run external commands for you (e.g., compile my
program, run this through LaTeX, open XDVI...)
> Ported to many platforms
SciTE runs on both Windows and Linux, and that's all I need.
> Internationalization
Not important to me.
> Runs in both text terminals and GUI environments
Could be useful...
> Many editing modes
...and?
> Self documenting with built in tutorial
> Detailed and well written manuals
Nice, but secondary. It's good to know a tool is easy to learn, but the
question is whether it's *worth* learning in the first place.
> Free and open source
As is SciTE.
> AFAIK notepad is/has none of the above.
Agreed. Notepad fails in many, many basic ways. But SciTE is quite nice
in general.
On the other hand, nobody rants on about how amazing SciTE is, but Emacs
is considered the One True Editor. I'm just trying to figure out why -
and if it's worth trying to use it.
> Try it for a while - and I bet you won't regret it.
Well, I don't know. IIRC, last time I tried to use it, I had to reboot
the computer to exit it.
(Of course, had I known about virtual terminals back then, I could have
just killed it from another vterm... Presumably on Windows it would be
even simpler.)
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> My editor of choice is currently SciTE, so let's see how it compares
> against this checklist...
Mine is TextPad, suits the job nicely for me, I especially like the tabbed
browsing through documents similar to a lot of modern software.
http://www.textpad.com/products/textpad/features.html
> On the other hand, nobody rants on about how amazing SciTE is, but Emacs
> is considered the One True Editor. I'm just trying to figure out why -
I've not heard this anywhere, every time I've heard emacs mentioned it is
usually in a bad way. Even my 2 friends at Universtiy who were totally into
Linux stuff laughed when we were told to use emacs in one of our practical
lessons, and proceeded to use something else (I forget what).
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> OK, so somebody had to ask...
>
> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
I'm into vi myself, so I'll take your question to mean, "Why would you need
something other than Notepad anyway?" Really? I mean, really? No, seriously?
Are you referring to something like Notepad++ or just Notepad? If you know a
good editor well, you can work about as fast as you can think. Based on my
experience, I'd compare it to the difference between Dvorak typing and the
two-finger method.
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/index.html
http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_toc.html
- Ricky
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triple_r wrote:
> I'm into vi myself, so I'll take your question to mean, "Why would you need
> something other than Notepad anyway?" Really? I mean, really? No, seriously?
Well, I actually use SciTE myself - but nobody has ever heard of that.
Yes, Notepad sucks. Massively. It fails at the most basic tasks. Then
again, if all you need to do is quickly edit some INI file somewhere,
Notepad can usually manage that, and it's always available. If you want
to do anything more, get a real editor.
> If you know a good editor well, you can work about as fast as you can think.
I'm just curios to know what makes people think that Emacs (or Vi for
that matter) is a good editor. I mean, SciTE has configurability, syntax
hilighting and the ability to invoke external commands, but nobody
thinks it's a good text editor. So what do Emacs and Vi have that SciTE
doesn't?
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Invisible wrote:
> Yes, Notepad sucks. Massively. It fails at the most basic tasks. Then
> again, if all you need to do is quickly edit some INI file somewhere,
> Notepad can usually manage that, and it's always available. If you want
> to do anything more, get a real editor.
I avoid Notepad like the black plague. I use Notepad2, which is also
scintilla-based, free, and has basic syntax highlighting.
Strangely, I like the SDI interface it provides. It's lightweight, but
at the same time much more powerful than notepad.
>
> I'm just curios to know what makes people think that Emacs (or Vi for
> that matter) is a good editor. I mean, SciTE has configurability, syntax
> hilighting and the ability to invoke external commands, but nobody
> thinks it's a good text editor. So what do Emacs and Vi have that SciTE
> doesn't?
I tried Emacs under Windows once. I gave up on it. Vi is something I'd
rather forget.
--
~Mike
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>> Yes, Notepad sucks. Massively. It fails at the most basic tasks. Then
>> again, if all you need to do is quickly edit some INI file somewhere,
>> Notepad can usually manage that, and it's always available. If you
>> want to do anything more, get a real editor.
>
> I avoid Notepad like the black plague.
Like I said, you can edit text with it, and every Windows PC has it
installed. That's all it has going for it. If you want to do more than
quickly edit one line of text, get a real editor.
> I use Notepad2, which is also
> scintilla-based, free, and has basic syntax highlighting.
I use SciTE, which is also Scintilla-based and does syntax hilighting.
(And XML tag completion, if you can remember how to enable it...)
Also, you can use it without having to "install" anything. Just
download, unzip, and go. (Well... spend 3 days customising and *then* go.)
> I tried Emacs under Windows once. I gave up on it. Vi is something I'd
> rather forget.
A glowing recommendation if ever I saw one...
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Well, I actually use SciTE myself - but nobody has ever heard of that.
Thanks for clarifying. You're right that I've never heard of it, but my basic
answer would then be: If you think there's enough room for improvement in what
you currently use, or you're not sure what the hype is about, learn it. Don't
just give it the old college try and give up though; give it a week or two and
see. That sounds easy enough to say, so to be fair, I'm officially going
cold-turkey on vi. The only vi command the guy I work for knows is ":q!", and
the only Emacs command I know is C-x C-c. It makes for endless frustration.
It's Emacs or nothing from here on in.
- Ricky
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Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
> I tried Emacs under Windows once. I gave up on it. Vi is something I'd
> rather forget.
Don't worry. I won't evangelize, but the word 'once' is clearly the problem, as
in, "I tried running once, but I didn't win, so I gave up."
