Such stuff as holy wars are made of

I though I liked having Linux before, and then I installed (because it wasn't automatically selected, for some reason) Emacs. Holy crap, what a phenomenally useful editor! Now I know why people get caught up in huge debates about this sort of thing.

See, I'd tried using it before, but that was in a purely console-based version, without menu bars or anything. In order to get much done I'd have to memorize a bunch of commands right off the bat (this was also before I knew the extent of the help feature) which I hate in any context. I learn best by doing things, not just reading about them.

But with the GUI version, I can get actual work done while absorbing the key commands gradually. I go to save something, for instance, and in the menu next to the option it says 'C-x C-s'. Okay, that's simple enough; I stick that in the front of my brain for use the next time, and after a few repititions it sinks in. And so forth. I think it'll take longer to learn to use M-f and the like instead of arrow keys, but perhaps in time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish converting all the 'normal' quotes in my text-version books into proper ''LaTeX'' quotes. (If anyone knows a faster way to do this than with regular expressions, by the way, I'd love to hear it.)

Yeah, you had to be hard core to learn emacs in the old days. Now it's as easy as any CUA editor.

That's the thing with keyboard shortcuts. You remember the ones you use everyday. The rest aren't used as much, so you don't mind going to the pull down menu.

Try these for some ideas if you have a large volume of text to convert.
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/doc-sig/1997-April/ 000241.html

[emacs stuff snipped]

You've got to be kidding.

How one edits code is a *very* personal thing. Personally, I HATE emacs. I used to like brief, I am currently a vi (ala vim) user. I don't like GUI based editors.

The business of an editor should be dedicated to editing. Emacs is just too big and requires too many keystrokes to do things.

But that's *my* opinion.

Yes, since EMACS is not as nice as, say nedit...

<snip rest>

Florian 'what, me bashing emacs?' S.

Someone once told me that Emacs was an Operating System, often packaged with a tiny utility called UNIX that handled the non-essential stuff.

Oh, yes, emacs is great. It can do everything! (mail, news, pseudo-ai-talk,...). Too bad it can't edit texts.

Cheers,

Datagram from Xaonon incoming on netlink socket

Emacs is the only dual-enviroment app I have seen on GNU/Linux. I mean an app capable of running in both console and X window with just one executable.

And when you run it in X window, it even displays some real graphical images.

mlw> How one edits code is a *very* personal thing. Personally, I mlw> HATE emacs. I used to like brief, I am currently a vi (ala mlw> vim) user. I don't like GUI based editors.

I don't like GUI either, but I like Emacs. I don't use Emacs for its GUI, but for its productivity, extensibility and customizability. The main reason that I run it under X is to get colour highlighting. Now that Emacs 21 can do it in text mode, I would use it more often in text mode.

mlw> The business of an editor should be dedicated to mlw> editing. Emacs is just too big and requires too many mlw> keystrokes to do things.

I agree. So, for simple stuffs such as commenting a few lines of a config file, I'd fire up vi and do it in less than 10 seconds! But for long-lasting or persistent tasks, I prefer Emacs. Without Emacs, I wouldn't have started to use RCS for managing my files, for instance. Emacs just makes RCS so much easier to use. And I find pcl-cvs a very productive way of using CVS. (Not to mention cvs-annotate from Emacs, vs. plain 'cvs annotate'.)

Paolo> Someone once told me that Emacs was an Operating System, Paolo> often packaged with a tiny utility called UNIX that handled Paolo> the non-essential stuff.

There's some truth in it. Java's Virtual Machine and Byte Code are not that intuitive. Emacs has have byte code long before Java, and the core of Emacs (written in C) is just a LISP engine, capable of running E-lisp byte-code. Like Java, Emacs's byte-code is platform independent.

Emacs is basically a 'platform', on which E-lisp packages run. Not unlike the Java 'platform', on which Java byte-codes run.

Xaonon> But with the GUI version, I can get actual work done while Xaonon> absorbing the key commands gradually. I go to save Xaonon> something, for instance, and in the menu next to the Xaonon> option it says 'C-x C-s'. Okay, that's simple enough; I Xaonon> stick that in the front of my brain for use the next time, Xaonon> and after a few repititions it sinks in. And so forth. I Xaonon> think it'll take longer to learn to use M-f and the like Xaonon> instead of arrow keys, but perhaps in time.

So, you can eventually understand why Emacs users (like me) don't have any problems remembering the key strokes! We don't memorize them by heart. Once it has become a reflex action, you do it without thinking. To develop a reflex, you just need to repeat it. It's that simple.

OTOH, with a GUI that never hints you what the short cut keys (if it ever provides any) are, you're eternally stuck with the menu digging process. It's just more tiring to have to dig through all the menus again and again just to repeat simple things.

And I'm not against GUI. Just against poorly designed ones, like most 'user-friendly' programs. XFig, for instance, has a very productive (again, it takes time to reach the productivity, but it pays off in the long run) GUI. And I like it a lot.

A GUI like Emacs's one that encourages you to learn and discovery is a good thing. Ah! Have you got to the point where you know how to customize key bindings? Note that the keyboard hints on Emacs's menus will change accordingly to the current bindings. That's cool, isn't it?

Xaonon> Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish converting all Xaonon> the 'normal' quotes in my text-version books into proper Xaonon> ''LaTeX'' quotes. (If anyone knows a faster way to do this Xaonon> than with regular expressions, by the way, I'd love to Xaonon> hear it.)

M-x latex-mode RET

Et voila! Type ', and you get '' or '', depending on context. Smarter that the 'smart quotes' somewhere.