Write post about my first Emacs moments
Also, my first post with images! (I think)
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| --- | ||||
| layout:    post | ||||
| title:     "How I started with Emacs" | ||||
| date:      2016-11-03 09:58:41 | ||||
| tags:      [emacs] | ||||
| published: true | ||||
| authon: | ||||
|     name: Gergely Polonkai | ||||
|     email: gergely@polonkai.eu | ||||
| --- | ||||
|  | ||||
| Sacha Chua has a nice | ||||
| [Emacs chat intro](http://sachachua.com/blog/2013/04/emacs-chat-intro/) article | ||||
| back from 2013. I write this post half because she asks there about my | ||||
| (OK, anyone’s) first Emacs moments, and half because I plan to do it | ||||
| for months now. | ||||
|  | ||||
| I wanted to start using Emacs 6(ish) years ago, and I was like | ||||
| “<kbd>C-x</kbd> what”? (Note that back around 1998, I was among the | ||||
| people who exited `vi` by killing it from another terminal after a | ||||
| bunch of tries & fails like | ||||
| [these](http://osxdaily.com/2014/06/12/how-to-quit-vim/).) | ||||
|  | ||||
| I tried to come back to Emacs a lot of times. And I mean a *lot*, | ||||
| about every two months. I suddenly learned what these cryptic key | ||||
| chord descriptions mean (`C` is for <kbd>Control</kbd> and `M` is for | ||||
| <kbd>Meta</kbd>, which is actually <kbd>Alt</kbd>), but somehow it | ||||
| didn’t *click*. I remained a ViM power user with a huge pile of | ||||
| 3<sup>rd</sup> party plugins. | ||||
| Then [I found Nyan-macs]({% post_url 2014-09-17-nyanmacs %}), | ||||
| which converted me to Emacs, and it is final now. Many of my friends | ||||
| thought I’m just kidding this being the cause, but I’m not. I’m a huge | ||||
| fan of Nyan cat (did you know there is even a site | ||||
| called [nyan.cat](http://nyan.cat/)?) and since then I have it in my | ||||
| mode line: | ||||
|  | ||||
|  | ||||
|  | ||||
| …in my `eshell` prompt: | ||||
|  | ||||
|  | ||||
|  | ||||
| …and I also [zone out](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ZoneMode) with | ||||
| Nyan cat: | ||||
|  | ||||
|  | ||||
|  | ||||
| Now on to more serious stuff. After browsing through all the packages | ||||
| provided by [ELPA](http://elpa.gnu.org/), I found tons of useful (and | ||||
| sometimes, less useful) packages, | ||||
| like | ||||
| [Helm](https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm/wiki), | ||||
| [company](http://company-mode.github.io/), | ||||
| [gtags](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnuGlobal) (which introduced | ||||
| me to GNU Global, removing Exuberant ctags from my | ||||
| life), | ||||
| [magit](https://magit.vc/), | ||||
| [Projectile](http://batsov.com/projectile/), | ||||
| and [Org](http://orgmode.org/) (OK, it’s actually part of Emacs for a | ||||
| while, but still). I still use these few, but in a month or two, I | ||||
| started | ||||
| to [version control](https://github.com/gergelypolonkai/my-emacs-d) my | ||||
| `.emacs.d` directory, so I can easily transfer it between my home and | ||||
| work machine (and for a few weeks now, even to my phone: I’m using | ||||
| Termux on Android). Then, over these two years I wrote some packages | ||||
| like [GobGen](https://github.com/gergelypolonkai/gobgen.el), and a | ||||
| small addon for Calendar | ||||
| providing | ||||
| [Hungarian holidays](https://github.com/gergelypolonkai/hungarian-holidays), | ||||
| and I found a lot more (in no particular | ||||
| order): | ||||
| [git-gutter](https://github.com/syohex/emacs-git-gutter), | ||||
| [multiple-cursors](https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el), | ||||
| [origami](https://github.com/gregsexton/origami.el), | ||||
| [ace-window](https://github.com/abo-abo/ace-window), | ||||
| [avy](https://github.com/abo-abo/avy), | ||||
| [beacon](https://github.com/Malabarba/beacon), and a lot more. | ||||
|  | ||||
| What is more important (to me) is that I started using | ||||
| the [use-package](https://github.com/jwiegley/use-package) package, | ||||
| which can automatically download packages that are not installed on my | ||||
| current local system. Together | ||||
| with | ||||
| [auto-package-update](https://github.com/rranelli/auto-package-update.el), | ||||
| it is *very* practical. | ||||
|  | ||||
| In addition, I started to follow the blogs of a bunch of Emacs | ||||
| users/gurus. I’ve already | ||||
| mentioned [Sacha Chua](http://sachachua.com/). She’s a charming, | ||||
| cheerful person, writing a lot about Emacs and project management | ||||
| (among other things). Another one | ||||
| is [Bozhidar Batsov](http://batsov.com/), who, among other things, had | ||||
| an initiate to lay down the foundation of | ||||
| a | ||||
| [common Elisp coding style](https://github.com/bbatsov/emacs-lisp-style-guide). Another | ||||
| favourite of mine | ||||
| is [Endless Parentheses](http://endlessparentheses.com/), whence I got | ||||
| a lot of ideas. | ||||
| @@ -95,6 +95,11 @@ article.post | ||||
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