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content(archives): add emacs spotlight
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Khinshan Khan
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Jean-Philippe Sirois
Jean-Philippe Sirois
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### Table of Contents
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- [What is Emacs?](#what-is-emacs)
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- [Where to get Emacs?](#where-to-get-emacs)
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- [Note](#note)
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- [Why Emacs?](#why-emacs)
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- [Emacs Basics](#emacs-basics)
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- [Other General Points](#other-general-points)
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- [Distributions](#distributions)
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- [Resources](#resources)
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- [Fun Facts](#fun-facts)
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### What is Emacs?
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Emacs is a Lisp interpreter. It is commonly used as a **text editor** for reading and writing code, although you can use
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it to write academic documents or do your taxes, if that is more your style. It has a very rich history and it is almost
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certainly the most flexible text editor that is publicly available. As such, it tends to be the case that one dev’s use
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of Emacs is **very** different than another’s.
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### Where to get Emacs?
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- MacOS:
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- [Instructions from WikEmacs](http://wikemacs.org/wiki/Installing_Emacs_on_OS_X)
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- Windows:
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- [Instructions from EmacsWiki](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MsWindowsInstallation)
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- You may want to look into WSL as well
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- Linux:
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- [Instructions from WikEmacs](http://wikemacs.org/index.php/Installing_Emacs_on_GNU/Linux)
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- [Instructions for Snap](https://snapcraft.io/install/emacs/elementary) (26.3, stable and recommended if you choose snap)
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- Catchall:
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- Build from source [(GitHub Mirror)](https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs)
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### Note
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This spotlight has a tendency to change tenses and focuses. This is because it was written by 5 separate people. Emacs
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also has quite a bit to offer. This spotlight was written to share and introduce Emacs, not necessary make experts nor
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convert everyone. There wasn't a need to go into the nitty grity details until the free Q&A portion of the spotlight. If
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you have any remarks or fixes, feel free to make a pull request
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[here](https://github.com/the-programmers-hangout/website/issues/new). If you require some help or clarification, the
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tech champions (as well as other TPHers) are available in the [discord](https://discord.gg/programming) on the
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`#editors` channel. Feel free to drop by and say hi. There are a few memes that kept us sane scattered around.
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### Why Emacs?
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Many people look at how poor the out of the box experience with Emacs is, compare it to VS Code and dismiss Emacs as an
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option, stating that it’s simply too difficult to use, it’s ugly, and that concludes their experience with Emacs. I’m
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going to attempt to persuade you for a few moments of the following points:
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1. The out of the box experience with Emacs doesn’t have to be so barebones.
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2. The learning curve is actually substantially lower than you might think it is.
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3. Emacs is capable of much more than any other editor is, generally speaking.
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Let’s address these points in order.
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#### Point one: The Emacs out of the box experience
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It is absolutely true that Emacs seems to be barebones and archaic when first used. Let’s take the example average user:
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They download VS Code first and attempt to use it, it has syntax out of the box, you open a JavaScript file and it says
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“Hey, do you want to download X, Y and Z plugins?”, they click “yes” and they’re ready to edit some JavaScript. Then
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they download Emacs, they run it, they are presented with some screen about how Emacs is “one component of the GNU
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operating system” and a bunch of links. Immediate questions:
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- How do I open a file?
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- How do I “do things”?
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- Why are the blue links in my face and a handbook link?
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- Why isn’t the window full screen?
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This is not how Emacs should be used. Emacs is not a text editor, it is only incidentally a text editor. Emacs is much
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more like an application framework, inside of which you have control over everything. This application framework is
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controlled by *Lisp*, in specific, Emacs Lisp. You know nothing of Emacs Lisp or Emacs and you just opened Emacs up, how
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can you expect to be anything *except* confused?
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So we have this apparent complexity issue with Emacs, and we want to be pragmatic in the same way that we were when we
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opened VS Code, without any extra information, we started coding. We’re going to have to sacrifice a small amount here,
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in that we need to install an extra thing in order to get that same kind of out of the box experience.
