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Comment by brandonmenc | Hacker News Reader

Reading this gave me flashbacks. Horrible, horrible flashbacks.

I used to live in emacs - for years. Browsed the web with it, controlled music playback (via mpd) with it - everything. Nowadays, imo, a combination of Spotlight, tmux with a hotkey drop down terminal, Evernote, and JetBrains IDEs gets you 90% of the way there.

At some point you realize that work requires orders of magnitude more time thinking, reading, and communicating than it does typing. Optimizing your work environment for finger travel just doesn't make sense.

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> Nowadays, imo, a combination of Spotlight, tmux with a hotkey drop down terminal, Evernote, and JetBrains IDEs gets you 90% of the way there.

The problem is that those are a pile of (both subtly & grossly) different tools, none of which integrate nearly as well with one another as different emacs modes do.

And of course, you are completely unable to extend any of those as you would with emacs.

> At some point you realize that work requires orders of magnitude more time thinking, reading, and communicating than it does typing.

Emacs improves thinking, reading & communicating just as much as it does typing. Having my data in a consistent, efficient format makes it easier to read, and consequently leaves me more time to think. Being able to read & write emails, send instant messages and use the web from within the same environment improves communication.

Emacs really is the bee's knees, and I've never used anything which comes close. If only there were a good mobile-centric port (tough, I know, but my idea is to make extensive use of command interactions)…

Mm, I don't actually see anything about finger travel in Josh's article. The main advantages he talks about are "no more context switching", "taking everything with you and keeping it forever", and that he likes being able to fullscreen emacs as a complete workflow with no external distractions. You have to admit, these are not as easily done with a multi-program, IDE-heavy workflow.

From the article:

> I have a dual monitor set up at my desk. One of them is in portrait mode with Emacs full screened all day long. The other one has web browsers for researching and reading; it usually has a terminal open as well. I keep my calendar, email, etc., on another desktop in OS X, which is hidden while I'm in Emacs, and I keep all notifications turned off.

You don't need emacs to do this. Fullscreen a JetBrains IDE and install the Org4Idea plugin.

I beat the JetBrains drum a lot, but emacs/vi users don't realize how much functionality is integrated and keyboard-driven in their products - and, importantly, it's built-in (no plugins) and sanely pre-configured. "I thought only emacs could do this" was my reaction when I switched.

OP here. There are lots of great tools for editing text and code out there. Finger travel was a concern due to some RSI issues I was having, but not the most important factor which is that I like Emacs and enjoy using it. I like it's sensibilities, Lisp, and the cleanness of the interface. YMMV, and I'm not at all an Emacs partisan or evangelist, just a guy who made a blog post about stuff I like.

Doesn't Jetbrains require Java? And, isn't Evernote a web service we don't know the ultimate fate of yet? I am just barely competent using Vim, and I am in the process of learning Lisp before I explore Emacs as an option. I just don't think the services you purpose as substitutes really fit the bill; they are simpler to use, especially at the beginning, but long-term I don't think they are replacements.

> Doesn't Jetbrains require Java?

It's 2015. That's a concern for practically nobody.

I think that the old joke about Emacs being an OS is actually very insightful. Living in Emacs is basically replacing most of your interactions with the OS (and in particular its window manager). Some, like me, find that Emacs as a pseudo-OS has a better approach towards productivity than your regular ones. It's opinionated - it encourages all "apps" (elisp scripts, basically) to conform the same text-oriented, fully customizable interaction patterns. And all powerful text-operating facilities of Emacs - navigation, searches, keyboard macros, etc. - can be used to interact with every "application". All the different modes and scripts in Emacs feel like a part of coherent whole, not separate apps. It reduces mental context switching tremendously.

You can get halfway there with a decent WM (xmonad, StumpWM and the like), but you still don't get the other half - unified and very powerful interaction, ability to tweak and instrument - and even combine together - applications, and documentation available at your fingertips. Living in Emacs makes me feel the computer is a powerful tool, not a toy.

