Aquamacs on OSX for Ruby on Rails Development? Yep, we’re going Emacs status. | Hacker News Reader

Aquamacs on OSX for Ruby on Rails Development? Yep, we’re going Emacs status.

danielfischer.com

19 pointsnickb22 comments

Before I get flamed out of existence - I use a Mac, and I use TextMate, and I use Emacs. With that disclaimer out of the way -

This guy bought a whole different platform just so that he could run a different text editor? This feels like putting the wrong cart in front of the wrong horse.

Agreed. It also seems like he's switching editors for similarly misled reasons. Sure, trying it out because everyone seems to be switching is fine, and if you like it better sure, stick with it. But to switch editors "just because everyone else is doing it" seems uninformed and very "me too me too!"

This guy bought a whole different platform just so that he could run a different text editor?

Well, yeah. Sure. If I saw someone running TextMate, and I didn't know enough about emacs to realize that it's a legitimate alternative, dropping everything to run TextMate would be a very smart move. Your editor is a really important tool!

There's no question that I would switch platforms for emacs. Not that the issue ever comes up, because emacs is open-source, and cross-platform, and (for better and for worse) is not tightly integrated with any particular GUI library. So once you learn it you never have to stop using it for any reason other than personal preference. Which is probably one of the reasons why all of these folks are abandoning TextMate for it.

Not unreasonable at all. Operating sysstems are nothing without the progarms that run on them . I can see how textmate would be attractive ( I used to run Vim, now I run Carbon Emacs).

I think in this case the Ruby community is a trend follower instead of trend setter.. I guess Emacs (or vim) is being used by open source folks for two decades.

What emacs extensions do other people use for Rails?

I use two-mode-mode to swap between HTML (psgml) mode and Ruby mode for the templates, as well as rhtml-minor-mode, which is mainly aimed at helping psgml-mode find the parent layout. rhtml-minor-mode could use some hacking - I wrote it in a hurry.

As an aside, ruby-mode was recently merged into the emacs core, so that should help adoption. I know I have seen a lot of complaints on #emacs about "why doesn't ruby code have syntax highlighting!?". Now it does :)

People should also try out my new eproject minor mode, which will make emacs aware of the relationships between files in the same project:

http://git.jrock.us/?p=eproject.git;a=blob_plain;f=eproject....

I think textmate has a feature like this that people like.

Ruby: "There's more than one way to do it, but most of them aren't cool enough!"

I'm willing to pay good money for a three-hour video on using Emacs for Rails.

I cannot give you a video, but the 4 part series of blog posts I wrote sometime ago explain how to get it up and running along with the Emacs Code Browser - I used it successfully in a terminal window via Putty to a Linux box and in Aquamacs on OS X - http://sodonnell.wordpress.com/the-emacs-newbie-guide-for-ra...

Peepcode (http://www.peepcode.com/) is coming out with one but it will be about an hour long and will cost $9. I think that's a good deal. You can see the 5min preview here: http://getfireant.com/listings/episode?feed_item_id=2414972

Peepcode is awesome.

I was lucky enough to get a discount on the Unlimited package, back when the Australian dollar was almost equal to the US dollar. Very pleased with my investment.

5 min screencast - http://emacsonrails.drozdov.net

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good Emacs tutorial? Or recommend a book?

Open Emacs and type C-h t (ctrl and h together and then t) that will open the emacs built in tutorial. Start going through it, then download one of the many cheatsheets and print it out and stick it somewhere you can see it from your desk.

Its quite a long learning curve, and I am still no expert, but its my favorite editor now. I cannot say its any better or worse than any of its rivals, but I put the time into learning it better than the others!

Like preteens...

Hrm, interesting, but I write Ruby on emacs all the time. Except mine doesn't need a long post, just:

Open Terminal, type "emacs -nw".

i recommend people always use -nw, it will ensure that on the client or remote, you always use emacs the same way. now kill all the menubars and other stuff too...if you are going to use emacs, use the keyboard and the help system. that is the emacs-way

...or the vim way ;)

Agreed. On my gentoo systems, I just compile emcs without X support. Makes life easy. Also, one critical skill when using emacs is learning to modify the .emacs.el file as time goes on. Over the years, the little things I accumulated in this file make using emacs a much more pleasant experience.

Rather than use .emacs, use .emacs.d/init.el. Put any extra modes or Emacs apps there, too. Then throw your whole .emacs.d under version control. Finally, stick it on http://bitbucket.org/ or similar. Now you can easily lug your whole Emacs configuration around.

my .emacs.el and .emacs.d are under VC. Its very nice.

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