Xah Lee has a nice post on the various methods of autocompleting in Emacs (search for 2012-12-01). Most Emacs users will be familiar with the majority of the material but it’s helpful to have it all written down in one place. For most of the methods he gives pointers to additional material that he’s written for that particular mode or package. Very helpful.
Of the minibuffer methods that he mentions, I use ido and smex and I’m experimenting with icomplete. For the general methods, I use hippie-expand, dabbrev-expand, and abbrev-mode. I couldn’t live without ido and smex and I use the others regularly. I find them all very handy so if you aren’t already using them you should give them a try.
I don’t use YASnippet but I’ve been meaning to install it. When guys like Lee and Magnar Sveen keep recommending it, that’s a pretty good indication that I’d find it useful. What do you think? If you have any strong feelings about the above packages or use something else that really works for you, leave a comment.
Update:
Lee has made the post a standalone page.