Will Emacs make me a better programmer? [closed]

Answer 1

I used emacs in college. that was about 16 years ago. I haven't looked back. While I wish I could still be comfortable with emacs, the truth is I am quite productive with my MS IDE.

the text you posted is just a troll. Yep. No other reason for it than to start a religious war.

Answer 2

For me the main reason I would choose Emacs over an IDE is because it allows me to do everything from just my keyboard. This is nice in that it saves some time for when I would normally use a mouse. Also since I find myself very mobile I have a tendency of having my programming "groove" interrupted due to using my slow touch pad. In addition its customization makes it shine over some IDEs for me. However if you find yourself programming fast enough with an IDE then I would say the learning curve of Emacs is not worth the trouble.

Answer 3

Emacs made me more efficient at text manipulation and filesystem navigation. And since both these things are involved when I program, it's made me a more efficient (thus better) programmer.

Answer 4

While the IDE's have gotten a lot better in the last decade, they still contain the programming in a little safe "bubble", far away from some of the uglier details. What tends to happen is that this increase in abstraction allows for more programmers to do more, with less knowledge. That, of course, doesn't apply to all programmers, but easier tools do bring programming to a wider audience.

More knowledge of lower-level tools, often translates to more stability in the code, since there are less chances of "going against the grain" accidentally. It's unfair to just list out EMACS as being the only leading indicator, since it comes from a whole range of languages and tools, and really is more about the depth of understanding, not the specific technology.

Way back, you either learned VI or EMACS on the UNIX boxes or you specialized in PCs (OK, there was VMS, CMS, AS400, etc. too, but those were older technologies). Both streams attracted very keen people, but the UNIX guys tended towards wanting a sophisticated solution, while the PC guys just wanted it done quickly. The cultures were very different.

Answer 5

Mastering the Emacs key bindings and its built in functions will allow you to manipulated text faster than IDE's such as Eclipse or Visual Studio.

Don't take my word for it, check out these videos of pros using Emacs.

Once you get to a decent level in Emacs you can effectively edit any language: Java Script, Java, Ruby, Python, HTML, C, C++, etc.

Getting started with Emacs is a pain in the butt, the out of the box experience is worse than bad. Emacs default configuration does not expose the Emacs newbie to the more powerful features (hippie-expand, etags, yasnippets, etc) of Emacs. I suggest started with the Emacs Starter Kit dot files.

Another reason that Steve Yegge claims that the world best programmers use Emacs, is elisp. Elisp allows the experienced programmer the power to easily expand Emacs. Writing an extension in Eclipse or Visual Studio is significantly harder than writing a quick function or even a new minor mode in elisp.

Answer 6

No.

Discipline, critical thinking and a desire for self-improvement will make you a better programmer. Your tool set, while a major factor in your productivity, won't create genius.

If you don't like emacs or vi, don't use them. By making the conscious choice not to, you're shaping your development environment to fit your own needs and work practices. In any case, you're entitled to use what you like - and ignore anyone who's foolish enough to berate you for the tool you use to write bits to disk - it's the bits that matter.

Note: "Tool set" here means, literally, the "brand" of tools - specific editors, compilers, etc. Conceptual tool sets, e.g. the use of version control, unit testing - all in general - are a part of the self-improvement process.