- Ricky
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Invisible wrote:
> Also, you can use it without having to "install" anything. Just
> download, unzip, and go. (Well... spend 3 days customising and *then* go.)
Yep, Notepad2 is the same way. Like I said.. very lightweight...
--
~Mike
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triple_r wrote:
>
> Don't worry. I won't evangelize, but the word 'once' is clearly the problem, as
> in, "I tried running once, but I didn't win, so I gave up."
>
Once was enough :D
--
~Mike
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Invisible wrote:
>> Extensible/Programmable
>
> Well, not so much. You can reprogram the syntax hilighting to handle
> some unknown language if it matches a known one closely enough. And you
Eh? Why does it have to match a known one close enough?
Don't knock the Lisp interpretor aspect. A lot of cool apps have been
written for Emacs, and they're designed to interoperate well. I've just
been reading the gnus manual (runs in emacs), and was somewhat blown
away by it. I've been using mutt all these years and am tired of its
lack in certain features. It's easier to write Lisp rules to do what I
need than to go through C/C++ source code and recompile.
But I can't answer your question thoroughly, as I'm not yet a heavy
emacs user.
--
What do fish say when they hit a concrete wall? Dam!
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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>>> Extensible/Programmable
>> Well, not so much. You can reprogram the syntax hilighting to handle
>> some unknown language if it matches a known one closely enough. And you
>
> Eh? Why does it have to match a known one close enough?
I'm talking about SciTE, not Emacs. SciTE can hilight any language that
matches a supported one closely enough. Emacs, presumably, can hilight
absolutely anything.
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My God... The Windows native port is a 37 MB download! O_O
*dies*
I thought SciTE was bad for taking almost 2 MB, but 37 MB for a mere
text editor?
But of course, a cursory inspection of the online Emacs tutorial quickly
reveals that Emacs is not, in fact, a text editor. It's a replacement
operating system. (But one which is none the less only compatible with
Unix.)
Not content with merely being a text editor, it also tries to be a
newsreader, web browser, file manager, calendar, and even a Tetris
clone. Unfortunately, from the screenshots I've seen, it does none of
these things very well.
(People may complain that SciTE is primitive, but at least it can manage
ANTIALIASED TEXT. :-P Emacs just looks like an ancient console app
grafted to look superficially like a modern program...)
Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
mean? What the heck is a "meta key"? Why are cut and past called kill
and yank? The list of questions goes on and on.
Having used FractInt, I know that a text interface *can* be quite
efficient. But only after decades of use. FractInt, of course, tells you
at almost every step what keys are available. Emacs does not.
In spite of the hiddeous UI and cryptic controls, I might almost have
tried Emacs if it wasn't for the huge size of the download. Clearly I'm
going to have to wait until I get home to try it out - if I bother at all...
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I thought SciTE was bad for taking almost 2 MB, but 37 MB for a mere
> text editor?
http://www.informatimago.com/linux/emacs-on-user-mode-linux.html
> Having used FractInt, I know that a text interface *can* be quite
> efficient. But only after decades of use. FractInt, of course, tells you
> at almost every step what keys are available. Emacs does not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
(Not that I disagree with you, only that you shouldn't judge too prematurely.)
- Ricky
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>> I thought SciTE was bad for taking almost 2 MB, but 37 MB for a mere
>> text editor?
>
> http://www.informatimago.com/linux/emacs-on-user-mode-linux.html
Ah yes. If you can think of something crazy, somebody on the Internt
will have done it. ;-)
>> Having used FractInt, I know that a text interface *can* be quite
>> efficient. But only after decades of use. FractInt, of course, tells you
>> at almost every step what keys are available. Emacs does not.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
>
> (Not that I disagree with you, only that you shouldn't judge too prematurely.)
Well, it does seem to have a few nice ideas. Stuff like marking
locations in the text so you can return to them, inactivating parts of
the document you don't want to work on right now, having a delete
command that cuts rather than deleting, and multiple paste buffers.
The trouble is, the UI looks horrid, and the program is too complicated
to use.
But hey, lots of people claim it's the most powerful editor ever
written, and I'm just trying to understand why. So far I haven't seen
anything really revolutionary.
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> Don't worry. I won't evangelize, but the word 'once' is clearly the
> problem, as
> in, "I tried running once, but I didn't win, so I gave up."
Why bother when there are easier programs to learn? Get a proper
Windows-based text editor that follows the MS style guidelines (ie not one
that has been "ported" from Linux) and all menus and keyboard shortcuts will
be totally familiar and require no learning at all to get started.
Really, I wish MS would ban software that doesn't at least use the standard
font, menus, toolbars, dialogs etc.
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scott wrote:
>> Don't worry. I won't evangelize, but the word 'once' is clearly the
>> problem, as
>> in, "I tried running once, but I didn't win, so I gave up."
>
> Why bother when there are easier programs to learn? Get a proper
> Windows-based text editor that follows the MS style guidelines (ie not
> one that has been "ported" from Linux) and all menus and keyboard
> shortcuts will be totally familiar and require no learning at all to get
> started.
>
> Really, I wish MS would ban software that doesn't at least use the
> standard font, menus, toolbars, dialogs etc.
On the other hand, if you've been using Emacs for centuries, having it
suddenly work all differently just becuase it's on Windows is likely to
be mighty frustrating.
The really Fun Stuff is things like ported Linux programs that assume
that your shell is named /bin/sh and so on. (The Emacs FAQ says that if
you try to open a shell using Emacs on Windows, it bombs for this very
reason.) Really, Windows is very, *very* different to Unix, and just
recompiling the source code is insufficient to fix that.
