Ever since I got back into using OrgMode full-time, I've been using Emacs every single minute of using a computer. In fact, these days, I can't even function without Emacs and OrgMode.
Naturally, it follows, that just like the days when I dived deep into Vim, I'm diving into Emacs these days.
I got interested in Emacs again because of BG's dotemacs, but to truly become familiar, I had to create my own configuration files. It was a great way to learn Emacs Lisp. I have breezed through the initial chapters of the Emacs Lisp Manual and after getting introduced to Clojure recently, Lisp and functional programming doesn't seem that alien any more.
I bumped into Cask and Pallet last week (probably via Emacs-Reddit) and that gave me impetus to kickstart my own .emacs.d over the weekend.
This is how I got started - I created the following files under the .emacs.d directory in my home directory, so it looked like this:
Contents of the file install.sh :
Contents of the file Cask initially was (I've added more packages now, but this is the minimal list of packages that I would use, although ELPY is optional if you don't use Python):
A minimal init.el looks like:
And that's it, a full-fledged Emacs setup is ready.
The best part is to play around with M-x list-packages and browse around and decide which packages you want to try out and use, when you install a package, it automatically gets added to your Cask file (that's what Pallet does), so you can convert this .emacs.d folder into a Git repository and sync anywhere and have the same configuration available on multiple machines.
So far, I have resisted many things like evil-mode and started really enjoying using packages such as org-pomodoro and ace-jump-mode.
Getting back to Emacs after a decade has been so much fun.
Twitter Comments
@swaroopch did you try prelude or starter kit? I started with that and added customizations on my fork. Lotsa goodies in there.
-- @arnab_deka
@swaroopch all the best :) I tried emacs so many times but failed. Happy with VIM, I hope some day ll write A byte of emacs & I ll emacs den
-- @vivekbhat9
@swaroopch i hope u got my thoughts :) will learn emacs when u will write A Byte of Emacs. Missed few words in last tweet ;)
-- @vivekbhat9
Comments
[Tech] Eight programming lessons learned in 2013 says:
[…] again, I have to make a commitment to throw familiarity away. That is what pushes me to learn to customize Emacs despite already having spent years mastering Vim and spent so much time using PyCharm, […]
Syndrome says:
I'm almost ending my one year(really short) marriage to Vim. Emacs and elisp gets me more excited than Vimscript. As soon as I 'm fully weaned on Emacs, I'm moving. One thing that'll really miss is tabs. Emacs' split window just doesn't cut it. How do you survive without tabs?
swaroop says:
@Syndrome I can imagine the Elisp > Vimscript situation and I agree with that (although in future, Vim will have more Python integration). I do miss tabs, but I have just replaced with creating new frames (i.e. windows) by using `C-x 5 2`.