I’ve been through a few code editors & IDEs. Been using VSCode on and off for the last couple years. A few others I have used over the years include DEV-C++, Eclipse, Atom, Code Blocks, Notepad++, Visual Studio, and some others I can’t remember 🤔. Lately I have developed a renewed interest in Emacs. I tried it before but didn’t really invest any serious time in learning how to use it. For some reason I woke up yesterday morning and decided to hop on the Emacs 🚂. I know people choose up sides and are very dedicated to their code editors or IDEs. Just really wondering how many devs use Emacs consistently in their workflow?
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I don't (long time vim user), but two of my colleagues use it every day and swear by it.
What kind of things are they usually working on? Also, why did you choose vim?
Ruby on Rails and a lot of Clojure.
I went with vim having used vi long long ago (25 years ago), back when I was connecting to lots of different machines and you could count on vi being available everywhere. emacs had to be installed, nano wasn't even a thing then. So I just got used to it.
I’ve heard of others say that vi/vim is usually available in most *nix environments.
At this point, the vi thing isn't even important anymore unless you're physically walking to the device (which is less of a thing now). If you have SSH access, you can use emacs without even leaving your computer. Tramp allows you to connect to the system as though you were working with files on your own computer.
I've been using spacemacs for the past two years, Emacs for three maybe, that being said, I'm not a programmer by profession, but I do have a couple of hobby projects in C/C++, python, flex and bison (Emacs modes were a pain here), and Dart.
Why did you end up choosing spacemacs over Emacs? What ultimately made you switch? Or do you use both?
I like that spacemacs sets everything up automatically for me really and that most things just work. At first the slow startup did put me off, which is why I tried grapheme, but then I discovered emacsclient, aliased it to e, and now (space)Emacs "starts" instantly.
And with all the features spacemacs adds, with little to no config file maintenance, why not just use it right? (Although I bet I won't ever discover 75% of all those features)
Makes sense. Sometimes it’s nice to have things just work right out of the box. Do you just prefer the navigation or text editing vs code editors like Atom, VSCode, etc? Or something else?
Now I probably don't utilize the full potential of my editors, but one feature I miss is the multiple cursors from sublime (and I think even atom had it iirc), although there's probably some package for something similar in Emacs.
I think there is, but I’m not 100% sure. I thought I also saw a recent post on emacsrocks.com about using rectangles to edit/replace multiple instances. I’m still in “super noob” mode with Emacs.
Emacs Rocks Ep. 13
Emacs Rocks is the best. Another great similar tool is "Rectangle Editing". I find I use multiple cursors and rectangle editing quite often, even for different parts of the same task.
I use Emacs and have my fair share of posts about it. If you have previous experience with it I strongly advice you to give it a try. Emacs 26 has gained quite a lot of attractive features. I'm a Python developer, but in my experience Emacs works quite well with Go, Rust and Javascript/Typescript.
Great! I have Emacs 26.1 for MacOS right now. Been messing around with it for the past 2 days. Seems to be a lot more than I ever thought it was. Easy enough to get started, but so much to learn.
You should go and set up MELPA and start installing things :D.
Been following along with Mike Zamansky. He's a high school CS teacher that posts videos about CS, Emacs, and other stuff. I have Melpa setup with melpa.milkbox.net/packages. Still figuring out what everything is.
I'm a long time Emacs user but I consistently use IntelliJ too. I would like to use only Emacs but the ecosystem is sparse and there's no consensus around a single and convenient user interface (read: standard key bindings) across several programming languages. It means that you have to learn multiple key bindings sets as much programming languages you use. IMHO, the big advantage of IntelliJ is that you have only one set of keybindinds which applies across the board to all programming languages.
I've done my own [little] efforts to create a sort of more or less convenient IDE for Emacs which attends my purposes. If you are interested, it's here: github.com/frgomes/.emacs.d
Cheers
Nice. I experimented with Neotree a little bit last night. So used to seeing that tree view that I felt a little lost without it. Thanks for sharing your work.
Only since 1996. The relationship between other editors and Emacs and Vim are like Dennis Ritchie said about Unix: those who do not understand it are doomed to reimplement it -- badly.
+1
I've used it for such a long time and I still find new things to learn about it and new features being developed for it. In particular I love Magit and Projectile.
Takes time to get to know it though, but it's really worth it. Any good editor should feel like an extension of one's self.
Discovering magit was like finding beer, on Christmas, hidden in a lower counter on your uncle's house, back when you were 12.
I’m liking tinkering with it so far. Trying to put together a decent setup for Javascript/React. Since I’ve been typing Emacs-lisp code lately I’m slightly curious about Lisp/Clojure/etc.
Yep been using it for the past 2.5 years. not using the mouse is a blessing. I do use Intelij on occasion.
I've been an Emacs user since 1990 and a maintainer since 2006. While I don't have the prettiest desktop, I frequently locate and identify issues in our tools first because the workflow is not being hidden from me. #nomagic
I was a CS major (before I dropped out and switched to music ed) in 1997. I remember using
back then, but never even heard of Emacs. I mostly used Dev-C++ on Windows for a few years after that. Went through a bunch of different languages/editors/complilers over the years but just now getting to Emacs. 🤷♂️
Spacemacs was my gateway to emacs. I'm a vim user and spacemacs just provided more functionality, plus vim mode, out of the box. Plus elisp is way more approachable than vimscript!
@gavinfernandes2012 also seems to enjoy the quick setup of Spacemacs.
E-lisp is a little different for me because of my “C” languages background, but it slowly starting to make sense.
use it every day, multiple shells, compiling, grepping, etc.
😎 Is that you with the bass?
Emacs has got the best git interface I've seen so far, magit. I'm also so used to the keyboard shortcuts and smart-tabs that I try to recreate them in the other editors I use.
Next to that, you can merely do anything within Emacs, file browser, emails, console, ...
Nice to hear about magit. Was reading a little about it last night before bed. VC is a big part of the workflow.
I’ve read that the concept for Emacs is that you shouldn’t ever have to leave the program. 🤯