Is it a good idea to just start with Doomemacs? reddit / emacs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- readyready15728 · 2022-07-17 14:36 So I tried out vanilla Emacs for the first time in many years to get a good grasp on fundamentals before moving on to more advanced topics and the keybindings are just as terrible as I remember them being. I know Doomemacs offers a more Vim-like experience but I worried about getting lost without knowing more basics. So I was wondering whether it's a good path to basically just consider Doomemacs its own experience and start from there, as it were the basic editor? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MitchellMarquez42 · 2022-07-17 15:23 Doom is a really good vim implementation, but for learning emacs fundamentals and building a config I'd recommend the original Emacs from Scratch from System Crafters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74zOY-vgkyw). He takes you through mitigating and replacing the vanilla defaults. If videos aren't your thing, check the description for the specific git commit and show notes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- whoa_lisp · 2022-07-17 15:30 I've never used vanilla emacs, just spacemacs, and I'm doing perfectly fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thetemp_ · 2022-07-17 17:06 If you're already familiar with Vim keybindings and don't like Emacs keybindings, Doom is a great place to start and a fine place to stay. After some time, you might be inspired to make your own Emacs config, or you might just stick with configuring it within the Doom framework. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheFrenchPoulp · 2022-07-17 17:23 If your motivation is about keybindings, just use evil-mode and be done with it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- krypt3c · 2022-07-17 18:38 If you’re just looking for a good editor, than I would definitely recommend trying doom first. There is a lot of good quality of life stuff in there I like a lot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- readyready15728 · 2022-07-17 18:40 Thing is, I noticed that there seems to be a mix of Vim keystrokes and traditional keystrokes. Like I saw `M-x` is still in there and `:help` didn't work IIRC. So I don't know which functionality is accessed which way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- slappy_buddha · 2022-07-17 19:22 \+1 on this. While the "Emacs from Scratch" isn't the "easy out of the box" answer - its still IMO probably the fastest way to get to the point where you actually start to see the \*benefits\* of using Emacs over e.g. VS- code. While I'd say Spacemacs is probably the easiest to get started with - you really don't get into the things that make emacs more productive than e.g. VS-code until you kinda start to see how completely open/hackable Emacs is from the inside-out. TBH i've never liked the default Emacs keybindings - or really much of anything that Emacs gives you by default. It's really the "bones of it" that are different from the other editors. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- krypt3c · 2022-07-17 21:47 In my experience both methods usually work. I know :help works for me ---------------------------------------------------------------------- readyready15728 · 2022-07-17 21:48 OK, gotta try it out again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Shimmy-choo · 2022-07-17 23:36 100% yes that is a great way to start. That's what I did, Doom is a remarkable achievement, and a great place to start. Welcome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- getting-rained-on · 2022-07-18 00:09 You can turn off all the vim stuff in doom emacs and just use a well supported pre configured setup for whatever languages you're writing in. Some people don't want to spend all day tweaking a configuration file, and that is fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aqjo · 2022-07-18 02:52 Doom is great if you want to hit the ground running. I find its shortcuts more mnemonic than plain emacs. For getting started, I recommend the videos by Zaiste Programming on YouTube. He repeats commands and says them out loud so it’s easier to follow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCMh7srOqvw&list=PLhXZp00uXBk4 np17N39WvB80zgxlZfVwj If you want to endlessly fiddle (which is fine) and are more advanced, then System Crafters might be better. I will point out that his configurations have been through at least three iterations now - From Scratch / literate, Rational Emacs, and now Crafted Emacs I think is the latest. Not sure why he abandoned literate configurations, as those are self documenting. Now it seems he’s building a modular Emacs configuration for people who want their own configuration that isn’t modular (like doom), which seems ironic. There are others too, such as Distro Tube. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- generalninja · 2022-07-18 03:26 If you are afraid you'll get lost in Doom Emacs, as u/aqjo has already mentioned, start watching Doom Casts from Zaiste Programming on YouTube. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daviwil · 2022-07-18 13:56 It's meant to be a scaffolding (and a learning resource) for building one's own vanilla config over time with a decent starting point. Someone may decide to just keep using Crafted as their config and that's fine too. Regarding literate configurations, I just got tired of the tangling and preferred to go back to writing pure Emacs Lisp. I'm also moving more toward using Guix Home for my dotfiles as a whole and didn't want an extra tangling layer there too. Literate configs are great though, especially since you can generate a nice website out of them! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aqjo · 2022-07-18 20:32 Fair enough. Thanks for the explanation! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sagopi · 2022-07-20 17:40 why either-or ? pick both doom + config\_from\_scratch approaches! Install chemacs to help you out! I have a stable doom config that's production ready and my daily driver. I also have other emacs configs that I tinker with.