Derek Taylor over at DistroTube has a video that asks the question, “Why should you use Emacs, Vim, and other nerdy software?” That’s not a hard question for Irreal readers but Taylor has an unusual perspective. Even though he constantly makes videos on the technical aspects of computing, he, himself, is not a developer and does not work in the field.
His education was in music but he soon realized that in order to optimize his
use of computers he needed to be able to adapt them to his own workflow. That, he says, entails two conclusions:
- You should be using (very) configurable software
- You should be using free (in the FSF sense) software that allows you to adapt it to your needs.
The part of the video that I found most interesting was the fact that Taylor has learned a little bit of several languages—including Haskel—just so he could configure his software. He’s written several Bash scripts to automate chores and data conversions but still insists he’s not a programmer—he’s just a guy who learned what he needed to so he could adapt his computing environment to his needs.
It’s interesting that non-engineers are more than able to master enough programming to customize their software. We sometimes think that making full use of Emacs (and the others) are beyond the capabilities of normies but Taylor’s video shows otherwise.