Author here. In reading this thread, I'm struck that most of the objections to emacs are both legitimate (as are the arguments for it) and focused on programmer-specific issues. Back when I wrote the original post, I was experimenting with using emacs as a CEO who writes little code these days, but was dealing with a maelstrom of disparate information and interruption. It's been a very successful experiment, which I'll document in a follow up post soon. Glad that it got some good conversations going!
I'm hopeful that https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol will decouple some of these concerns. We've built support for it for our DSL, and it's pretty great so far (esp in VSCode). Emacs LSP support is still pretty slow, so I don't use it when in emacs at present, but it feels like the right direction for getting good language support into editors.
Author of blog post here. I take your point on being more accessible, and you're right about the wall of text. I didn't think anyone would care about my little paen to emacs, and this is one evening's work from a couple years ago.
Regarding organization, I don't have much of a system, other than the filesystem under ~/org with a handful of directories. Works just fine for me. It's more about not-caring than caring, regarding organization of information. We really shouldn't have to organize this stuff. Emacs + org-mode allows me to not care. I love that.
thanks for the follow up. I do appreciate the article and it's very well written for a one evening work.
So is there somthing inherent in org mode that just makes a pile of concurrent projects in a directory usable? eg do you just have project plans and mind maps for each "idea" or "product" in your org directory named by idea or is there just one file? or it doesn't matter and you just basically grep to find where you need to be?
Author of post here. I have no agenda to convert anyone, but mapping caps lock to control is a good move when trying emacs IMO. If you love vi(m), more power to you!
Oh, yeah I use that mapping (caps to ctrl), but emacs would still always hurt my wrists! I prefer having visual/insert/normal modes and spacebar for modifiers in spacemacs. It’s the best of both worlds for me.
Hi there. Thanks for the article. I'm a newbie when it comes to emacs config files. You said, that we will put (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/lisp/") in the .emacs file, but that was before we had created it. Then a few paragraphs later, when we finally do create it, you tell us to just put in
;; set up ido mode
(require `ido)
(setq ido-enable-flex-matching t)
(setq ido-everywhere t)
(ido-mode 1)
Where do we put in (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/lisp/") ?
Disclaimer: I spend very little time configuring emacs these days, as it's working well for me, and there are others around who are much better at emacs than I am. There are likely better ways to do everything than I have, but I shared what works for me.
I've got the `(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/lisp/")` pretty early in the file. You can put the `(require `ido) (setq ido-enable-flex-matching t) (setq ido-everywhere t) (ido-mode 1)` where you like. Basically, you just need the lines in your .emacs file - if you add the reference prior to creating the directory and populating it, you'll get an error, but nothing will break. Add the directory and do a `M-x eval-buffer` and it'll pick it up without restarting emacs. Or just restart emacs. Hope this helps. Someone will tell you a better way.
OP here. It took me about three weeks to get back up to a high level of productivity in Emacs. At the time, I was learning a new keyboard (truly ergonomic) which was the greater challenge. My wrist tendons are thankful to me for those weeks of awkwardness. I think Emacs is wrong for the vast majority of CEOs, but for some (at least one) it's pretty great.
OP here. There are lots of great tools for editing text and code out there. Finger travel was a concern due to some RSI issues I was having, but not the most important factor which is that I like Emacs and enjoy using it. I like it's sensibilities, Lisp, and the cleanness of the interface. YMMV, and I'm not at all an Emacs partisan or evangelist, just a guy who made a blog post about stuff I like.
Where do you think our approach will add overhead to your development? We'd love to know so that we can either explain better or get a better product match for you. With Fugue, you get a Conductor that continually monitors and conforms the environment to your declarations - we think that has a lot of value for operating your environment as opposed to just creating it.
