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Comment by trip-zip | Hacker News Reader

Emacs users have all the fun. And just like eve online or dwarf fortress, I can't seem to get fully into them myself, but I love reading stories about it.

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Maybe give RimWorld a try.

I took three approaches for me over a span of two years to really get into emacs. It was pretty tough (a time before google was a thing).

Now iam spoiled - I recently tried vscode a bit and really was baffled because it seems there is no kill ring like the one in emacs that makes it basically impossible to lose any edits.

Doesn’t it have unlimited undo? Savages! (I have never in my life used vscode, hope it shows).

I dont know about unlimited undos. But you can overwrite parts of your undo-tree so you cannot access them anymore.

Try RimWorld only if you're sure it won't nerd-snipe you.

RimWorld, also known as War Crime Simulator.

RimWorld is a game that makes me want to fuse with an LLM. It already has an incredibly sophisticated backstory and memory and motivation system; it can't be too much work to hook up an LLM to get the pawns to speak and act in novel ways.

Best way to get into it is to pick one use case and stick with that for a while. Before you know it, you will want more.

For me it was org mode (with evil mode because I was coming from 15+ years of Vim). Then..

"Oh, I can manage files and edit a directory like a file buffer.."

"Oh, I can SSH into systems and edit files but it doesn't even feel like SSH.."

"Oh, this makes a great, distraction free IDE.."

I recommend a batteries included distro like Doom Emacs or Space Emacs.

Have you stuck with Doom/Space and evil key bindings or been pulled over to a more vanilla setup?

I've stuck with it so far (over 3 years in). I've learned a few Emacs-isms (M-x is indispensable) but it's pretty convenient to press space and be presented with a list of choices if I've forgotten certain key bindings.

I'm unlikely to give up evil with ~25 years of Vi/Vim muscle memory, but I'm open to trying other systems in the future. Since Vi/Vim operations are verb -> object, the advantages of object -> verb commands are tempting so one can see the target of a command before it's actual execution. The Vim workaround is invoking visual mode, of course.

Obviously with vanilla Vim, you're going to have to memorize everything and I eventually did that way back when. Being presented with the key bindings menu helps to remind me of things that I use less frequently and avoids time spent digging into the help system.

Sorry for the slow reply (but then my HN replies are never guaranteed either).

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