Should I learn to use Emacs? [duplicate]

Answer 1

There is one other benefit of learning emacs. Emacs has been integrated into unix operating systems in a surprising number of ways. For example, you can use basic emacs commands in xterm. Heck in OS X, you can use basic emacs stuff just about everywhere. Plus, you can also set a lot of IDEs (like Visual Studio or Eclipse) to use emacs-like commands. So I'd say that it's a good thing to be familiar with the basics of emacs even if you don't use it that much.

One other thing to point out: emacs is a godsend on laptops. Especially Apple laptops. You don't need to worry what god-awful location the home key is in because you just need C-a.

Answer 2

I don't think you'd be more productive either. I myself do use Emacs for programming currently, but the main reason is that I have to ssh into the system where I'm developing. Otherwise I'd probably use an IDE like IntelliJ or Eclipse.

Answer 3

I've used emacs for more than twenty years. As much as possible, I try to use it for all my typing needs, including, as Fu86 mentioned, reading email, news, etc, as well as notes, to-do lists, writing code, running compiles, etc. Since emacs is much older than the extensible vim (as opposed to the relatively non-extensible vi), it has a much larger collection of extension modes covering almost any purpose you can imagine. That said, it's fair to say that serious use of emacs can be considered a lifestyle choice, in that it takes a considerable amount of effort and time to become fluent with the tool.

My real answer is that, as far as editors (and any other category of tool) go, you should find one that is powerful and flexible, and then take the time to become a skilled user of that tool. Your tool of choice can be either vim or emacs, or perhaps something else, but in any event, take the time to learn it well. Personally, I've chosen to master emacs, and I've never been disappointed when I've wanted it to handle some new situation for me.

Having never worked seriously in Java, I can't comment from direct experience on how well it replaces tools like eclipse and intellij. I'm old enough to be skeptical of these highly-integrated tools (even without experience with them), and there are emacs modes that provide some (although by no means all, I'm sure) of the features of these editors.

Answer 4

If use now use and like an IDE, and you are already familiar with vi/vim, then don't give Emacs a second thought. Emacs will never replace your IDE, and if it could then vim would do you just fine. Nevermind the Emacs vs. vi holy wars... you already know vim, and vi/vim will be already installed on any UNIX flavor you come across.

Answer 5

The choice of editor is something that every programmer has to make at least once, but often repeatedly over the course of their career. I was a vi+Eclipse user until about four years ago, which was when I made the transition from being a hobby coder to being a professional, and more or less simultaneously to using emacs.

What I've found is that emacs has rewarded every bit of time I've spent learning it with increased capability. I still cannot recommend it for writing Java -- Eclipse/NetBeans/IntelliJ are so much better than any mere text editor for that -- but for configuration file editing, C coding, scripting emacs provides everything you might want, and more. The latest versions (bleeding edge stuff, sadly, still unreleased) even support TrueType fonts in gnome.

It'll be painful. Changing tools always is. But yes, you should try to learn it. You won't regret it.

Answer 6

The difference between emacs and vim is that emacs includes many many features and combines mail, news, filemanager, and of course a text editor. Vim does only text editing and that very well (without plugins). Its up to you if you like emacs or not. I personally like vim more, but give emacs a try and find the best suitable text editor for you.