[qwertyuiop924]

Why not teach the newbies on Emacs?

I'm only half joking. In its graphical incarnation, it's not exactly pretty, but fairly user-friendly, minus a few relatively easy-to-learn keyboard shortcuts. Within month it'll be second nature to them.

But I still wouldn't recommend it.

[gabrielgoh]

my major gripe with emacs and vim is that the keyboard shortcuts (out of the box) are completely alien. This really fucks with my muscle memory and actually slows me down. I'm sure this is fixable with complex config files, but that sorta defeats the purpose of emacs, where you should be able to edit files from the command line anywhere without messing about too much.

[flukus]

Vim is all about muscle memory, it just requires different memories than you have.

[mej10]

Spacemacs fixes a lot of the discoverability problems of Emacs and is generally more ergonomic.

I don't know anyone that learned it as a first editor (everyone already knew vim or emacs) but it seems like it could be a much better experience for someone new.

[qwertyuiop924]

Ah yes, spacemacs. Not a fan, myself (I like to know what my configs are doing), but some people swear by it.

Personally, I don't think it would be good to introduce the newbies to modal editing right off the bat. They'll most likely have to learn a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts. Don't make them learn a whole new editing paradigm, too: they'll have given up before you can say, "which mode am I in now?"

[amorphid]

I have crappy finger dexterity. Makes vim and emacs no fun.

[qwertyuiop924]

That's... really unfortunate. Have you looked into customization to potentially make them usable for you? It's fine if you don't want to, but I'd hate to see somebody unable to use such useful tools due to a lack of finger dexterity.

[amorphid]

No, I have not.

I took a career assessment test about 20 years ago through this organization => http://www.jocrf.org. They said I tested in the bottom 5% of all people they've tested for finger dexterity. My fingers are just clumsy. I knew it, and they provided some validation for that.

At this point, using Atom (or any GUI IDE) provides me with 80%+ of the functionality I need when coding. If I get to a point where my IDE mojo starts becoming a blocker for me, then I'll revisit optimizing my IDE skillz.

[qwertyuiop924]

Well then, good for you. IMHO, Emacs is the best tool for my job, but if it doesn't work for you, and something else does, than use it.

[pjmlp]

My only issue with Emacs is the out of the box experience and given its pedigree, when looking at a videos from Genera or papers from Xerox PARC, there is always this idea that it could have been so much better.

Still nowadays, I only use it when I cannot use my favorite set of IDEs, usually Clojure or being in a space constrained place.

[qwertyuiop924]

However, the out of the box experience is pretty decent, and if you're focusing on the out of the box experience above all else, than you still don't understand what makes Emacs Emacs.

Then again, I never really got on with IDEs: Too complex, too hard to customize, too specific to one language (for the most part), too big a learning curve with not enough benefit.

[pjmlp]

I sure do understand what makes Emacs Emacs.

It was the only thing that I somehow could use to try to get an IDE like experience during university days (comparing with my usual Amiga/Mac/Windows tools), on our UNIX environments, initially AIX and DG/UX workstations.

Eventually coupled with DDD for a sane debugging experience.

So VI vs Emacs? Definitely Emacs.

Emacs vs IDE? Only when I have to.

[qwertyuiop924]

...Which I could tell from how you phrased your comment. I was merely speaking generally, I assure you.

However, I must say that if I was asked the question "Emacs or IDE?" The answer would be "EMACS!" said rapidly and with great force. I never really understood why people like IDEs. Maybe I've just been using the wrong ones. It might have something to do with the fact that most of my IDE experiences is tied to Java, a language I find so unpleasant that I have to cleanse myself with Lisp, Python, Ruby, Haskell, Rust, or some other, equally pleasant language to get the bad taste out of my mouth after using it.

It also could be that the support for the Lisps in Emacs in unbelievably good. It's not as good as the Lispms or some of the proprietary IDEs, or so I've been told, but I can't afford either, and those only work with one dialect of Lisp, whereas Emacs works with all the popular ones and a few that aren't.

[pjmlp]

I got to use Turbo Pascal (MS-DOS and Windows), Delphi, Borland/Turbo C++, C++ Builder, Smalltalk, Oberon, Hypercard, Visual Basic, DevPac, Visual Objects, and a few others before Java was announced to the world.

The thing, is that Emacs doesn't offer many of the tools Lisp environments offer, is like trying to judge Smalltalk developer experience by using GNU Smalltalk instead of Squeak or Pharo.

[lispm]

Symbolics Genera is so far ahead Emacs, it's not even funny. Even though it is unmaintained since 20 years.

Xerox Interlisp-D was similar mind-blowing.

[macco]

You can ergo emacs https://ergoemacs.github.io

[qwertyuiop924]

Teach 'em how to get to CUA-mode then, which has all the familiar shortcuts.