Re:Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)
by rich_sasha on Thursday November 04, 2021 @09:00AM
(#29106599)
Emacs fits so nicely into my workflow. I can use it, feature-rich, from terminal, within tmux, and easily switching from the editor (where I write code) to other terminal panes (where I run the code). I can also use Emacs without any mouse input at all, have a rich set of keyboard shortcuts, and where I find myself doing something repetitive, I can easily automate it. While I'm at it, I can use the very same environment for a ton of other things - note-taking, editing more file types than I could care about etc.
I can see that with different priorities, perhaps VS Code might be a better fit. But does it work in the terminal? Can I edit LaTeX and have equations rendered in-place? Can I easily switch layouts from having 3/4 panes of code and nothing else on the screen, to having various other bits around? Does C&P trivially support multiple "buffers" (registers in Emacs lingo; can copy & paste persistently to different places). Can I easily record rich keyboard macros - ones that, dunno, search second and third word on a line, replace first instance of second word with third word, then return to the starting point?
I suspect the answer is yes to some of these questions, but no to most. And this is barely scratching the surface of what Emacs can do.
I can see that with different priorities, perhaps VS Code might be a better fit. But does it work in the terminal? Can I edit LaTeX and have equations rendered in-place? Can I easily switch layouts from having 3/4 panes of code and nothing else on the screen, to having various other bits around? Does C&P trivially support multiple "buffers" (registers in Emacs lingo; can copy & paste persistently to different places). Can I easily record rich keyboard macros - ones that, dunno, search second and third word on a line, replace first instance of second word with third word, then return to the starting point?
I suspect the answer is yes to some of these questions, but no to most. And this is barely scratching the surface of what Emacs can do.