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Posted by weakfish 3 days ago

Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?

Hi all,

I’m a longtime Neovim user who’s been EMacs-curious. The hold up for me has been that I’ve been unable to find a source of truth for what’s top-of-the-line as far as plugins are. With Neovim, it’s a safe bet to look at what folks like Folke are doing, but I have struggled to find a similar figure in the Emacs community who gives insight into what’s-what. I know Doom exists, but I want to fully “own” my config and not over complicate it.

Thanks!

214 points | 116 commentspage 5
srcreigh 3 days ago|
Most comments here are giving you fish instead of teaching you how to fish.

The emacs subreddit is pretty active. Search reddit for recent-ish threads for whatever you want to do.

etothemacs 2 days ago|
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brudgers 3 days ago||
Org-mode. But it's already part of the package...

...because Emacs is a mature ecosystem: Meaning many and probably most tools predate developer-gets-famous-on-internet thinking, have been refined over decades, were built by people to get their job done, and often that job was something where programming was incidental to the task at hand.

BobbyTables2 2 days ago||
I’m deeply skeptical that it is possible to use Emacs full time without an overly complicated config (:->
skydhash 1 day ago||
I have a 1200+ lines of config, but they’re mostly nice-to-haves and full-blown apps. But I can do fine with vanilla if needed. My EDITOR is mg which is barest than bare emacs.

Also, vanilla emacs have full support for customize, so I can just go there to quicly setup settings. The reason my config is huge is because I dislike customize and prefer setting options via code.

teddyh 2 days ago|||
I’m sorry to inform you that it is perfectly possible. When I encounter a system which has a completely stock and unconfigured Emacs, I generally only modify one or two settings, and then I’m perfectly happy to use it in that state. I’ve used Emacs for 30 years, and I still use it heavily every day.
ashton314 2 days ago|||
One of the sharpest people I know—he's a professor and hacks on the LLVM for a living—uses stock Emacs in the terminal with no discernible customization.
bjoli 2 days ago|||
Linus Torvalds lives in pretty much vanilla microemacs.
alfiedotwtf 2 days ago|||
People have been doing this since the 70s :)
etothemacs 2 days ago||
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smj-edison 3 days ago||
Another question to all those who use emacs, what do you do to avoid emacs pinky? I've been hesitant to start using emacs for that reason, since I've had pinky pain quite often in the past two years and I'm pretty sure emacs would push me over the edge...
avtar 3 days ago||
+1 It's been ages since I last tried Emacs but one of the main reasons it didn't resonate with me was the constant hand contortions required for key chords. I'm pretty sure I tried evil mode as well. Projects such as Combobulate, Vertico, etc. being mentioned in this thread weren't around back then and seem intriguing. Curious to learn about any other projects or workarounds that help with ergonomics.
aquariusDue 2 days ago|||
Rebind Capslock to act as Ctrl when held and Esc when pressed, use a modal editing package like evil or meow. There's also devil-mode which does some smart heuristics on your semicolon so you can press it instead of holding Ctrl or Meta (Alt).

That's pretty much it without delving too much into specifics, it's important to note that most of Emacs' functionality can be called via M-x (the original command palette) and selected or searched for easily. No need to play piano with hard to remember key chords for rarely used stuff.

skydhash 1 day ago|||
No need to be fast with Emacs. You can just input chords with two hands.

But I’ve remapped caps to control and use the side of my pinky instead. My hands are big though.

tmtvl 3 days ago|||
I type Dvorak and I use the opposite modifier key to whichever key I want to modify. So, for example, for Control+A I would hold the right control key and press a. Aside from that, an active hobby with plenty of stretching and strengthening for the entire body.
Kholin 2 days ago|||
I'm using a QMK split keyboard, remap the Left Space key as Ctrl key so that I can press it with my left thumb finger.
jibal 3 days ago|||
r/emacs on Reddit has many discussions about this.
etothemacs 2 days ago||
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emoprincejack 3 days ago||
Just use Doom. Its good.
etothemacs 2 days ago||
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unit149 3 days ago||
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roman_soldier 3 days ago||
[flagged]
baobun 3 days ago|
> > What frame should I get for my fixie bicycle?

> Just buy my brand of electric bike instead, it comes preassembled and you won't gst grease on your hands

roman_soldier 3 days ago|||
Emacs is not modern, to achieve the functionality of a modern editor/ide, with all the lessons/research done since the 70/80's it's going to take a huge amount of configuring. It's logical that using a modern editor like VS Code would be much more efficient.
jibal 3 days ago|||
Perhaps you should read the OP again ... your comments are off topic (Edit: obviously--the topic is not editors in general, and I'm obviously not guilty of what the response accuses me of).

Also examine https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

roman_soldier 2 days ago||
How is my comment off topic? VS Code is an editor as is emacs. There is nothing in the guidelines link that would constitute my post being wrong, however it does say

'Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.'

and

'Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.'

Maybe it would help if you reread the guidelines yourself.

flimflamboi 2 days ago|||
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noosphr 3 days ago|||
I'd say push tricycle.

After all chains are too complicated an you hardly need them in the kids playground.

dehrmann 3 days ago|
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mackeye 3 days ago|
ime, the benefit of vscode over a text editor (i prefer kakoune, which has present, but low, community support vs. n?vim/emacs) was relatively seamless debug sessions. almost any other element is exceeded in an editor, to me --- the git integration of vscode is subpar, most vscode plugins i'd need have standalone counterparts (tinymist is the best example), etc. in emacs, these are exacerbated, as git integration is emacs is excellent (as i hear), and many integrations for emacs are well-maintained. what do you see as the benefit of vscode over an editor?

i haven't used cursor, and i've used clion only minimally. visual studio is quite a standup ide experience, and i'd use it were i on windows. but vscode doesn't seem particularly above the competition in terms of sheer capabilities.

sexyman48 3 days ago||
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tomhow 13 hours ago|||
We've banned this account.
mackeye 3 days ago|||
did you have an issue with the parentheses or the capitalization :)
jibal 3 days ago||
Your comment was fine.