It's more than just Evil mode (vi emulation). They have a pretty thoughtful way to organize libraries (layers) and a decent solution to the "how to I manage my Emacs config" problem.

This +1000. Flymake or Flycheck, Autocomplete or Company ? I was in the classic .emacs bankruptcy situation and even started using atom before cloning the Spacemacs repo in my .emacs.d

For those who do not want to understand the details (which in case of Emacs is silly - one miss so many aha moments) bbatsov's prelude is a piece of true craftsmanship.

Emacs solved that nicely on its own already. Using melpa packages, this is my config: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mkeen/config-emacs/master/...

Pretty simple and doesn't rely on heresy such as evil mode.

Calling evil mode heresy is the same as saying "I wish fewer people used Emacs." Why continue the holy war? You've won many vimmers over... why marginalize us?

I think the creators of evil mode are well aware that it is heresy. They even named it evil mode.

I think the whole holiness of Emacs and the evilness of vim is more tongue-in-cheek than anything.

Actually, Spacemacs layer configuration uses the use-package add-on ( https://github.com/jwiegley/use-package ) , which helps greatly simplifies and organizes large .emacs config files (and also greatly improves emacs' startup time). use-package was written by John Wiegley, created of the Ledger CLI accounting software, and current maintainer of Emacs. Emacs integration of packages with Melpa gets only a small part of the way towards where Wiegley goes with use-package. . . .

That's a pretty lightweight Emacs config. Mine is based on emacs-starter-kit (technomancy's creation) and is much larger - https://github.com/metaperl/emacs

The overengineered/complicated Layers system is why I abandoned spacemacs after trying it. Just installing Evil mode served my needs better.

Finally got into using spacemacs as my go-to editor... Mostly because I couldn't reliably get python completion to work in Vim.

But one thing that's annoying the hell out of me is window/buffer management. It really confuses me when plugins 'eat' a buffer to display something.

Check out dedicated-mode, it sets the "dedicated" flag on a buffer so that things don't use it for their temporary output.

As someone who is a loyal Emacs user, would you recommend Spacemacs over regular old Emacs? Also is the migration process very difficult? I've got to say, it actually looks very nice and well polished.

It's suitable for vim users who want better vim experience. For all other I'd suggest vanilla emacs or Prelude.

Prelude is good too. I mean, you can use Spacemacs in Holy mode, but it's not really the point. Prelude and Emacs Live are much better holy mode kits.

Spacemacs is, as the tagline says, FOCUSED ON EVIL.

As a vim user, I emphatically disagree. It seems to support most vim commands, but the ones it doesn't support of course become the most frustrating. As an example, I cannot use <space> for movement/direction because it consistently pops up some stupid menu, even in the middle if entering a command.

As a vim user, I'm also used to my editor starting up instantly. Spacemacs takes so long to load that it's laughable. And since GNU emacs is single-threaded, the whole UI is completely locked while it processes the massive amount of configuration needed to make spacemacs what it is. The only thing "better" about that is that it gives you an opportunity to take a coffee break. I'm reminded of the "code's compiling" XKCD: boss says, "hey! quit horsing around!", worker says "spacemacs is loading!" And this is with 8GB of RAM, 8 processor cores clocked at 3.2 GHz, and filesystem on an SSD drive.

And then you run into problems with many packages from MELPA. If some third-party package introduces its own keybindings, then you still wind up with odd emacs-style keybindings here and there, rather than Vim-style ones. Furthermore, Vim's leader key is backslash, not space, regardless of how you like to configure it.

So, what's "better" about it? The fact that it's got a "pretty" powerline statusline by default? The fact that it uses some dark colorscheme by default? That's not enough for me to abandon vim.

> Spacemacs takes so long to load that it's laughable.

Emacs is typically started once, and then you open files in the same instance. With vanilla emacs you can use `emacs --daemon` to start it as a server, and then use `emacsclient` to open files. That way it should open pretty much instantly. I'm not sure what Spacemacs calls those.

