Irreal oldtimers know that I consider Emacs a sort of light-weight Lisp Machine and that I can sometimes be—ahem—obsessive about it. Recently, I came across a series of posts that reveal me to be a mere tyro in exploiting Emacs as the center of my computing workflow.
Ryan Rix has thought long and hard about what he wants from his computing environment and has put together a lengthy series of documents describing it. That document, Complete Computing Environment, consists of several Web pages that describe what he’s done to realize his vision and what he’s still planning on doing. The first page, linked above, provides an overview of his system and provides links to other pages containing the specifics and code.
Mostly, his Emacs usage and goals are like mine except that he’s far more organized and has a more or less complete idea of what he’s trying to accomplish. Because his machines are (mostly) Linux based he can use EXWM, which goes a long way towards making Emacs into a Lisp Machine. As a Mac user, I don’t have that advantage but I’m still able to use many of his ideas.
One thing that I found odd, or at least unusual, is his dislike of smartphones. They are, he says, underpowered, insecure, and mostly useless for real work. I don’t know Rix’s age but I’m guessing most of his life overlaps that of the age of smartphones. Those of us who were around before the smartphone—or cell phones for that matter—think of smartphones as modern miracles that have made our lives immeasurably easier. Still, I take his point that they’re suboptimal compared to an actual computer. Like him, I’m waiting the day when our smartphones completely replace our other computers and we always have our full computing environment with us in our pockets. In the meantime, Rix is making do with a GDP Pocket Computer, which is a computer small enough to fit in your pocket. I’m seriously thinking about getting one myself.
If you’d also like to make Emacs the center of your computing universe, give Rix’s document a read. There’s a lot of material but the first page gives a nice overview and will guide you to the rest. I’m very impressed and inspired by his ideas and will be working to integrate them into my own environment.