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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> Really, I wish MS would ban software that doesn't at least use the standard
> font, menus, toolbars, dialogs etc.
So in your opinion people who have been using emacs in a unix system
for 20 years have no right to use the same software in the exact same
way in Windows?
Btw, saying "I tried emacs once and gave up" is exactly as stupid as
saying "I tried povray once and gave up".
--
- Warp
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Presumably there is a way of making Emacs read the content of a text
> file, use the various keys on the keyboard to edit that text, and save
> the result. But hey, Notepad can do that too! So what is it that Emacs
> does that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?
Can notepad automatically color your code? Can it autoindent your code?
Can you perform a search&replace using a regexp? Can you hex-edit a binary
file (with a typical hex editor layout)? Can you convert between DOS and
UNIX newlines?
Can you configure a key combination to scroll the view one line at a
time while keeping the cursor visually in place, and another key
combination to scroll the view one line at a time while keeping the
cursor in its current line in the text? Can you configure a key combination
to insert a binary file at the cursor position uuencoded?
Does notepad support versioning (eg. with git or svn)?
How many operating systems has notepad been ported to?
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Btw, saying "I tried emacs once and gave up" is exactly as stupid as
> saying "I tried povray once and gave up".
I had a friend once that said just that, when I suggested POV-Ray.. He
just wanted to make neat images, not code :)
I don't remember what purpose I wanted to fulfill with emacs, but it was
hardly a thing of beauty. Probably because it was shoehorned on the
Windows platform, and I've only been a Windows/DOS user.
I tried it, and I didn't like it.
--
~Mike
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Invisible wrote:
> My God... The Windows native port is a 37 MB download! O_O
They have a Windows port?
Emacs is great on UNIX. On other OS's - no idea.
> Not content with merely being a text editor, it also tries to be a
> newsreader, web browser, file manager, calendar, and even a Tetris
> clone. Unfortunately, from the screenshots I've seen, it does none of
> these things very well.
Know a better newsreader than gnus? Or for that matter, even a mail
reader better than gnus and/or VM?
> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
> mean? What the heck is a "meta key"? Why are cut and past called kill
> and yank? The list of questions goes on and on.
I believe it means to do C-f many, many times. Don't know for sure as
I'm not (yet) a real emacs user.
Meta key is a key your keyboard lacks. On many keyboards, Alt works as
a suitable replacement. Barring that, hitting and releasing Esc should
work.
As for kill and yank, do realize that Emacs is old. I'm not sure cut
and paste was common editor parlance in those days.
> In spite of the hiddeous UI and cryptic controls, I might almost have
> tried Emacs if it wasn't for the huge size of the download. Clearly I'm
> going to have to wait until I get home to try it out - if I bother at
> all...
My experience with emacs is that the best (and perhaps only) way to
learn it is to go cold turkey on it (or rather, on everything else) for
a while. I _didn't_ do that when I tried learning it years ago, which is
why I never properly learned it (other than the very basics).
Most of my coding experience was in IDE's. I'm tired of them now. Even
worse is when you want to code in some language that doesn't have an
IDE. My first impulse was to actually learn SciTe. But I then just
figure I may as well go all the way into emacs (especially given that
I'm tired of mutt and gnus or VM may do a better job for me). I dug up
my copy of the Emacs book (O'Reilly) and read through it a few weeks
ago. It's mind boggling, but I have no idea how it compares to SciTe.
My goal is not to be a casual user, but somewhat of a power user. If I
want to do anything, I should know it well enough to do it if Emacs
provides native capabilities, or to extend it with Lisp.
Step 1: Set my default editor in mutt to be emacs.
Step 2: Try to start using emacs for HTML, Javascript, Python and LaTeX
docs.
Step 3: Switch to gnus and use it for email and these newsgroups.
No idea when I'll start Step 1.<G>
--
A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> How many operating systems has notepad been ported to?
It could probably be ported to the Emacs OS. It wouldn't be the first:
http://billharlan.com/pub/emacs/
- Ricky
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Invisible escreveu:
> My editor of choice is currently SciTE, so let's see how it compares
> against this checklist...
>
>> Extensible/Programmable
>
> Well, not so much. You can reprogram the syntax hilighting to handle
> some unknown language if it matches a known one closely enough. And you
> can program it to run external commands for you (e.g., compile my
> program, run this through LaTeX, open XDVI...)
Emacs is so friggin' extensible/programmable that what once was just a
handy set of macros for text editing turned out as a software
application platform far before there were things like Eclipse or
Mozilla XPCOM. There are file browsers, newsclients, web browsers, cvs
clients and whatever funky stuff you can think of has already been
written for and is running on Emacs. You may try alt+x, doctor. ;)
>> Ported to many platforms
>
> SciTE runs on both Windows and Linux, and that's all I need.
Ah, yes, the old and tired it-fits-my-purpose argument. Aunt Jemima
pulls it around everytime to show how Notepad is just the same as Emacs
or vim.
>> Internationalization
>
> Not important to me.
Yeah, surely not important at all, except perhaps for the 3 billions of
Indians and Chinese plus another billions of people who don't speak English.
>> Many editing modes
>
> ...and?
Well, for once it means you may edit Haskell with far more ease than
with simple syntax highlighting. If you RTFM for that mode, that is.
>> Self documenting with built in tutorial
>> Detailed and well written manuals
>
> Nice, but secondary. It's good to know a tool is easy to learn, but the
> question is whether it's *worth* learning in the first place.
When you finally see the light and understand it's well worth, it's
there for you and you won't bother to bash yet another open-source
project for lack of documentation.
>> AFAIK notepad is/has none of the above.