Yes, I'm aware. The thing is, I haven't had any issues with vanilla emacs's startup time in over a decade. That's probably because I don't load hundreds of packages I don't need in my init.el. Spacemacs, on the other hand...

EDIT: Furthermore, I really don't see how a Vim user is supposed to consider that an improvement. I can't picture someone saying, "I used to just run my editor when I needed it, and it started instantaneously. Now, it takes so long to start that I just leave it running all the time. It's so much better! Powerline! YEAH!!"

If people like Spacemacs, that's fine, I don't care. Use what you want. But I'm really getting sick of hearing that it's "a better Vim", because it's really, really not. In fact, it's so much not-Vim that whenever I use emacs, I prefer vanilla emacs, even though I've been using Vim for over a decade.

emacs runs instantly when using emacsclient to connect to emacs daemond

Disagree - you can use spacemacs in "holy mode", i.e. without evil-mode.

If you use evil mode it's a no brainer.

If you're an adherent of the holy church thinking of turning evil, then it will obviously take some relearning, but it's incredibly discoverable, making exensive use of hierarchical mnemonics and helm after each keypress to know what commands are available to you.

e.g. space-f-s is file->save, space-f-f is file->find, space-f-r is file->recent etc.

Yuck, is it modal? How do you type a space character?

Are you implying that you expected a non-modal VIM mode?

You go into insert-mode (by pressing 'i') and type whatever you need, then press ESC to get back to normal-mode.

It takes some getting used to, but I could never go back :)

It's only modal if that is how you want it. On first run it asks if you want to run in a vim-mode or normal emacs mode.

Spacemacs looks nice and is well polished, but I'd say if you have a comfortable setup that you are used to, it's probably not worth the hassle.

The modal mode is not mandatory. You can change a variable and have the classic Emacs keybindings + the advantages of spacemacs (sane configuration, beautiful look)

While I haven't run spacemacs in non-vim mode, it is there. Give it a try. It's all built into .emacs.d, so it's easy to try and drop if you want to. Just backup your .emacs.d first.

I love spacemacs. Best of VIM and EMACS.

It does support a non-evil mode, and asks which way you want the first time you run it.

> Best of VIM and EMACS.

Since there is no good in VIM (besides being pre-installed on every *nix platform), you know what that equation leads to... just emacs.

I just wanted to say thanks - I could never get into vanilla Emacs but after about an hour of playing around with Spacemacs I have to say it's amazing. It's incredible what a few convenience features (and of course, familiar keybindings) can do.

Even if you don't like Vi they added tho option to use the the default Emacs keybindings later as an option. I didn't catch with prelude or oh-my-emacs but Spacemacs is imho how Emacs should be shipped.

edit typo

The installation does not work for me. I follow all the steps and then run '$ emacs' in the console and the old GNU emacs just pops up. Anyone got a clue what I'm doing wrong?

Edit: fixed it. It turns out that was an ~/.emacs file present which prevents Spacemacs from starting. If you did the cloning and $ emacs results in your standard GNU emacs, look for the file ~/.emacs and remove it.

When I am doing copy and paste, I choose emacs; when I want sane tab behaviour, I choose vim. Will spacemacs be good for me?

Are you aware of paste mode and clipboard/register sharing in Vim?

Do you mean `:set paste` every time you want to copy something from clipboard?

`:set clipboard=unnamedplus` let's you use the Xwindow clipboard for `p` to paste.

I also believe Neovim (and possibly normal vim, I'm not sure), automatically does `:set paste` and `:set nopaste` when you use the terminal paste.

Just to add, I highly recommend people to look at `:help 'clipboard`. There are several options available, and one or another might be better depending on what you're expecting, and on which platform you're on (e.g., there are notes about using the clipboard on X vs. Windows).

There is a hybrid mode that enables emacs commands (C-E, C-A, C-Y etc.) while in insert mode. Quite enjoyable, particularly when you're used to using emacs movement commands while editing text fields (thanks macOS).

Spacemacs is great! What like the most, is that it's very easy on your hands. No more emacs pinky!

Anybody using it for react development without complications?

Yes. I recommend running it off master branch instead of release, for better es6 support.