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· 3 min read
Alhussain Almarhabi
Emacs is the best IDE

Just let you know, but this always depend on personal experiences

I just wanted to share some thoughts about my journey using Emacs. I learned about Emacs around 2019 (what's wrong with me, I know!) while taking a data structure class. The professor used it to quickly make a buffer (a new window to write the text) but never forced anyone to use it. I got interested in Emacs but only switched partially to it. I was using the Atom text editor at that time. My journey with Emacs was a bit long, and many people will be hesitant to start fully using it. But I want to share maybe how to make it easier.

Emacs Vs. All Other IDE:​

Many people compare Emacs with a text editor like Vim, VSCode, sublime, or Atom. Or even comparing it with IDE like JetBrains IDE. BUT Emacs is not just a text editor or IDE. It is more of a complete operating system in a program! So you can use it as a text editor and configure any programming languages you want. Emacs was built to be customizable, and you can do whatever you want. It uses lisp (emacs-lisp) programming language to write much functionality in Emacs, and you don't need to know lisp.

I had so many important projects, and I was using MATLAB, Clion, and PyCharm at that time and wanted to avoid taking the risk of using Emacs. However, once I got comfortable using it, it became my to-go choice every time.

How to Start With Emacs​

The best thing you can do is to keep yourself from overwhelming yourself with all the features Emacs can offer. To do that, I recommend the following Install GNU Emacs:

  • Master using key binding in Emacs (give yourself a week). You can do that as a first step. Go over the Emacs tutorial to do that (you don't need to finish it all, only how to navigate).
  • Watch the first three parts of the Emacs from scratch series on Youtube by System Crafters Channel.
  • Only spend a little bit of time in the course series. Remember, don't want to overwhelm yourself.
  • Use already setup configuration (copy both init.el (.el = emacs-lisp) and Emacs.org (.org = emacs org mode) in GitHub repo
  • Pick any side project you have and commit to using Emacs with it
  • As you use Emacs more, you will learn more things.