I used to edit these pages with vanilla GNU Emacs and my own configuration. In July 2024, I decided to switch my workflow to modal editing and also change editors. I’m currently editing this in neovim but am also eyeing vis , Kakoune or Helix .
Emacs was a somewhat comfy environment for several years and I am still occasionally exhibiting muscle memory for the old modifier keys. I still have a soft spot for it and will keep it around. Although, despite being a fan of Lisp in general, I never really warmed up to elisp and its quirks, so for years my configs and adaptions where little better than
cargo cult programming
. On top of that, Emacs’ default editing paradigm (the one that has wormed its way into my muscle memory) is at odds with more mainstream applications that follow the
CUA Convention
, where Ctrl+C means copy, Ctrl-X means cut and Ctrl-V means paste. Worst offender is Ctrl-N, which in many other applications opens a new window or document. In Emacs, it’s the way to move the curser downwards. I have lost count of the times I accidentally opened a bunch of new browser windows when all I wanted to move the cursor in some text form I was editing.
There are solutions to all this of course. I could (and in the past did) remap keybindings for other applications to more closely resemble “the Emacs way”. I could (and once did) enable CUA bindings in Emacs. Cursor movement remains unchanged however, plus I definitely don’t feel like going back to moving my cursor using the arrow keys.
Finally, there is Evil Mode for Emacs, which turns Emacs into a modal editor in the style of vi. Weren’t it for the other quirks of emacs, this might well be the way to go. In fact, the last edit I made to my Emacs config was to enable it. If I ever fire it up again, the new modal-based muscle memory I’m now cultivating will feel right at home. But I feel it’s high time I properly embrace the Unix as an IDE mindset. And for this, all I need is a way to edit files. All the rest is baggage.
M-= on region to count words.