>
> Agreed. Notepad fails in many, many basic ways. But SciTE is quite nice
> in general.
Yes, SciTE is a wonderful editor. Even being a helluva less powerful
than emacs or vim.
> On the other hand, nobody rants on about how amazing SciTE is, but Emacs
> is considered the One True Editor. I'm just trying to figure out why -
> and if it's worth trying to use it.
It's worth learning for no other reason than most open-source language
implementations out there have at the very least a very handy
language-mode available for Emacs which quickly turn it into a quite
featureful customized IDE for said language. Just name it: haskell,
ocaml, Erlang, Oz etc. And I don't mean just simple syntax highlight --
any shitty editor these days get that, except notepad sure.
Command-completion, integration with the language compiler, debuggers etc.
Then, there are also incredibly powerful and handy general purpose text
editing features that once you learn to use you'll ask yourself how
you've lost so many unproductive years of your life in lesser editors.
Like copy-paste cyclic buffer, keyboard macros for performing repetitive
tasks, quick jumping between visited points in the text (like automatic
bookmarks everytime you jump around in the text), sessions, editor
customized to suit language needs and many others. SciTE (or kate)
simply still not there at all.
Couple emacs and vim with exuberant-ctags (an external tool supporting
many languages) and you turn your text editor into an almost as good IDE
for handling large projects and many files.
First thing to do either in emacs or vim is to run the interactive
tutorials. In about 30 minutes, it'll cover the basics and give you a
good overall sense of what it is and how to use the powerful tool.
Then, getting help on specific subjects of current interest.
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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scott escreveu:
> Really, I wish MS would ban software that doesn't at least use the
> standard font, menus, toolbars, dialogs etc.
Emacs and vi were around long before Microsoft began selling DOS. Their
standards are as valid in their context as Microsoft's in their
products. They won't change their way to do their stuff just because
there's a new kid in town. More likely they will thin out and die
before going that route.
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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Invisible escreveu:
> My God... The Windows native port is a 37 MB download! O_O
>
> *dies*
>
> I thought SciTE was bad for taking almost 2 MB, but 37 MB for a mere
> text editor?
That's a problem with someone who thinks a mere text editor should be
considered featureful if it provides syntax highlighting. Emacs/vi +
Unix command-line is pretty much a textual IDE, not mere editor -- the
size is even light in the face of graphical IDEs. Plus the editor
component is far more featureful than most IDE's editing component.
> Not content with merely being a text editor, it also tries to be a
> newsreader, web browser, file manager, calendar, and even a Tetris
> clone. Unfortunately, from the screenshots I've seen, it does none of
> these things very well.
Screenshots don't show functionality.
> (People may complain that SciTE is primitive, but at least it can manage
> ANTIALIASED TEXT. :-P Emacs just looks like an ancient console app
> grafted to look superficially like a modern program...)
Emacs/Unix looks ugly and performs like an athlete. Notepad/Windows
looks shiny and performs like a snail. Hey, if you get a Mac you can
have awesome visuals + Unix featureful command-line apps. Best of 2
worlds! :-D
> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
> mean? What the heck is a "meta key"? Why are cut and past called kill
> and yank? The list of questions goes on and on.
RTFM?
C-u 10 (do next command 10 times)
C-f (moves the text cursor (f)orward by 1 char)
You'll move your cursor forward by 10 chars. That's another thing I
enjoy in more featureful editors: simple repetition and far better
units of motion than just char, word, line or page. Both vim and emacs
also allow for moving by sentences and paragraphs/blocks of text. What
about easy hierachical editing by moving up and down, into and out of
scope blocks in programming languages?
Hmm, I think I've made my case for these features here before and didn't
make your mind then, won't be trying it again... you should try to learn
and actually practice it to see what you was losing all these years
rather than ask for features and then just rebating and turning such
features down on such silly arguments as beauty or other non-sense.
Looks alone don't mean squat for powerful text editing.
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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Invisible wrote:
> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
> mean? What the heck is a "meta key"? Why are cut and past called kill
> and yank? The list of questions goes on and on.
which does which? Kill I imagine deletes the text. Yank I guess is
similar to a copy then delete operation.
I'm sure there's a way to remap keyboard operations.
--
~Mike
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Btw, one problem with emacs is that its default configuration is a bit...
foreign to anybody who has used any other (usually Windows) text editors.
Also be default it doesn't have all the useful bells and whistles (such as
code coloring) turned to maximum, which makes it feel more ascetic than it
really is.
Anyone trying emacs should use a .emacs configuration file like mine
(which I have developed during over 10 years). It makes things a bit easier
especially for the Windows users (with things like selecting text with
shift+cursor movement, copy it with ctrl+insert, paste it shift+insert,
and so on).
(Some of the stuff has been added by emacs itself.)
In Windows you can put the .emacs in the C root directory (I don't know
if current emacs supports it somewhere else as well).
;--------------------------------------------------------------------------
;;; This line adds a LOT of stuff. Among other things it adds
;;; shift+cursor movement selection, ctrl-ins copying, shift-ins pasting, etc.
