
Emacs power user screencast - alecst
http://platypope.org/yada/emacs-demo/
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joshuaxls
Disclaimer: I'm a vim guy. When I get awe-struck comments from those looking
over my shoulder, it's not about any plugins or IDE-like functionality, it's
about how fast I'm editing text. Let's remind ourselves, that's the core
function of a text editor: to help you edit text, as quickly and unobtrusively
as possible.

I was hoping to see more of that angle in this video, but instead I just saw
how emacs can be an IDE. I'd be very interested to just see a couple of
classes (or any substantial chunk of code) written by an emacs "power user"
without the narration and tutorial.

~~~
jrockway
_I'd be very interested to just see a couple of classes (or any substantial
chunk of code) written by an emacs "power user" without the narration and
tutorial._

I've tried to do this, but it ends up being not very interesting. There is too
much breadth; you really need to be familiar with all of emacs' features to be
able to use them at the right time. For any given editing task, there are
probably only a few features that you need. Learning the rest will save you
time, but you only need the features occasionally. This means that you have to
read the manual -- a screencast isn't going to help you. Practice is also
essential. You need to burn the commands into your muscle memory, otherwise
you aren't going to be very fast.

Emacs is like a musical instrument. You have to practice, and you're not going
to become a virtuoso overnight.

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iamwil
Though I favored emacs over vi in college, it was my friend Ian was the one
that turned me on to emacs. He's the one that said to me, "emacs isn't just a
text editor, it's a way of life." For lent, he gave up emacs.

Anyway, I was hoping to see other things, but they were mostly clicky plugins,
rather than little hidden ways to use emacs. What I found to be pretty
powerful with emacs are stuff like using search to navigate, instead of the
arrows, or replacing a regex across multiple files (albeit it's a long
procedure). And even more so, you can edit these behaviors with eLisp if it's
not to your liking. However, I wish there was a distribution package for elisp
modules, rather than just cutting and pasting them off the web.

~~~
elq
> I wish there was a distribution package for elisp modules, rather than just
> cutting and pasting them off the web.

<http://tromey.com/elpa/>

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zzzmarcus
Obviously with the right amount of time and patience you can configure Emacs
well enough to be an extremely powerful editor. This screencast seems a little
misleading though because it makes it look like like you get all that
functionality 'out of the box.'

In my experience it took me at least a couple weeks of tinkering to get Emacs
working well enough to replace most of the features I constantly use in
TextMate.

~~~
yason
Emacs is like programming. Spend a good ten years on it and you somehow can't
fathom how you could solve (your textual) problems in any other way. Anything
less and you just keep comparing it to other text editors which makes as much
sense as comparing practicing programming to practicing medicine or law (or
some other high-profile occupation) as all of them require lots of reading and
having lots of knowledge.

------
jderick
Sorry, why would I use a mouse? It's emacs.

~~~
yason
Exactly. I basically like the concept of speedbar but it's just pretty
unidiomatic for Emacs in its inefficiency with usage both with a mouse or the
keyboard (via C-x 5 o).

It's zillion times more effective to navigate using find-file or just by
jumping to an existing buffer.

~~~
jrockway
_It's zillion times more effective to navigate using find-file or just by
jumping to an existing buffer._

Jumping to an existing buffer is fast.

For finding files, I like eproject:

<http://github.com/jrockway/eproject/tree/master>

For finding tags, I obviously prefer tags table lookups, with imenu for
navigating inside files.

------
avinashv
Much like some of the other Vim users who've commented here, all I can say is,
"So what?" I don't know if I'd call this "power user". Unless I'm mistaken
(going on replicating this functionality in Vim), any beginner with a bit of
determination and a browser can download and configure plugins to resemble
this somewhat.

Now, it's highly possible that this guy is very proficient at using Emacs, but
I'd have preferred a screen cast on the _editing_ features of Emacs over
replicating TextMate. For example, I would love to see someone re-do some of
the bigger coding screen casts (such as the Ruby on Rails blog engine one)
using Emacs. It has the potential to not be useful--I know my Vim
configuration is different from the standard and that there are a wide variety
of ways to do things, but it might be enlightening to someone like me.

I have to say, aesthetics make a big difference to me. I liked the icons in
the project pane (though, with a mouse? Really?) and all, but that environment
was far too spartan--uhh, ugly--for me. I use MacVim, and with a bit of color
scheme tweaking, a nice font etc. etc. I have a pleasing environment to work
in. Note I know you can do the same in Emacs, but the point was MacVim--it's
the pretty scroll bars, the OS X anti-aliasing and all that makes it nice. I
can't use Vim in a terminal for long periods of time. Obviously, this is
definitely just me.

------
Hexstream
I'd like to see a screencast of an emacs pro tackling a medium-sized project
that doesn't require too much thinking in record-time by expert use of a wide
number of advanced time-saving features.

And then make another version of the video that highlights, in slow-motion and
with a voiceover that explains what the heck is going on, those features as
used in the original video.

I'm always a bit disappointed by screencasts slowly explaining how much faster
you can work with the advanced features. Show, don't tell.

~~~
jrockway
Yeah, but most people that are good with emacs are good programmers, and good
programming rarely involves a ton of rapid-fire text editing. (Typing new
pieces of text, yes. But randomly jumping around files and editing small
pieces of text? That's pretty uncommon.)

Anyway, people worry too much about this. Read the manual and practice the
commands "in real life" (even if it means a trip to the manual to refresh your
memory), and you'll quickly become able to edit effectively enough to not
worry about editing mechanics anymore. It also helps to be a good typist, but
that's not very fun to talk about.

Practice makes perfect.

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mikeyur
I'm not hardcore enough to use emacs, I'm wimpy and love my TextMate gui. Cool
little screencast though to show off some of the aspects of emacs.

~~~
mcav
I'm not either, yet -- but I'm tryin'. (Hey, Emacs still sits on my dock, and
that's a start...)

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rudle
As a vim user, I have to ask - is that it? I didn't see much stuff there that
I don't already have in vim.

I'm not trying to troll, I just am wondering what the big deal is.

~~~
Goladus
The way I use emacs looks nothing like that. But the thing about emacs is that
almost nobody uses it the same way. That's the point of being highly
customizable.

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zandorg
I loved the little CPU noises coming through as interference on his soundcard
mic (noting that it's probably a motherboard sound 'card').

