Emacs

[bascule]

I've been trying to switch to Emacs lately. Depending on who you talk to Emacs is either the ultimate programmer's editor or a bloated piece of crap.

 

Does anyone here use Emacs, and if so, how do you like it? I'm certainly enjoying the integrated REPL and the ability to evaluate the current buffer.

[Mr Skeptic]

Emacs is pretty good. Depending on how much time you intend to spend learning to use it, it can be an incredibly powerful editor.

 

BTW, what are you switching from?

[bascule]

I've been a vi/vim user for probably a decade or so now. For programming I've used an editor called TextMate.

 

My motivations for switching to Emacs are better support for Erlang including an integrated Read-Eval-Print Loop

[1veedo]

Emacs is alright. I don't see how you can not know if you like it or not. If you like it go ahead and use it, if you don't then keep using vi. I personally like emacs better but that's just because I've never learned how to use vi. It's confusing as **** unless you really set down and teach yourself how to use it.

 

Instead I prefer nana or even something like k/gedit lol

[insane_alien]

oi i use gedit. damn you and your sarcy lol

[Severian]

I use emacs for pretty much all my editing.

[Mr Skeptic]

I've been a vi/vim user for probably a decade or so now. For programming I've used an editor called TextMate.

 

My motivations for switching to Emacs are better support for Erlang including an integrated Read-Eval-Print Loop

 

Both emacs and vi/m are very powerful and to learn to use them to their full extent takes some time. Sticking to vi may be more useful. Perhaps you should ask around at Slashdot or Ars Technica for a more nerdy opinion.

[bascule]

Both emacs and vi/m are very powerful and to learn to use them to their full extent takes some time. Sticking to vi may be more useful.

 

That belies the fact that there's an editing mode for the language I'm using (Erlang) written for Emacs, as well as an elisp binding to Erlang's read-eval-print loop (REPL) that allows me to quickly jump to both compilation problems and errors encountered in the shell.

 

I've never seen REPL bindings for vim, and if they exist for certain languages (which I've never seen) I can pretty much assure you they don't exist in Erlang.

 

Another feature that's immensely useful is the ability to evaluate the current buffer (M-x eval-current-buffer) or evaluate a single expression (C-x C-e). I have no idea how to do this in vim, or if it's even possible (at least with Erlang)

 

Some other features, like tags (specifically exuberant tags), are available for both.

 

While I certainly enjoy vim's end-user experience better, it won't change the fact that Emacs simply has more features I find useful.

 

That said, the main downside to Emacs seems to be the learn one key sequence, forget another one problem.

[Mr Skeptic]

That said, the main downside to Emacs seems to be the learn one key sequence, forget another one problem.

 

Yep. All part of the re-training when you switch.