Irreal

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a YASnippet user and really like the system. Not everyone agrees but you owe it to yourself to give them a try. If you are a user, you might not be aware, as I wasn’t, that there’s a package of additional templates.

RmberYou has a post that describes the package and how to configure it. A glance at the source directory gives you an idea of the many modes that the snippets cover.

Despite my best intentions, I seldom use any templates except the ones I’ve written myself. Mostly that’s a matter of being too lazy to learn what’s available and memorize their names. If you, on the other hand, don’t want to bother writing your own templates and would like a nice collection of prefab snippets, this package could be just what you’re looking for.

One of the problems—perhaps the major problem—that a new Emacs user faces is building an initial configuration. One would think that a vanilla install would be a good starting point for a new user but we all know that that initial install is not going to deliver a very good experience. Mostly that’s because even if you’re interested in Emacs strictly as an editor, it’s most usefully thought of as an editor construction kit. Even at the start, you need to do a bit of customization.

Huy Tran has a post that can help the n00b out. His post, Emacs from scratch, outlines a minimal configuration to get the new user going. It’s oriented towards a Spacemacs-like setup but even a relative new user should be able to include or exclude those parts as desired.

The major parts of the configuration are:

• Getting rid of the menu bar, tool bar, scroll bar, and tool tips.
• Setting up the package manager including making sure that the use-package macro is loaded.
• Enabling evil mode and other basic Vim comfort settings.
• Installing a theme.
• Installing Helm.
• Installing which-key.
• Setting custom key settings.
• Installing and configuring projectile.
• Installing neotree and icons.

He also configures a bit of macOS specific data that a new user probably shouldn’t worry about.

I disagree with the Helm installation, not because there’s anything wrong with Helm (although I prefer Ivy) but because it’s not something a n00b should be worrying about initially. I also don’t care for neotree but perhaps it’s helpful for n00bs and it probably doesn’t hurt to install it.

If you know someone who’s new to Emacs and looking for an initial configuration to get started, this is a good resource.

Over at the Emacs reddit, honeywhite wonders why anyone would use the Emacs default key bindings. He’s an Emacs user but can’t understand why anyone would prefer the standard Emacs key bindings to one of the Vi emulation modes.

As most of you know, I was a Vi user for more than a couple of decades and then moved to Emacs. When I did, I went all in and learned the Emacs key bindings. It was a bit hard rearranging my muscle memory but now I’m perfectly happy with the Emacs bindings.

Honeywhite’s real objection to the standard Emacs editor is that commands generally require a key chord but that’s because Emacs, unlike Vi(m), isn’t modal. If your editor isn’t modal, you’re pretty much stuck with key chording (or menus/arrow keys). Oddly, honeywhite doesn’t mention the real advantage of Vi key bindings: they’re composable. Once you’ve learned the movement keys and that d is for “delete,” you automatically know how to delete just about everything. That’s a very powerful abstraction that Emacs lacks.

Fortunately, Emacs has both camps covered. If you hate key chording, you can use one of the Vi emulation modes. If you can’t put up with modality, you can use the standard bindings. I like both systems but decided to learn the Emacs way when I switched. That’s just me; you can switch and (mostly) bring Vim with you if you prefer.