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(For the savvy people, we're going to use [spacemacs](https://www.spacemacs.org/) as our clutch since most of use are
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using custom configuration. We highly recommend looking into other distributions like [Doom
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Emacs](https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs), especially if you want to give Emacs a second shot and see how fast it
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can get).
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Open a terminal and execute the following command:
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```bash
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git clone https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs ~/.emacs.d
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```
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**Note:** For Windows users, you will need to point the last part of the command `~/.emacs.d` to wherever you have set
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your home directory to. (A neat treat to check where to install: open emacs as is [yes yes, we're sorry your eyes burn];
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type in `M-x user-emacs-directory RET`; where `M` is your meta key which tends to the alt key, `M-x` is pressing meta
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key and `x` key at the same type, you type out `user-emacs-directory`, and `RET` is enter; this should show you the path
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you'll want in place of `~/.emacs.d`).
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This will install **Spacemacs** for you. Spacemacs is an out of the box experience for Emacs, which you will need to
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configure and change very little. When you first open Spacemacs, it’ll ask you some questions, one of the questions is
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do you want to use Holy or Evil mode. If you are familiar with vim, select evil mode. If not, select holy mode (Holy
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mode is the regular, default Emacs, without evil mode, sometimes referred to as “vanilla” Emacs. Evil is vim
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keybindings).
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What this will do is install a sane, default configuration for you. There is very little learning that goes into
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learning Spacemacs initially. We’ve documented it later. If a good out of the box experience is super key for you, it’s
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recommended that you use a distribution like Spacemacs, as that is the singular focus of distributions.
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#### Point two: The Emacs learning curve myth
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A lot of times people will associate Emacs with having a very steep learning curve. This is not true on any front
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actually, even for the base, clunky, ugly Emacs you saw earlier. The reason for this is that Emacs is actually
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self-documenting. It does a really good job of helping people to learn it, you just have to be *willing* to learn it. It
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can take 1 - 2 days to get very familiar with all of the basics (Described in the basics section) and then maybe a
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further 1 - 2 weeks to be as productive as you were before. After that, the sky's the limit. We’ve included some basic
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configurations for a lot of common programming languages in `tphmacs`
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[here](https://github.com/the-programmers-hangout/emacs/blob/master/.emacs.d/config.org), written in such a way that you
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can just pop them into your configuration.
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Additionally, packages like “[which-key](https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key)” and
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“[discover-my-major](https://github.com/jguenther/discover-my-major)” can help you learn very complex packages/ plugins
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very trivially. I almost never have to google stuff to figure out how to use Emacs because just asking Emacs is faster
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than asking google.
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#### Point three: [Generally] Emacs is capable of much more than any other editor
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So up until this point, we’ve just been laying out the ground work which indicates what makes Emacs equal to your old
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editor. It’s certainly the case that Emacs isn’t as good in some specific cases, for example, with Kotlin. This language
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is quite the edge case, though, as it’s usually the case that for newer languages Emacs is very good. However, generally
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speaking it’s an equal playing field, all things considered.
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So what can Emacs do that your current editor might not be able to? Below you can find a short list of items that
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demonstrate the raw power present within Emacs, that might help to persuade you to use it.
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- Emacs can be used as a Window manager using EXWM. Say goodbye to i3wm.
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- Emacs has a web browser built into it (EWW) - the name is fitting because it’s not pretty, but I’ve used it so many
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times for just quickly jumping to a link from the comfort of my editor.
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- Emacs allows you to write a *literate configuration file*. This means that the configuration file you have in Emacs is
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super easy to understand. (Anecdote in bound) Back when I was using vim, I had a very long .vimrc which essentially
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consisted of stuff that I had copy/pasted from stack-overflow, that I had no real understanding of. In Emacs, I’ve made
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my entire configuration file myself, and I can understand it all, because it’s just code with associated documentation.
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- Emacs has Eshell, which is actually significantly more powerful than the regular terminal you are used to. It is a
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*Lisp REPL* as well as a fully fledged terminal. This can be immensely powerful. Additionally, because Eshell outputs to
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just a regular text buffer inside of emacs, you can search, yank, paste, and manipulate text in the same way that you
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can throughout the rest of Emacs.
