Oh absolutely. I like using tramp to edit individual config files remotely. If there is one particular data acquisition computer that is performing incorrectly, I can quickly open up that file to compare, without needing to leave the editor.

The issue I ran into with editing code through tramp is the integration with make. I use `M-x compile` to compile from emacs, with a few modifications to find the appropriate makefile depending on which project I am working on. If I try to compile locally based on remote files, my compile times go through the roof. I suppose I could have opened an ssh session in which to run make, but it was easier to open emacs remotely.

The other advantage is that I could use tmux+emacs to have everything remote, and to connect to that same session from multiple computers. A typical day during an experiment might have me start in an office, later head to an experiment monitoring room, and later head down to the experiment vault to see if an issue is being caused by hardware. With remote editing, I could have the the entire session, including any files that I have already opened, no matter where I am physically located.

If you are in a buffer for a remote file, then M-x compile should run make on the remote machine.

Docs are here: https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/#index-compile

Ooh, nice. I'll have to take a look at it again. That may be something that I accidentally broke in customizing my environment. I bound `C-c C-c` to look for either a Makefile or a SConstruct in the current directory, walking upwards up the hierarchy until one is found, then to launch either make or scons depending on which one is found. That may have been the source of my remote issues.

Tips if you're writing your own elisp:

- If you're walking the filesystem, make sure you start from the "default-directory" variable.

- If you call other programs, make sure you use "process-file" (for synchronous processes) or "start-file-process" (for async). Using "call-process" or "start-process" unfortunately won't do the right thing, but the two functions I mentioned are mostly drop-in replacements.

Those sound pretty useful, and I will need to try those out. I used (file-name-directory buffer-file-name) as the base for walking the filesystem, which may have caused some issues. I also have a cd in the shell command passed to compile, which probably doesn't play nicely.

Unfortunately, my current job doesn't use Linux as much, and so it has been too long since I've spent time improving my .emacs file, as it is only home projects at this point.

This is actually the root of my italicized "may"; I've seen Tramp do surprising miracles in terms of working remotely with things like this, but I've also seen other things not work because of the various complexities involved. It's at least worth a try, but I've never actually learned elisp to speak of so I have no idea how hard it would be to fix any issues you may find.