(pc-selection-mode)
;;; Show also column number besides line number:
(column-number-mode t)
;;; Doesn't add new lines at the end of the doc when cursor is there and
;;; cursor down is pressed:
(setq next-line-add-newlines nil)
;;; Don't create backup files:
(setq auto-save-default nil)
;;; Scroll one line at a time, not half-page:
(setq scroll-step 1)
;;; Colors:
(set-background-color "black")
(set-foreground-color "white")
;(set-face-background 'default "black")
;(set-face-foreground 'default "white")
(set-cursor-color "yellow")
;(standard-display-european t)
;(set-input-mode (car (current-input-mode))
; (nth 1 (current-input-mode))
; 0)
(set-input-mode 't 'nil 'foo)
;;; Fix home, end and delete to work as they should:
(global-set-key '[home] 'beginning-of-line)
(global-set-key '[end] 'end-of-line)
;(global-set-key '[delete] 'delete-char)
;;; Use ctrl-y to kill a line immediately. Much handier than ctrl-k
(global-set-key "\C-y" 'kill-complete-line)
(global-set-key "\C-u" 'yank)
;;; Other key settings:
(global-set-key [(alt x)] 'save-buffers-kill-emacs)
(global-set-key [(alt f3)] 'delete-window)
(global-set-key '[f2] 'save-buffer)
(global-set-key '[f9] 'compile)
(global-set-key '[(control c) (control r)] 'font-lock-fontify-buffer)
(global-set-key "\C-r" 'insert-file)
;;; Fix bacspace to delete characters instead of popping up the help.
;;; To pop up the help, press F1.
;(global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char)
;;; Misc settings:
(auto-fill-mode)
(defun kill-complete-line ()
"Kill the complete line."
(interactive)
(beginning-of-line)
(if (eobp) (error "End of buffer"))
(let ((beg (point)))
(forward-line 1)
(kill-region beg (point))))
(setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t)
(global-font-lock-mode t)
(setq backup-inhibited 't)
;; Options Menu Settings
;; =====================
(cond
((and (string-match "XEmacs" emacs-version)
(boundp 'emacs-major-version)
(or (and
(= emacs-major-version 19)
(>= emacs-minor-version 14))
(= emacs-major-version 20))
(fboundp 'load-options-file))
(load-options-file "/home/warp/.xemacs-options")))
;; ============================
;; End of Options Menu Settings
;;; Misc help functions:
(defun contents-move (dir checkpoint)
(let ((oldColumn (current-column)))
(if (not (pos-visible-in-window-p checkpoint))
((lambda ()
(save-excursion
(goto-char (window-start))
(forward-line dir)
(set-window-start (selected-window) (point))))))
(forward-line dir)
(move-to-column oldColumn)))
(defun contents-one-down ()
(interactive)
(contents-move -1 (point-min)))
(defun contents-one-up ()
(interactive)
(contents-move 1 (point-max)))
(defun generic-page-scroll (lines)
(let ((oldColumn (current-column)))
(save-excursion
(goto-char (window-start))
(forward-line lines)
(set-window-start (selected-window) (point)))
(forward-line lines)
(move-to-column oldColumn)))
(defun page-scroll-up ()
(interactive)
(if (not (pos-visible-in-window-p (point-max)))
(generic-page-scroll (- (1- (window-height)) next-screen-context-lines))
(goto-char (point-max))))
(defun page-scroll-down ()
(interactive)
(if (not (pos-visible-in-window-p (point-min)))
(generic-page-scroll (- next-screen-context-lines (1- (window-height))))
(goto-char (point-min))))
(defun contents-one-down-no-cursor-move ()
(interactive)
(scroll-down 1))
(defun contents-one-up-no-cursor-move ()
(interactive)
(scroll-up 1))
;;; Use ctrl-up and ctrl-down to scroll:
(global-set-key '[(control up)] 'contents-one-down)
(global-set-key '[(control down)] 'contents-one-up)
(global-set-key '[(meta up)] 'contents-one-down-no-cursor-move)
(global-set-key '[(meta down)] 'contents-one-up-no-cursor-move)
;;; Fix page up and page down to work as they should:
(global-set-key '[next] 'page-scroll-up)
(global-set-key '[prior] 'page-scroll-down)
;; POV-Ray related stuff
;; =====================
(autoload 'pov-mode "/home/warp/software/pov-mode.elc" "PoVray scene file mode" t)
(setq auto-mode-alist
(append '(("\\.pov$" . pov-mode)
("\\.inc$" . pov-mode)
("\\.mcr$" . pov-mode))
auto-mode-alist))
(add-hook 'pov-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
;; PHP related stuff
;; =================
(autoload 'php-mode "/home/warp/software/php-mode.elc" "PHP mode" t)
(setq auto-mode-alist
(append '(("\\.php$" . php-mode))
auto-mode-alist))
(add-hook 'php-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
;; Lua related stuff
;; =================
(autoload 'lua-mode "/home/warp/software/lua-mode.elc" "Lua editing mode." t)
(setq auto-mode-alist (append '(("\\.lua$" . lua-mode)) auto-mode-alist))
(add-hook 'lua-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
;;; Insert file at the current position uuencoded with ctrl-c-u
(defun insert-file-uuencoded (filename)
(interactive "fInsert file (uuencoded): ")
(shell-command (concat "uuenview -u " filename) t)
)
(global-set-key [(control c) (control u)] 'insert-file-uuencoded)
;;; Kill all whitespace chars forward from cursor with ctrl-t
(defun kill-white-space()
(interactive)
(if (re-search-forward "\\(\\s-\\|\n\\)+" nil t)
(replace-match "")))
(global-set-key '[(control t)] 'kill-white-space)
;Color settings
(custom-set-variables
;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
'(case-fold-search t)
'(current-language-environment "Latin-1")
'(default-input-method "latin-1-prefix")
'(delete-selection-mode t)
'(global-font-lock-mode t nil (font-lock))
'(inhibit-startup-screen t)
'(lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly nil)
'(mode-require-final-newline nil)
'(require-final-newline nil)
'(scroll-bar-mode (quote right))
'(show-trailing-whitespace t)
'(transient-mark-mode t))
(custom-set-faces
;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
'(default ((t (:foreground "white" :background "black"))))
'(font-lock-builtin-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground "Green"))))
'(font-lock-comment-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground
"ForestGreen"))))
'(font-lock-constant-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground
"GreenYellow"))))
'(font-lock-function-name-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground
