Post by William Shiehhi,
i'm very new to email and the system i'm using most of the time is win32.
could someone give me some example why emacs is so powerful? from what i
could see is that it takes more key to do a simple copy and paste than
notepad. i know notepad is probably not a good example, however, can
anyone give me a good reason why you use emacs instead of vs.net from ms?
thanks,
gs
I'm not familiar with vs.net, since I'm a Linux user. But I'm a full-time
writer. If all you're doing is a simple copy and pasting then just about
anything will fill your needs. But if you type all day long--programming or
writing--Emacs can lighten your workload considerably.
Why? Because it has all the commands you've ever wished for. Plus it has
more that you've never thought of but will find absolutely vital once you
learn them. When you combine its hundreds of commands with its macro-making
ability, you can put together your own commands (macros) that can do heavy
amounts of work at the push of a button. It can be stunningly efficient.
That efficiency comes at the price of learning the commands. It's not that
the commands are hard but that you have more than just your cut and paste
example. Once you adjust to Emacs' way of doing things--which probably will
take at least several weeks or longer--you'll find anything else
inadequate. And even when some feature is retrograde, you still won't be
tempted to go to anything else because of hundreds of other features that
more than compensate.
Emacs' power also comes from the fact that it's a totally integrated system.
You've already mentioned mail, there's a newsreader, calculator, address
book, calendar, personal information organizer, FTP module, telnet,
browser, games and other things. Although I'm not one of them, some people
NEVER leave Emacs all the time they're on the computer. It can be a bit
overwhelming, in fact. You'll find you'll learn some things, work with them
for awhile, learn some more things, work with them for awhile, and then
learn still more. I'm still learning and still becoming even more
efficient. I periodically go through the documentation with the question:
Is there something that does this? There often is. Or there may be a way to
make one.
This reply is kind of lacking in specifics but you asked a rather general,
but valid, question. It's still more than I had to work with when I
started. I'd read about Emacs for a number of years but beyond the typical
and unenlightening "Emacs Rules" stuff, I had no idea why I should even
bother. Now I know. After you master it, you run rather than crawl when you
edit text.
Hope this helps.
--Rod
--
Author of "Linux for Non-Geeks--Clear-eyed Answered for Practical Consumers"
and "Boring Stories from Uncle Rod." Both are available at
http://www.rodwriterpublishing.com/index.html
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