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- Org mode is one of the most powerful document formats available, and it requires no special encoding to use it, it’s
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just a plain text file. You can hook it into pandoc, too. It’s worth noting that you can export to LaTeX and it’s much
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more ergonomic than regular LaTeX.
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- Vim emulation inside of Emacs is basically perfect. If you are persuaded by any promise that you can find from vim,
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Emacs has the ability to use *everything* inside of vim.
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### Emacs Basics
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#### Keybinding Syntax Basics
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**Sequence of keys:** `a b c d` represent the following sequence of key, a then b then c then d
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**Key modifiers:** They are followed directly by a `-`, they represent "special" keys such as control, alt, the "windows
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key" and so on. They are meant to be used simultaneously with other keys, such that `C-x` means pressing control + x at
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the same time. The list of available modifiers:
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- `C`, the control key
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- `M`, the meta key, commonly bound to alt or option
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- `s`, the super key, also known as the "windows key"
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- `H`, the hyper key, which is usually unbound by default on most systems
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- `A`, the alt key, which is also unbound, this is not the actual alt key
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**Keychords:** They're represented by one or more modifiers followed by a dash and any key, such that `C-b` is control+b
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and `M-s-s` is meta+super+s
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#### Holy Mode Users
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Humble note: commands tend to start with `C-x` or `C-c` with holy bindings. With that, here are some basic operations
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everyone user needs with holy keybindings:
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**Open a file:** `C-x C-f` (f is for FILE)
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**Save a file:** `C-x C-s` (s is for SAVE)
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**Searching:** `C-s` (s is for SEARCH) OR `C-r` to search backwards from current point (r is for REVERSE)
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**Quitting Emacs:** `C-x C-c`
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**Stuck in the middle of a command?:** Mash `C-g`!
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#### Evil Mode Users
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The first obvious question to ask here about operating an evil-mode configuration is “how close is evil mode to regular
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vim”. The answer is: Very. Certainly as a long term vim user, I’ve never noticed anything out of place. So if you have
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read vimtutor, all of that applies here.
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#### Evil Operations
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Some basic operations for you, I have taken the liberty of writing the mnemonic with them:
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**Open a file:** In normal mode `:e <file name>` (e is for EDIT)
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**Save a file:** In normal mode `:w` (w is for WRITE)
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**Searching:** In normal mode `/<search>`
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**Delete a file:** In normal mode `!rm <file.txt>` (rm is for REMOVE)
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#### Some evil mode notes
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Personally, I don’t use the file operations from evil mode. I just use evil mode for the text navigation and
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manipulation. For searching I use swiper which I’ve bound to `C-s`, and I use Helm to find my files. Counsel with ivy is
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a popular alternative to Helm. That’s the beauty of it, you can mix and match whatever makes more sense to you
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personally.
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### Other General Points
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#### Buffers and Windows
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Emacs' terminology relating to what people usually refers to as windows and buffers is different, it's important to at
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least roughly know the difference between them as these terms will be used later on.
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A *buffer* refers to the data
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associated with a certain type of file or action, for example the content of a file, a terminal emulator or an
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image. They can be hidden or displayed in a window.
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A *window* refers to a panel or split inside a frame, it is used to
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display a buffer.
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A *frame* in emacs refers to the graphical window you are using emacs in, it contains windows, you
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can have multiple frames per Emacs instances.
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[Here](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/13584) is a more detailed explanation on stackexchange with an illustration.
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#### Major and Minor modes
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Modes are Emacs' way of understanding what you are doing and what you want to do. All all time you have one active
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major mode and 0 or more active minor modes. A mode can alter the behavior of emacs in many ways, such as changing
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keybindings, changing the display of the buffer, enabling auto-completion, modify an existing function, the list goes
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on.
