Comment by orbifold | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orbifold | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to discourage you, but Emacs will beat you in pretty much any respect. It has org mode, which can generate html, latex, markdown etc. from a very intelligent and easy to use outline mode plus a ton of other features (literal programming, calendar, tables). It pretty much blows any other personal information management system out of the water. You could view the google talk by its creator for more information.

Auctex mode for latex editing, with in buffer preview of formulas and you are a few keystrokes away from compiling and previewing in an external viewer aswell. It also has distraction free mode, as you can fullscreen it and remove all chrome you don't want.

I think you would need to work really long and hard to get something substantially better than emacs as a tool. That being said there still will be people who pay money for inferior products if it has enough flashy features.

Emacs is awesome, and I totally love it. I've used it for more than 20 years. But, it's too complicated even for most programmers, and it's way too complicated for the majority of non-programmers. I can't handle maintaining my .emacs file anymore, and for me sublime is easier to use, even if it is less "powerful".

As much as I still love emacs, it's not a reason to be discouraged. I might even suggest it's a reason to be encouraged. I would absolutely love to see something that actually competes with emacs on functionality and generality, while also being modern and usable, and without having to be a programmer.

I know! But I'm not interested in money, and it seems possible to provide something much easier to use then emacs, which, although inferior, can still help people who can't invest the time in learning to use emacs. (There's actually a sociologist, Kieran Healy, who's devoted lots of time to carefully explaining his emacs-centred workflow, with almost no uptake. There's just an enormous class of people who use Word -- horrendously inappropriate for this class of work -- when it's easier to make something much better, though still a long way off emacs.

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