I've spent 2 month trying out emacs and I feel like I sort of scratched the surface. It's like the deeper you look the more you realize how much more there is
I think the problem that most beginners try to explore the editor features, instead of focusing on main fundamental truth about Emacs - it's not just an editor, it's a Lisp system with a built-in editor.
I think focusing on understanding how Lisp drives Emacs can remarkably speed up the pace of learning it. Every key press and button click hooks up to a Lisp function. Even complex keyboard macros translate to Lisp command sequences.
1. Figure out structural editing commands to move s-expressions freely - those parens only feel annoying initially, later they become friendly.
2. Understand REPL-driven development - any expression can be evaled in-place.
3. Try the build-in profiler.
4. Learn the debugger.
5. Use the describe- commands. Emacs can "describe" to you every key, function, command, symbol, input methods, themes, fonts, characters, etc.
Emacs is really not about "what it can or cannot do" in general sense. It's all about "what you can do with it". Learn some basic elisp - and you will be able to achieve a lot.
My biggest revelation was when I realized how to use Emacs to learn about Emacs. Knowing where to look up function, variable definitions etc was an eye opener in my understanding of how things work and are piped together
There was a time when this was the obvious thing to do when making systems. Sadly that's forgotten. Manpages to read on cli tooling is the same thing of course. Yet people rather go to another window, the browser, and go to a ad-driven website and get the same output as the manpage would give.
Hey I know where that’s from!
As an Emacs user, his video was very funny https://youtu.be/urcL86UpqZc?si=Jhqiy1yCXDGHoIoS
I've spent 2 month trying out emacs and I feel like I sort of scratched the surface. It's like the deeper you look the more you realize how much more there is
I think the problem that most beginners try to explore the editor features, instead of focusing on main fundamental truth about Emacs - it's not just an editor, it's a Lisp system with a built-in editor.
I think focusing on understanding how Lisp drives Emacs can remarkably speed up the pace of learning it. Every key press and button click hooks up to a Lisp function. Even complex keyboard macros translate to Lisp command sequences.
1. Figure out structural editing commands to move s-expressions freely - those parens only feel annoying initially, later they become friendly.
2. Understand REPL-driven development - any expression can be evaled in-place.
3. Try the build-in profiler.
4. Learn the debugger.
5. Use the describe- commands. Emacs can "describe" to you every key, function, command, symbol, input methods, themes, fonts, characters, etc.
Emacs is really not about "what it can or cannot do" in general sense. It's all about "what you can do with it". Learn some basic elisp - and you will be able to achieve a lot.
My biggest revelation was when I realized how to use Emacs to learn about Emacs. Knowing where to look up function, variable definitions etc was an eye opener in my understanding of how things work and are piped together
There was a time when this was the obvious thing to do when making systems. Sadly that's forgotten. Manpages to read on cli tooling is the same thing of course. Yet people rather go to another window, the browser, and go to a ad-driven website and get the same output as the manpage would give.
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