ABLE - A Basic Lisp Editor | Hacker News Reader

ABLE - A Basic Lisp Editor

phil.nullable.eu

12 pointskirubakaran17 comments

Emacs is a lot to learn but I didn't find the learning curve steep.

It was just the first tries I didn't get what was so good about it, IDEs seemed more powerful and professional but then it clicked and nothing else(except for vi perhaps) even compares.

I find Eclipse and Netbeans ridiculous. So big and slow and they do loads of things I have no use for and then they can't do the things I have use for.

And the more you learn about emacs it just gets more and more superior.

This is excellent! The config couldn't be any easier to understand. Fonts work right out of the box. Personally I would like some GUI tabs and a package/code/file hierarchy thing but then it might stop being a 'basic' Lisp editor.

Well done Phil Armitage!

Just out of curiosity: How many people on hn code in some dialect of lisp and not use emacs for it? Seems relevant considering the topic.

At least one, considering that PG wrote he used vi.

Apart from that, I think an 'easy' editor would help beginners. I you know neither Emacs nor Lisp, Emacs is quite a tough beast.

I should have learned Emacs at University, but they stopped teaching it the year before I arrived. And it's too much of a learning curve to learn it on my own.

Is there any sort of beginner/self-learner friendly tutorial for emacs?

I think many people would like to use emacs, but run into too many barriers.

The tutorial built into emacs is actually quite good. C-h t

Yeah. Emacs is a massive pain to learn. In my case, I forced myself to stop using other tools so I would have to learn it. Come to think about it, thats pretty much how I learn everything. I learnt about linux after I forcefully removed windows from my laptop and I learned how to use bash after I forced myself to stop using nautilus.

Was it worth it?

yes.

This is a good starting point: Learning GNU Emacs http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565921528/

This might ease some pains: http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/effective-emacs

Thanks for the links. And thanks for all the advice guys.

I learned it on my first job - probably the best way to learn since you can learn from other pros.

Emacs is a great editor, but word of caution: you will spend countless hours customizing it. I think after 15 years of use, I have gained those lost weekends hacking elisp :)

I've never tried it, but I know of people using Cusp, the Lisp extension for Eclipse: http://bitfauna.com/projects/cusp/

PG uses vi to code in Lisp, used to copy-and-paste to repl but he now drags-and-drops code to repl!!!!! 0_o

(I am not kidding)

I hack PLT Scheme and use the DrScheme editor. I've used emacs some, and feel guilty for not using it well.

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