Vishesh Handa's personal website

Emacs Hype


I’ve never really understood the hype behind Emacs (and Vi), but thats probably because I’ve never had the patience to actually use them. I always plan to learn how to, and I do. I read the introduction part, familiarize myself with the keys, but thats all that ever happens. Yesterday, I planned to start using it again, because I read an article saying “How AWESOME it is”, I even started reading The Emacs Lisp Manual.

Whenever I would read - add this to your .emacs file to get this cool feature. I would always wonder, “Where the hell is my .emacs file?” Some manuals say it’s in my $HOME directory, but I never actually found it.  And trust me I searched a lot … a lot. Apparently, and I learned this yesterday, you’re supposed to create your own .emacs file initially. UGH .. why couldn’t they mention that anywhere. :-

Even though I’m somewhat familiar with the Emacs environment. I doubt I’ll actually use Emacs at all. Why?

My primary use the IDE I use (CodeBlocks) is to write games. Usually in C++ along with SDL and OpenGL, and to do that in Emacs, heres what I would have to do -

Until I figure out how to do all of this. I doubt I’ll ever actually switch. Hell, maybe Emacs just isn’t for me. Maybe not. Until I find out how to do all of the above. It will just be a toy I use off and on. Never for some real programming, though.