[PLUG] Emacs

[Dhruva B. Reddy]

I've never built emacs on Linux--only on HP-UX and Solaris.  It's just
too easy (on Debian) to type in "apt-get install emacs21".  It's pretty
straightforward, IIRC, but using your system's package manager is likely to
make it less painful.

Legal:  Gotta love the GPL!  For most purposes, you can just start using
emacs, so you don't have to worry about running afoul of the license.

Social:  I'm afraid I am unfamiliar with this term :-).  But seriously,
most people cannot tell that I use emacs (although this will change as I
subject more people to HTML files (written manually with emacs'
excellent HTML mode) and PDF (generated from my latex files)).

Political:  I have found that many developers prefer working with IDEs.
Unfortunately, these tools impose their own proprietary organizational
stuff which make it potentially messy (and sometimes impossible) to work
outside that tool.  I have not found a compelling argument against "Well,
(xxx IDE) has a built-in debugger".  Also, I have yet to meet a manager
who was impressed that I know emacs.

As for actually learning how to use emacs, I started out with a hard
copy of the FSF's manual, and now I go googling or ask my emacs-using
friends whenever I have a question.

Generally, I have been using emacs for 3.5 years (since 19.x), and have
grown to love it.  I use it for writing documents (when I can get away
with it) and writing code.  I don't wish to start a religious war, but I
would say that very few applications are as powerful and extensible as
this one.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some Tetris to play on emacs v21...

Dhruva

On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 03:33:51PM -0700, quoth Jeme A Brelin:
> 
> Hi.
> 
> I'm about to take a kind of plunge.
> 
> In an effort to avoid actually practicing becoming a better programmer,
> I'm going to attempt to build, configure, and leanr to use emacs under the
> guise that it will make programming easier when and if I ever work harder
> to actually improve my skills.  (I'm also kind of looking forward to using
> a truly GPL mail reader that does everything I want it to do, but that's a
> maybe right now.)
> 
> So, I'm just putting out feelers to find out if there is anything I need
> to know before building emacs from source.  Is there some option that
> needs to be compiled in to allow me to use particular modules, extensions,
> or scripts?  Roughly how big is an emacs installation?  Should I create a
> special /usr/local/emacs to hold all the emacs-specific stuff?  How many
> of the add-ons need to be rebuilt when emacs is rebuilt?
> 
> My intent is to build GNU Emacs.  I am, of course, generally more
> concerned with the social, legal, and political aspects of the software
> than the technical merits, but I will consider particular comparisons and
> contrasts to other Emacs streams to help inform my decision.
> 
> Anyway, this is an open call.  What can y'all tell me that'll help my
> transition?
> 
> I've got a book (O'Reilly's Learning GNU Emacs -- the gnu book).  I don't
> really have money for another.  I can look at the FSF's manual online, of
> course.
> 
> But building the thing is another story.  So, if you've got something to
> say, I'd like to hear it.
> 
> J.