Re: on ``An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp''

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2016-02-02, at 23:59, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:
>
>> I have to say, though, that the alleged
>> unreliability of the development version of Emacs
>> has yet to hit me.
>
> Even so, it requires some overhead to deal with it.
> For your favorite editor/OS it can be motivated.
> Not for too many applications tho.
>
> Actually the point isn't you should or shouldn't do
> it. The point is it shouldn't be a goal in itself.
>
> If you ever end up on the computer forums on the
> Internet it is significant how the kids talk.
> Firefox version x.y.z and just upgraded to one
> zillionbytes of RAM!
>
> Of course, I myself would like modern equipment just
> as well but it doesn't define me one "bit" as
> a computer person. Some of them kids have ten times
> the more modern equipment but will they turn out ten
> times the more creative as well? We'll see!

All good points.

Considered that currently I basically use mainly six applications most
of the time, it seems reasonable /for me/ to do so:

1. Emacs.
2. Mail client (mu4e, in Emacs)
3. Pdf viewer (pdf-tools, in Emacs)
4. Music player (vlc through emms, in Emacs)
5. TeX (this I don't compile from source, but I don't install it from my
Linux distro, either)
6. Web browser (FF/eww - FF is basically the only app I use from my
distro)

Of course, I mean /applications/ here, I don't count coreutils, ssh etc.

Also, I /used/ to get excited by "the newest version of this and that,
and that many megz RAM", but I agree that one outgrows that ultimately.
When I was a kid, I was pretty excited by hardware ("look ma,
a one-gigabyte-hdd - whoa!").  Now I consider my computer a shell for my
data, and changing computers is an uncomfortable chore instead of
a period of excitement.

I have yet to outgrow excitement about cool features in newer versions
of Emacs, though. ;-)

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University