<story><title>Absolute Beginner&apos;s Guide to Emacs (2012)</title><url>http://www.jesshamrick.com/2012/09/10/absolute-beginners-guide-to-emacs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tiborsaas</author><text>How much time have you invested?</text></item><item><author>Wildgoose</author><text>I have yet to encounter anything that can match the sheer flexibility of Emacs.&lt;p&gt;For example I am currently using Org mode to write some documentation complete with hyper-links, tables, foot notes and the option to export the results as LaTeX, HTML, Open-Office, and so on with just a few keypresses.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not just an editor, or an IDE, or even a windowing system - it is a cross-platform computing environment that can be fashioned to exactly suit whatever purpose you require.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xte</author><text>I second to have choose Emacs as a main computing environment and since I often here the question &amp;quot;how much time ...&amp;quot; well...&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to add a note: time can&amp;#x27;t be only measured in hours, days, etc. To learn Emacs enough to decide that&amp;#x27;s the way I&amp;#x27;d like to interact and use my desktop it take a very little time, in around three month I start using Emacs as WM (EXWM), MUA (notmuch-emacs) in around two months with a &amp;quot;false start&amp;quot; on Mu4e, main docs solution, tramp, personal finance (ledger) etc&lt;p&gt;But the real point is: I do it when I like to do, as much as I like, in my free time. In other words I can start easily and grow as I wont and need, and this knowledge will survive for decades to came.&lt;p&gt;With commercial software you need to invest time (and money) before start, and after having reached a certain amount of knowledge you can&amp;#x27;t go further, you have to keep yourself up to date following upstream changes and you new knowledge have a very little value in the long run.&lt;p&gt;That distinction is important because too many people say &amp;quot;hey it took too much time to proficiently use FOSS&amp;quot; completely ignoring the big picture. Good time to learn FOSS is at school, when you have plenty of time and (in theory) you are willing to learn, after you get the benefit for the lifetime. Another good time is when you feel the need, in free time. You do not have to pay something in advance, you do not have &amp;quot;training&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;diplomas&amp;quot; etc, you grow at your speed and desire, limitless.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the real matter, not how many hours.</text></comment>
<story><title>Absolute Beginner&apos;s Guide to Emacs (2012)</title><url>http://www.jesshamrick.com/2012/09/10/absolute-beginners-guide-to-emacs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tiborsaas</author><text>How much time have you invested?</text></item><item><author>Wildgoose</author><text>I have yet to encounter anything that can match the sheer flexibility of Emacs.&lt;p&gt;For example I am currently using Org mode to write some documentation complete with hyper-links, tables, foot notes and the option to export the results as LaTeX, HTML, Open-Office, and so on with just a few keypresses.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not just an editor, or an IDE, or even a windowing system - it is a cross-platform computing environment that can be fashioned to exactly suit whatever purpose you require.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>na85</author><text>I used emacs for years to write code and latex documents only knowing the commands to open and close files, copy&amp;#x2F;paste, and quit.  I started with emacs in lieu of vim because I think modal editing is an insane and clunky solution to a problem that no longer exists.&lt;p&gt;The documentation isn&amp;#x27;t really very good due to the arcane terminology that often contradicts modern de facto standards in naming things (frames, buffers, windows) so that&amp;#x27;s a real barrier.&lt;p&gt;Plus the ecosystem is full of half-baked treatises on the One True Way to set up your init file that don&amp;#x27;t really explain why they made their choices.&lt;p&gt;But you can easily get by in emacs with just the basics.  Then you just add commands to your repertoire when you&amp;#x27;re ready.</text></comment>