Evernote has 90% of the features of Org-mode? The last time I checked, it didn't. Not even close.

What I mean is that most people can get most of what they need from something like org-mode by instead using Evernote, Asana, etc.

My experience is that I'd set up something like org-mode thinking, "wow, I can't wait to save hours a week by being able to juggle todo lists around at high speed without taking my fingers off the home row!" and like, that would just never be the case. In reality, all I needed was something a little bit better than a dumb text file.

ymmv. I'm sure there are power users out there who really exercise these tools to the max. But even then, I question how much time they're saving.

"time saving" and "without taking my fingers off the home row" is an extremely shallow view of why people pick emacs and org-mode as a major portion of their computational environment.

Broadly it's about creating a sort of fabric of textual context around your all of your personal and professional projects. It's about owning your tools as a professional.

Orgmode allows you to capture your thinking around a project in a way that's extremely adaptable to whatever structure you need.

You can create an outline of arbitrary depth with todo items, appointments, executable computation or latex.

There is literally no other environment available with that level of power.

Now even if you can assemble this from the bits of flavor of the month web services which of us will still be able to read and use our environment in 2 years? How about 25?

Cheers.

> Now even if you can assemble this from the bits of flavor of the month web services which of us will still be able to read and use our environment in 2 years? How about 25?

I am sympathetic to this.

If I were working alone on a decades-long project - for example, as a researcher, or academic - I'd be hesitant to use something like Evernote. I probably would use org-mode.

But, when working with other (potentially non-technical) stakeholders on projects that clock in under five years, Evernote and Asana would be my go-tos.

How do you manage your personal projects and notes though? Evernote - or any SaaS - seems to me too risky a proposition for something like this.

For brainstorming and architecting I use whiteboards that I take photos of before erasing. If there's no whiteboard available, I use pen and paper - yellow legal pads - which I also take photos of.

Text files and Evernote I use for snipping web pages, organizing bookmarks, and taking meeting minutes. For todo lists, I use text files, Evernote, and increasingly, Asana.

I don't do any brainstorming with the computer.

Yeah, I agree. I use emacs avidly. I still think for editing raw text it's a fairly nice experience. I like a lot of the features in emacs but I rarely need some of the more advanced ones. In order to leverage them, you need some highly specific use cases. Maybe my brain-meats aren't as myelinated as others, but most people don't want or need the universal pocket knife.

I'm not sure this is about finger travel. In my opinion it's more about consistency and features. Personally I spend most of the time on shells, interpreters and editing text, and I like the fact that the same key-bindings and basic operations work everywhere. For tasks that require little or no textual input, such as browsing the web or reading mail I do prefer GUIs though.

That is exactly my experience.

For me Emacs has always been a poor man's IDE.

The best replacement I got to get on UNIX to compensate for the lack of IDEs I already knew from PC and Amiga worlds.

Having migrated to JVM and .NET worlds reduced my Emacs use to machines where no other option is available. (Vi is only an option when Emacs isn't available)

But what happens when your IDE is discontinued with no easy way to migrate projects? That has bit me several times over the last twenty years -- so I only rely on established proprietary tools like Emacs these days.

It was never a concern, since I only use platform languages.

If the IDE doesn't matter it is usually because the platform doesn't matter anymore.

I feel that optimizing your work flow to minimize context switches is worthwhile, though. Doesn't have necessarily anything to do with one another but even getting your thoughts out without grabbing your mouse or mashing shift-right half a dozen times help me tremendously.

I agree.

Evernote has a hotkey for bringing up a note taking window.

OS X users can use Spotlight to bring up their favorite note taking app without touching a mouse.

True, at one point you care about abstractions that makes editing support moot. That said I still enjoy a customizable input / render lisp thingy that doesn't require me to have a core i5. Maybe time for an emacs descendant. systemacs /jk

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