Comment by nosignal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nosignal | Hacker News Reader

I've recently (~3 months) started using emacs "full-time" for org-mode, text notetaking, Python, and Octave.

Here is a (small) list of things I'm sure emacs can do:

- Integrate with git;

- Run my Python and/or Octave code inside emacs;

- Perform autocomplete on my Python/Octave code;

- Become my blog publishing platform using a combination of the above features;

- Replace my email, twitter & RSS clients;

- Read and post to HN from within emacs

Here is a list of how many of those things I, personally, can actually do using emacs:

-None of them

I love it for a text editor, I love the keybindings and commands, I love the theory of how extensible it is. But by god it's a nightmare to set up and configure. For all the "guides to emacs" there are out there, it would still take me about 2 or 3 days to get it running like the well-oiled machine I'd like it to be.

I'm sticking with it, but when I'm learning Octave, to learn about Machine Learning, to get better at programming — having to stop to learn how to use my text editor is just one step too far.

One day work will settle down and I'll have more time to stuff about getting emacs to do exactly what I want; but for now I feel like I'm using IBM's Watson to help me beat Words With Friends.

magit and org-mode were two of the reasons I started using emacs a couple years ago. magit is still an emacs app I use very heavily. I can do things in it easily that are quite difficult to do without (and I know git very well).

I don't think a lot of those things are worth learning. I would never consider using git from anything other than the shell or email from anything but my favorite client. It's all personal, of course.

> Perform autocomplete on my Python/Octave code

.. except for auto-completion, who doesn't like that? :-/

Try the 'dabbrev-expand' command for auto-complete in any mode (naive match on other words in the buffer): M-/

Then check out 'C-h a expand' and 'C-h a complete' (apropos searches for commands related to code completion).

Don't dismiss the value of Git integration in your editor until you've tried Magit in Emacs. I hardly ever need to run git at the command line anymore. I particularly like how easy it is to stage individual hunks in Magit.

Magit is probably my favorite piece of software. It's truly epic. It alone would keep me from ever switching to something else. Although emacs has plenty of other things to keep me around.

Also check out http://porkrind.org/commit-patch (with commit-patch-buffer.el) for an alternative to magit's hunk staging which is also works with a bunch of other VCSs (it's heavenly when you're stuck with something old like CVS or SVN).

Now you've got me interested, wonder how something improves "git add -p". Will check it out.

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