Try Emacs. Or maybe not.
Posted on 15 March, 2010 at 10:20pm
On the Nuby on Rails website I came across this post on Emacs. I was in a good mood with my mind full of curiosity and then a thought hit me. “Could it be that I somehow missed the good parts of Emacs?” I remember having used Emacs before, when I was using Ubuntu all the time. I tried as hard as I could to use it, but it was pretty damned hard.
So last night I went ahead and installed the Carbon version of Emacs. I started the tutorial, worked on it for some time, and then I simply closed it. “What a nightmare!”
I just don’t get the whole Ctrl+V command for moving around. It’s just not a comfortable position for my hands. Which finger are people using for pressing the Ctrl key? Do I have to take Hand-Yoga lessons from a Guru to feel ok with it?
: ) Nothing like VIM.
As you can see. I have no problem with the whole editor war thing.
The Discussion
7 Comments on “Try Emacs. Or maybe not.”Geoffrey Grosenbach
15.03.2010 11:21 pmThe answer is “the same finger you use to hit Shift” (which is used constantly in Vim to type ‘:’.
;-)
Seriously, they are both very capable editors. I think MacVim even has a little better integration with standard Mac key combos.
Gaston
16.03.2010 9:24 amGeoffrey thanks for your answer. You know I had actually been using this in the most stupid way. I was using the Ctrl key on the left side of my keyboard, and so was having to either use my thumb or little finger to hit Ctrl.
: )
I’ll actually try that again.
Geoffrey Grosenbach
16.03.2010 3:43 pmI use my caps lock key as control (Keyboard Preference Pane -> Modifier Keys button). So I usually use my the ring finger on my left hand.
I’m also a big fan of customization, no matter what text editor I’m using. I made my own mappings for my most frequently used commands. I like a single chord for most commands, such as Control-Shift-Arrows to switch between buffers (almost like tabs in a graphical app).
http://github.com/topfunky/emacs-starter-kit/blob/master/topfunky/keyboard.el
gaston
16.03.2010 3:54 pmAh! even better.
I’m going to check out the Emacs starter kit you got there.
I started with VIM because I’ve got these friends who only use VIM for whatever. Python, Flex, Perl, etc. So they infected me.
But I really did try it. I’ll go for it again.
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3.07.2010 7:32 pmas Geoffrey says: remap your caps lock key to Ctrl.
Even if you are using vim (Ctrl+[ is Esc, so there you go, no more leaving the home row on your keyboard, both pinky fingers give you a quick Esc).
On mac: open System Preferences and then type “reset modifier keys” on the search input. This will open the modifier keys mapping dialog.