Re:After over a decade of Vim, I’m hooked on Emacs
by kleiba on Sunday March 11, 2018 @05:25PM
(#16564874)
In that case, I think you might be better off with more of a minimalism approach: don't try to configure everything and anything from the get go but add features incrementally only when you really think they're necessary.
After many years of using Emacs every day, I decided at one point to throw away my .emacs file and start from scratch. You know, it's a little bit like the old saying about how you should code every program you write twice: once to learn how to do it, and then a second time to get it right.
I had been using Emacs for a while but especially when I first started out, I was maybe as overwhelmed as what you describe. And so I probably did too much, tried out too many things. But hey, that's how you learn, right? After many years, I had acquired much more proficiency, found out by experience which things are essential and which packages that I had installed I actually didn't really need.
And so I made a completely new, empty .emacs file and manually added only a minimal number of configuration options (carefully avoiding copying anything over from my previous .emacs file -- the temptation would be too great to put more than I needed).
Of course since then I have added more and more stuff over time, but I still strive for keeping my .emacs file small. It's not so much an irrational ideal as it is an attempt at keeping it manageable. And so sometimes when I open my .emacs file for some new option or whatever, I use the opportunity to also go over the file and reconsider its current state. More often than not, I end up throwing a whole bunch of stuff away again and make the file smaller and simpler.
A lot of features that Emacs offers through various packages are convenience features. They're great. But they're not essential. Essential is stuff like `(blink-cursor-mode 0)` (I would go nuts otherwise) or `(global-set-key (kbd "C-w") 'backward-kill-word-or-region)` which has become muscle memory to me. Themes and other visual goodies are less important.
After many years of using Emacs every day, I decided at one point to throw away my .emacs file and start from scratch. You know, it's a little bit like the old saying about how you should code every program you write twice: once to learn how to do it, and then a second time to get it right.
I had been using Emacs for a while but especially when I first started out, I was maybe as overwhelmed as what you describe. And so I probably did too much, tried out too many things. But hey, that's how you learn, right? After many years, I had acquired much more proficiency, found out by experience which things are essential and which packages that I had installed I actually didn't really need.
And so I made a completely new, empty .emacs file and manually added only a minimal number of configuration options (carefully avoiding copying anything over from my previous .emacs file -- the temptation would be too great to put more than I needed).
Of course since then I have added more and more stuff over time, but I still strive for keeping my .emacs file small. It's not so much an irrational ideal as it is an attempt at keeping it manageable. And so sometimes when I open my .emacs file for some new option or whatever, I use the opportunity to also go over the file and reconsider its current state. More often than not, I end up throwing a whole bunch of stuff away again and make the file smaller and simpler.
A lot of features that Emacs offers through various packages are convenience features. They're great. But they're not essential. Essential is stuff like `(blink-cursor-mode 0)` (I would go nuts otherwise) or `(global-set-key (kbd "C-w") 'backward-kill-word-or-region)` which has become muscle memory to me. Themes and other visual goodies are less important.