Intro into Emacs (Techtalk #60)

Emacs at a Glance

Define

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing. [fn:1]

Emacs is not an extensible text-editor. It’s a programming environment with a nice built-in library for editing text. [fn:2]

Emacs Creator

Emacs was created by Richard Stallman and Guy L. Steele in 1976, using Emacs Lisp, a dialect of Lisp language. There are many Emacs variant, but the most widely used was GNU Emacs by Richard Stallman.

Emacs Logo

Emacs Terminology

Why Emacs?

It’s not just an editor, everything is possible [ ~~Almost to be exact~~ :) ]
- good language support [fn:3]
- pdf and image viewer
- e-mail reader
- IRC
- breeze org-mode <=> latex support
- chart with graphviz-mode
- terminal session
- write blog entry
- coffee-mode [fn:4]
- git integration
- play tetris anyone? :)
- M-x phases-of-moon
- M-x doctor
- many more…
Divine Editing Experience [fn:5]
- custom jump-start
- bookmark
- org-mode
- keyboard macro
- clear ring
- expand-region
- multi-cursor
- ace-jump-mode
- key-chord
- helm-mode
Emacs is extensible [fn:6]
Integrates well with lots of external tools
- shell-mode, ansi-term, eshell
- dired [fn:7]
- cvs, svn, bazaar, git, mercurial
- proced (emacs process manager)
Emacs Doesn’t let you repeat yourself [fn:6]
Emacs is Modern
- GTK2/3, Coca, WinAPI
- OSes clipboard support
- TTF Fonts support [fn:8]
- apt-get or brew like package manager
Emacs is constantly evolving
Other prominent tools use Emacs’s keybindings
- bash, zsh, Cocoa toolkit use Emacs keybindings by default

Emacs vs the World

IDE and Code Editors Stats 2014 [fn:9]
Emacs vs vim
Emacs pros:
- it has better default extension language.
- it’s modeless.
- it has better integration with external systems.
- it has better support for the things that matter to me. [fn:10]
- it has a built-in package manager.
Vim pros:
- nicer navigation
- much smaller core and much faster to load
- very simple initial config
- it has a more stylish icon than Emacs :)
Emacs vs IDEs
IDEs pros:
- good refactoring support
- semantic code analysis
- integrated GUI debuggers and GUI design tools
- precise auto-completions
- good integration with external systems, i.e. version control
IDEs cons:
- dependent to the mouse and an X environment
- not resource efficient
- IDEs impair your thinking by thinking instead of you

Problems

No adequate embedded browser in Emacs!
Still have to learn Lisp to extend Emacs more
Emacs Pinky

Getting Started with Emacs

It ~~only~~ takes 2 steps:

run the built-in Emacs tutorial C-h t.
use Emacs day and night for all your work or even use it as your window manager. [fn:11]

This is how I learn Emacs (actually):

Learn basic survival guide: [fn:12]
- opening/closing file/buffer
- movement
- search (forward/backward)
- basic region, copy, paste
- getting help
Read/listen/watch emacs tutorial For me, youtube is the best resource for learning.[fn:13]

Conclusion

However, whatever your editor choice is, as long as you feel efficient and productive, then it’s good…
Lastly, you are not picking Emacs vs others, but rather you are picking Emacs and others! Use the best tool for the job.