"Coral"))))
'(font-lock-keyword-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground
"Yellow"))))
'(font-lock-string-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground
"Magenta"))))
'(font-lock-type-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground "#40A0FF"))))
'(font-lock-variable-name-face ((((class color) (background dark)) (:foreground
"thistle"))))
'(mode-line ((t (:foreground "yellow" :background "Blue"))))
'(region ((t (:foreground "black" :background "#99CCFF"))))
'(trailing-whitespace ((((class color) (background dark)) (:background "blue"))))
'(xxml-emph-1-face ((t (:background "black" :foreground "black" :slant italic))))
'(xxml-emph-2-face ((t (:stipple nil :background "lightyellow" :foreground "black"
:inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant
normal :weight normal :height 129 :width normal :family "misc-fixed"))))
'(xxml-header-1-face ((t (:background "seashell1" :foreground "black" :weight
bold))))
'(xxml-header-2-face ((t (:background "seashell1" :foreground "black" :slant italic
:weight bold))))
'(xxml-header-3-face ((t (:background "seashell1" :foreground "black" :slant
italic))))
'(xxml-header-4-face ((t (:stipple nil :background "seashell1" :foreground "black"
:inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant
normal :weight normal :height 129 :width normal :family "misc-fixed"))))
'(xxml-interaction-face ((t (:stipple nil :background "lightcyan" :foreground "black"
:inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant
normal :weight normal :height 129 :width normal :family "misc-fixed"))))
'(xxml-rug-face ((t (:stipple nil :background "cyan" :foreground "black"
:inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant
normal :weight normal :height 129 :width normal :family "misc-fixed"))))
'(xxml-sparkle-face ((t (:stipple nil :background "yellow" :foreground "black"
:inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant
normal :weight normal :height 129 :width normal :family "misc-fixed")))))
;;; C indentation settings
(defun oma-c-mode-common-hook ()
(interactive)
(setq c-basic-offset 4)
(c-set-offset 'substatement-open 0)
(c-set-offset 'case-label 2)
(c-set-offset 'block-open 0)
(c-set-offset 'brace-list-open 0)
(c-set-offset 'knr-argdecl-intro '-)
(c-set-offset 'arglist-close 'c-lineup-arglist)
(c-set-offset 'access-label -3)
(c-set-offset 'inclass 4)
(c-set-offset 'inline-open 0)
(setq tab-width 8
;; this will make sure spaces are used instead of tabs
indent-tabs-mode nil)
)
(add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'oma-c-mode-common-hook)
;(require 'tex-site)
;(require 'TVT-c-style "~/project/tvt/Style/Emacs/tyyli.el")
(tool-bar-mode)
(set-default-font "10x20")
;--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:49e46838$1@news.povray.org...
> OK, so somebody had to ask...
Not really.
> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
Lots. But its household name is historical, goes back to the dark ages of
computing. There are dozens of quite decent free text editors nowadays (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_text_editors ).
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Mike Raiford escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
>
>> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
>> mean? What the heck is a "meta key"? Why are cut and past called kill
>> and yank? The list of questions goes on and on.
>
> which does which? Kill I imagine deletes the text. Yank I guess is
> similar to a copy then delete operation.
>
> I'm sure there's a way to remap keyboard operations.
Well, right arrow and Ctrl+right arrow already do the same as Ctrl+f and
Alt+f for those people who enjoy getting their hands away from editing
keys once in a while. But what I truly wonder is what standard
Microsoft keyboard mapping will you map the move-by-sentence and
move-by-paragraph with among many others...
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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heh, nothing like seeing someone learning a bit of Lisp. ;)
BTW, elisp is kinda meh... :P
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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Warp wrote:
> Can notepad automatically color your code? Can it autoindent your code?
> Can you perform a search&replace using a regexp? Can you hex-edit a binary
> file (with a typical hex editor layout)? Can you convert between DOS and
> UNIX newlines?
>
> Can you configure a key combination to scroll the view one line at a
> time while keeping the cursor visually in place, and another key
> combination to scroll the view one line at a time while keeping the
> cursor in its current line in the text? Can you configure a key combination
> to insert a binary file at the cursor position uuencoded?
>
> Does notepad support versioning (eg. with git or svn)?
>
> How many operating systems has notepad been ported to?
OK, so nobody is _seriously_ suggesting that Notepad is a good text
editor. But, for example, SciTE quite happily syntax hilights code,
autoindents it, closes XML tags for you, does search and replace,
converts between DOS and UNIX newlines, and has a bazillion
configuration options. It can also call external compilers and viewers
and so forth.
It's true that SciTE doesn't allow configuration down to the level that
Emacs evidently does. (E.g., you can't *arbitrarily* remap keys. You
can't build whole new syntax hilighting rules, only tweak existing ones.
Etc.)
My goal here is not really to prove that Notepad is better than Emacs -
Notepad is obviously inferior to just about every editor known to man.
I'm just trying to find out what Emacs users consider to be its strengths.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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nemesis wrote:
> heh, nothing like seeing someone learning a bit of Lisp. ;)
>
> BTW, elisp is kinda meh... :P
You thank elisp is bad - try looking at VBA! o_O
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Notepad is obviously inferior to just about every editor known to man.