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Major modes provide ways to interact with specific file types, like a file containing source code, or a specific buffer,
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like an interpreter or a git interface. Minor modes are just like major modes, but you can have multiple of them
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enabled at the same time, an example of a minor mode is `line-number-mode` which displays the line numbers in your
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modeline and isn't specific to a file type.
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There are multiple ways to enable a mode:
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- Manually, by invoking the mode like a function eg. `(line-number-mode t)`
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- By using the variable `auto-mode-alist` to associate a *major* mode with a file extension, `(add-to-list
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'auto-mode-alist '("\\.py\\'" . python-mode))`
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- By using *hooks*, which will run the modes like functions when the hook is triggered, `(add-hook
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'prog-mode-hook#'line-number-mode)` By default, the appropriate major mode should activate automatically depending on
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file extension, just like in any other editor.
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#### Dired Mode
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Emacs includes a _dir_ectory _ed_itor mode called `dired` that lets you view directory contents, traverse directories,
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and manipulate files, just like you would in a normal shell. A cheat sheet is available
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[here](https://ebzzry.io/en/emacs-dired/), and see [this section in the
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manual](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Dired.html) for all the details.
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### Eshell/Term/other terminals
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Because of Emacs’ long history, there are a number of solutions for accessing terminal functionality. Further
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explanations are in [stackexchange here](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/104325).
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- **M-!**: not a full-featured shell, but lets you run a single command quickly, like `!` in vim.
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- **Shell**: The original Emacs terminal implementation. Because of how it runs the underlying shell, its color display
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support is flaky and curses apps don’t work.
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- **Term and ansi-term**: A newer terminal implementation, where everything looks and works closer to what you’d
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expect. You probably want `ansi-term`, which will open a new buffer with a fresh terminal every time it’s called.
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- **Libvterm**: A much more performant and customizable terminal, but needs `(use-package vterm)` and for Emacs to be
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compiled using `--with-modules`.
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- **Eshell**: Unlike all the other emulators, this one lets you evaluate Elisp directly at the prompt. See [this section
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in the manual](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/eshell/index.html) for how to best take advantage of
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this power.
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### Distributions
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Setting up Emacs is hard, here are some prebuilt Emacs distributions you might want to try <https://www.spacemacs.org/>
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<https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs> Doom is Spacemacs taken to the extreme: very opinionated, evil only, and
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designed to go fast. <http://www.emacs-bootstrap.com/> Interactively generate a config with only the languages you care
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about. If you want a non-Spacemacs experience, closer to what you’d get if you configured Emacs from scratch, but in a
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literate style <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Org-mode>, use our config wholesale: `git clone
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https://github.com/the-programmers-hangout/emacs.git ~/tphmacs; ln -sv ~/tphmacs ~/.emacs.d`. Pull requests welcome!
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### Resources
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- <https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/emacs/>
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- [The GNU Emacs Reference Card](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/refcards/pdf/refcard.pdf)
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- [Uncle Dave’s Emacs Tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iY_1aMzeg&list=PLX2044Ew-UVVv31a0-Qn3dA6Sd_-NyA1n)
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- [Installing and Getting Started with Spacemacs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCNOB5jjtmc)
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- [Learn Emacs Org Mode in Spacemacs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVsSOmUB7ic)
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- [Zaiste’s Doom Emacs Tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCMh7srOqvw&list=PLhXZp00uXBk4np17N39WvB80zgxlZfVwj)
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(in particular, the Magit videos are good and not Doom-specific)
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- <https://www.masteringemacs.org/>
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### Fun Facts
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- Some users use vs code and whatnot, but pop open Emacs just for [Magit](https://github.com/magit/magit) because it's
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just so amazing.
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- Again, some other editor users pop open Emacs just for Org-mode.
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- The butterfly command from XKCD 378 exists, try `M-x butterfly RET`.
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- Some wild Emacs spottings in Tron: Legacy found by redditors
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[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/ged5p/emacs_in_tron_legacy_three_images/).
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- [Famous Emacs Users (that are not famous for using Emacs)](http://wenshanren.org/?p=418)
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- you'll definitely recognize quite a few names....
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### End Note
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Happy Emacsing!
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