Re:Ask HN: How would you relearn programming?
by earenndil on Saturday February 10, 2018 @12:38PM
(#16348392)
Vim. And I say to the grandparent, what makes you say emacs is past its prime? And if it is, why should that mean you shouldn't use it? If it's powerful enough for you to do what you want to do and do it effeciently then what does it matter even if there are 5 other people using it (and there are a lot more than that!).
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: How would you relearn programming?
by kbob on Sunday February 11, 2018 @08:31AM
(#16352606)
Emacs has a different way of doing just about everything than the rest of the desktop environment. Kill ring vs clipboard. Emacs windows/frames vs GUI tabs/windows. Subshells vs ⌘Tab to Terminal. C-X C-C vs ⌘Q. Actually, all the default keybindings are gratuitously different from other text applications.
Most of these are different because Emacs invented them for non-GUI terminals before any conventions existed. But now it's just cognitive overhead to have two ways to do everything, depending on which app is active.
It's powerful, but I believe I'm stuck on a suboptimal local maximum. A similarly powerful IDE better integrated with the rest of the system would be better, but unlearning and relearning is more effort than I'm willing to invest at any time.
The size of the community matters if you want third-party add-ons.
Re:Ask HN: How would you relearn programming?
by earenndil on Sunday February 11, 2018 @02:05PM
(#16354168)
> A similarly powerful IDE better integrated with the rest of the system would be better
Does one exist? (I'd preach vim to you but I don't want to perpetuate editor wars.