Tag: Programming

Personal approach for collecting Emacs usage statistics advice?

Lately I’ve been curious whether or not my actual Emacs keymapping usage actually reflects how I think I use it. What I mean is that I have a goal of mapping frequently used operations to easily-accessible keybindings on the keyboard. What I plan to do is to record my usage so that I can study it to find mapping decisions that I got right, and wrong, and also identify things that I use that I should be mapping closer to home.
The simplest approach would be to use a keylogger, or advice inside of Emacs.
What I am curious about is your approach if you had done, or would do, something like this, and your thoughts an ideas.
In my case I lay out my mappings for how far away from home they are, and that has worked well so far, but I would like some numbers to back up that claim though it is not too serious depending upon how you look at it.
Cross posted from help-gnu-emacs

3 articles on Dired that every Emacs user must read

This post will send you to these 3 other posts. Cherish the experience of reading these exquisite expositions of the power of Dired mode. Simply reading them will immediately illuminate the part of your mind that used to say things like “What is the big deal about Dired? I’ll just use Finder/Explorer instead… it is the same thing”. It isn’t. It is better. It is so, so powerful and you will love it after reading those 3 articles.

Emacs Lisp programmers must know about pcase

Pattern matching is available in a bunch of programming languages. For some reason, I never thought to look for a library in Emacs Lisp for it, and it is here in pcase.
There is this weird thing that happens when you start using Emacs Lisp. Unlike other languages where you start learning it for “its great features”, most of us only learned it to configure Emacs. Because of this, our brains kind of turn off when it comes to using the language. Or perhaps instead, our expectations change. They are just, lower, and it makes our minds slower. That is why you see so many posts like “if you are programming Emacs Lisp then you must…”.

Realtime web development with skewer and Emacs

[skewer-mode] provides live interaction with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML in a web browser. Expressions are sent on-the-fly from an editing buffer to be evaluated in the browser, just like Emacs does with an inferior Lisp process in Lisp modes.

Looks like a pretty nice option if you are used to Emacs already and so much more pleasant then running code in the Chrome/Firefox/IE REPL.

You know that a programming language has succeeded when people say that it is horrible… Emacs Lisp

Most new programming languages start out with the zest and zeal that everyone feels for things that are “fresh and new”. Eventually, like in every relationship, the “infatuation phase” ends and “real love” must begin or the relationship will move on.
What prefaces the latter phase is a period of acceptance of all the flaws of that language. Actually, it is a fine thing, as long as you don’t dwell on them (you have your flaws, too). It is a sign of growth and maturity. That is why whenever you see it for a programming language, then you know that it is “the real deal”, that a lot of people love it, and that it is worth your time.
See: WhyDoesElispSuck