Michael Wall has a nice post on his Emacs workflow. I found it interesting for two reasons. First, I always enjoy seeing how others solve the problems that we, as developers and Emacs users, all face. Most often, I learn sometime that I find useful and can incorporate into my own workflow.
The second reason is that, like me, Wall came to Emacs from Vim but our accommodations to the new environment were different. As Wall says, the typical Vim workflow involves firing up the editor when you want to work on a file and closing it afterwards. Emacs users, on the other hand, tend to start Emacs and just add another buffer when they want to edit a new file.
When I started using Emacs, I embraced the Emacs way and just left it running. Adjusting to that new way of working was one of the hardest parts Emacs. Now, I always have an Emacs frame up, usually beside a Safari window. Almost all my work is done in those two applications. Occasionally, I’ll bring up another application—mail say—but then either quit it or more likely hide its window.
Wall, on the other hand, decided to leverage the power of Emacs’ extensibility to adjust Emacs to his workflow rather than adjust that workflow to the Emacs way. He did that by combining Emacs server with some shell scripts to recreate the feel of a Vim workflow. The great thing about all this is how easy it is. Once again, Emacs let’s you have it your way. Be sure to follow the link to see how he does it. Good stuff even if, like me, you prefer a different way of working.