You have clearly never used edlin.
--
- Warp
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Warp escreveu:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Notepad is obviously inferior to just about every editor known to man.
>
> You have clearly never used edlin.
>
ed is the standard editor, man. man ed.
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Notepad is obviously inferior to just about every editor known to man.
>
> You have clearly never used edlin.
edlin at least is programmable. ;-)
(I'm pretty sure I recall seeing shell scripts that generate edlin
scripts that do useful stuff. Notepad would be useless here.)
But yes, I take your point. Indeed, I almost mentioned it in my original
post...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:40:54 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> So what is it that Emacs does
> that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?
emacs is a religion. Notepad isn't.
Jim
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somebody wrote:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
>> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
>> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
>
> Lots. But its household name is historical, goes back to the dark ages of
> computing. There are dozens of quite decent free text editors nowadays (see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_text_editors ).
Decent is not enough when you're used to the best. ;)
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:40:54 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>> So what is it that Emacs does
>> that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?
>
> emacs is a religion. Notepad isn't.
Yes, emacs can move mountains. ;)
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> My goal here is not really to prove that Notepad is better than Emacs -
> Notepad is obviously inferior to just about every editor known to man.
Yeah. It sucked when Notepad took the market away from EDLIN.
--
Nick Mackey saying hello.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Notepad is obviously inferior to just about every editor known to man.
>
> You have clearly never used edlin.
Darn - beat me to it!
--
Nick Mackey saying hello.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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nemesis wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:40:54 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> So what is it that Emacs does
>>> that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?
>>
>> emacs is a religion. Notepad isn't.
>
> Yes, emacs can move mountains. ;)
M-x translate-mountain
--
Nick Mackey saying hello.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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> So in your opinion people who have been using emacs in a unix system
> for 20 years have no right to use the same software in the exact same
> way in Windows?
A simple option to choose between Windows and traditional Unix interfaces
would suffice (the default of course being Windows so that new users don't
get scared off).
Anyway, Windows is not Unix, if you port a program from another platform to
Windows you should at least have to use the standard Windows GUI controls
and keyboard shortcuts. One thing that is good about *most* Windows apps is
that they all work the same way, Ctrl-C is copy, Ctrl-S is save, they all
use the same Windows dialog boxes, that makes it *easy* to learn and use.
Programs that deliberately don't conform to these standards are just
shooting themselves in the foot because users won't like them.
Look at how many people complain about the UI of Blender and what a steep
learning curve it has. Do you think it would be as bad if the Windows
version actually looked and behaved like a proper Windows application?
Pressing Space to get the context menu and right button to select, using
some file open/save mechanism from the DOS ages, using Ctrl-W to save, WTF
is that about? - it's a horrendous application running on Windows in terms
of the UI.
> Btw, saying "I tried emacs once and gave up" is exactly as stupid as
> saying "I tried povray once and gave up".
I think it's the expectation thing, you don't expect to be able to load up a
script-based ray tracer and just get it to work on your first try with no
documentation. A text editor however, you expect to be able to type stuff,
copy & paste, load save etc without having to read any documentation because
there are OS standardised ways for that stuff for a reason.
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>> Really, I wish MS would ban software that doesn't at least use the
>> standard font, menus, toolbars, dialogs etc.
>
> Emacs and vi were around long before Microsoft began selling DOS. Their
> standards are as valid in their context as Microsoft's in their products.
Sure, but if you write or port a program to run under windows it should
follow at least some basic style guidelines. IIRC they are on the MS
website somewhere under their "logo program". It makes life easier for
everyone using that OS, rather than ending up with a mish-mash of programs
all doing everything their own way.
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>> My God... The Windows native port is a 37 MB download! O_O
>
> They have a Windows port?
It's GNU software. They quite often have Windows ports. Some of them
don't even require an emulator.
>> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
>> mean?
>
> I believe it means to do C-f many, many times. Don't know for sure as
> I'm not (yet) a real emacs user.
No no, I mean... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What keys is it actually talking
about?
> As for kill and yank, do realize that Emacs is old. I'm not sure cut
> and paste was common editor parlance in those days.
Fair enough. But... pretty strange choice of terms, even if nothing
existed before.
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>> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
>> mean? What the heck is a "meta key"? Why are cut and past called kill
>> and yank? The list of questions goes on and on.
>
> which does which? Kill I imagine deletes the text. Yank I guess is
> similar to a copy then delete operation.
Actually, it appears that kill = cut and yank = paste. (WTF?)
> I'm sure there's a way to remap keyboard operations.
I'm pretty sure you're right.
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>> My God... The Windows native port is a 37 MB download! O_O
>>
>> *dies*
>>
>> I thought SciTE was bad for taking almost 2 MB, but 37 MB for a mere
>> text editor?
>
> Emacs/vi +
> Unix command-line is pretty much a textual IDE, not mere editor -- the
> size is even light in the face of graphical IDEs. Plus the editor
> component is far more featureful than most IDE's editing component.
OK, fair enough.
>> Not content with merely being a text editor, it also tries to be a
>> newsreader, web browser, file manager, calendar, and even a Tetris
>> clone. Unfortunately, from the screenshots I've seen, it does none of
>> these things very well.
>
> Screenshots don't show functionality.
No, but they do show me that the UI looks utterly horrid.
> Emacs/Unix looks ugly and performs like an athlete. Notepad/Windows
> looks shiny and performs like a snail. Hey, if you get a Mac you can
> have awesome visuals + Unix featureful command-line apps. Best of 2
> worlds! :-D
Heh. So people keep telling me. Pity about the price tag...
