Mail Archives: djgpp/1998/10/08/07:44:06
On Wed, 7 Oct 1998 ajschrotenboer AT lycosmail DOT com wrote:
> Emacs is a very powerful editor, with many features. Quite frankly, as I
> understand it, it is not for the weak of heart, or for novices. (I've
> considered getting it, but so far am quite satisfied by RHIDE.)
There's nothing wrong with preferring RHIDE, but please try to avoid
spreading opinions about Emacs, if you don't have any firsthand
experience with it to back them up.
IMHO, there's nothing in Emacs that would justify the label of being
``not for the faint of heart''. It supports the same means of user
interface (mouse, menus, colors, etc.) that RHIDE, or any other modern
editor, does, and the basic editing is very easy and intuitive and can
be learned in half an hour using the built-in on-line tutorial (which
comes complete with exercises for the student to try). So starting
with Emacs is about as hard as with anything else.
About the only disadvantage of Emacs is that the package is *very*
large (it will set you back 20-50MB, depending on how full is your
Emacs installation). But part of this volume are packages and
functionality that aren't available in RHIDE, and since disk space is
not at premium these days, it hardly matters.
OTOH, a big advantage of Emacs is that it is available on every
platform out there, and will continue to be available for the
observable future. So when you make it your main editor, you don't
need to unlearn it later when you switch platforms. It takes time to
get an in-depth knowledge of a sophisticated editor; with Emacs you
can retain and multiply all that knowledge throughout your entire
carreer as a programmer, whether amateur or professional.
- Raw text -