(I just bought a shiny new Intel Core 2 Duo laptop. I did look at a
MacBook, but couldn't find anything for anywhere near the price I paid.
And all the MacBooks seem to have utterly horrid keyboards...)
>> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
>> mean?
>
> RTFM?
Have you seen the size of it?
> C-u 10 (do next command 10 times)
> C-f (moves the text cursor (f)orward by 1 char)
Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling you
to press?
> Hmm, I think I've made my case for these features here before and didn't
> make your mind then, won't be trying it again... you should try to learn
> and actually practice it to see what you was losing all these years
> rather than ask for features and then just rebating and turning such
> features down on such silly arguments as beauty or other non-sense.
> Looks alone don't mean squat for powerful text editing.
A lot of people like Emacs. There must be a reason for that. I'm curios
to know what it is.
A found a blog where somebody asked this very question. A lot of the
answers were things like "it does syntax hilighting" (well, so does
everything now), "you can open a shell from the same window" (well, Kate
does that), and "it's what I've used for years" / "it works the same way
on every platform".
About the most convincing justification I could find was "it has
millions of tiny features that together add up to something special". Of
course, you'd have to use it for 20 years to find out of that's actually
true or not...
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>>> emacs is a religion. Notepad isn't.
>> Yes, emacs can move mountains. ;)
>
> M-x translate-mountain
That would be funny if you weren't joking... ;-)
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>>> Ported to many platforms
>>
>> SciTE runs on both Windows and Linux, and that's all I need.
>
> Ah, yes, the old and tired it-fits-my-purpose argument. Aunt Jemima
> pulls it around everytime to show how Notepad is just the same as Emacs
> or vim.
I'm just trying to figure out whether Emacs does anything that SciTE
doesn't which will be useful to me, that's all.
>>> Internationalization
>>
>> Not important to me.
>
> Yeah, surely not important at all, except perhaps for the 3 billions of
> Indians and Chinese plus another billions of people who don't speak
> English.
I didn't say it's not important to them, I said it's not important to
*me*. Different thing.
>>> Many editing modes
>>
>> ...and?
>
> Well, for once it means you may edit Haskell with far more ease than
> with simple syntax highlighting. If you RTFM for that mode, that is.
By pure coincidence, some people have just been debating this very
thing. Apparently the existing Haskell major mode works quite well, but
indentation doesn't work right.
>>> Self documenting with built in tutorial
>>> Detailed and well written manuals
>>
>> Nice, but secondary. It's good to know a tool is easy to learn, but
>> the question is whether it's *worth* learning in the first place.
>
> When you finally see the light and understand it's well worth, it's
> there for you and you won't bother to bash yet another open-source
> project for lack of documentation.
I wonder if this is like "seeing the light" about Lisp. People claim
that learning Lisp will transform your life. Personally, I found it did
no such thing...
>>> AFAIK notepad is/has none of the above.
>>
>> Agreed. Notepad fails in many, many basic ways. But SciTE is quite
>> nice in general.
>
> Yes, SciTE is a wonderful editor. Even being a helluva less powerful
> than emacs or vim.
Well, SciTE isn't perfect, for sure. It's a PITA to configure the thing,
and there are certain things you just can't get it to do right. But
overall, it's a damn site nicer than Notepad.
> It's worth learning for no other reason than most open-source language
> implementations out there have at the very least a very handy
> language-mode available for Emacs which quickly turn it into a quite
> featureful customized IDE for said language.
So you're saying it's the network effect - because so many people use
it, a lot of useful code is developed for it?
> Then, there are also incredibly powerful and handy general purpose text
> editing features that once you learn to use you'll ask yourself how
> you've lost so many unproductive years of your life in lesser editors.
> Like copy-paste cyclic buffer, keyboard macros for performing repetitive
> tasks, quick jumping between visited points in the text (like automatic
> bookmarks everytime you jump around in the text), sessions, editor
> customized to suit language needs and many others. SciTE (or kate)
> simply still not there at all.
Now, see, that all sounds very nice. But SciTE and Kate both have
sessions, and I never use them. (Indeed, it would annoy me to open up a
new editor window and get the files I was working on last time.) Several
programs have a clipboard that can store multiple items, and again I
never use it. Having marks sounds useful, but I suspect in practice it's
far too fiddly to figure out which mark you're trying to jump to. These
things all *sound* useful, but in practice probably too hard to use.
Let's face it, every text editor on Earth worthy of the name has cursor
movement. And yet, when I type a sentence and realise I made a mistake
typing it, rather than just move the cursor to where the mistake is,
it's often simpler to just hold down the backspace key and delete up to
where the mistake was, and then retype everything after that. If I don't
use such a basic feature as cursor keys, how much am I going to use a
cyclic undo buffer?
One feature I actually *want* and that no known editor seems to have is
the ability to do stuff to tabular data easily. Like, if you suddenly
decide that you need to append the same piece of text to all 10 lines.
Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in the
middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that you could
probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do what you want.
(And, indeed, potentially you could even generate text algorithmically,
although I don't know how hard that is...)
> Couple emacs and vim with exuberant-ctags (an external tool supporting
> many languages) and you turn your text editor into an almost as good IDE
> for handling large projects and many files.
Playing devil's advocate: Why use something "almost as good as an IDE"
when you can use an actual IDE?
> First thing to do either in emacs or vim is to run the interactive
> tutorials. In about 30 minutes, it'll cover the basics and give you a
> good overall sense of what it is and how to use the powerful tool. Then,
> getting help on specific subjects of current interest.
Maybe I will, just for giggles...
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