As the years go by one realizes that even these “features” like Org, Dired, etc are just illusions in some sense. They’re just Elisp code someone else wrote and put a name on. You can take or leave them or write your own code that changes/advises/customizes them.
It’s all up to you. You don’t need a blessed “plugin” architecture, some PM at IntelliJ’s permission etc
At some point one realizes the “visual shell” nature of Emacs. Every single piece of text on screen can be programmed to “mean something” (see also: “recognizers” from human interface research) and have actions taken on it either by the editor itself, or external processes / scripts you call with a command. If it’s common enough, make a key binding. It’s your house, do what you want
Depending on how you set up your environment, you may never have to look at text again that you do not have this level of power over. You are no longer at the mercy of “application developers”
I’ve been using it since 2005. Guess how many of 2005’s popular editors even still exist
My recommendation to anyone trying to actually learn is start with the full vanilla config, weird default keybindings, etc, go through the built in tutorials, and only add things to your config that you write and understand yourself. Understand it in its own terms. The plethora of packages, etc have “cool features” but impede learning by adding mountains of complex dependencies that are opaque to the beginner and cause confusion IMO
I’m perfectly happy woth IDEs for some projects, especially at work. But I tinker with enough ecosystems and OS and sometimes you just don’t have any IDEs. On almost all systems, I can copy my init.el and have my tools replicated in a few minutes.
If you want to learn how Org mode works, start by reading outline.el
then read Dominik's outline-magic.el
then see how far you can get with your own customizations on top of that to augment, e.g. plain markdown text
you may find you're doing well at that point and don't need to deal with the 100k+ line beast that is Org, nor its transitive dependencies
at that point you will really understand (that part of) Emacs, and will no longer see Org as "a discrete thing", but just "some code someone else wrote" that you can take or leave
In the book 'Double Entry' the author explains that the guy who created GDP was actually in favor of having family caregiving and household activities accounted for in GDP. If that had happened, different world
This actually DOES occur at the margins, in some cases.
If you have a severely disabled child (who is on SSA), you often can get certified by the state and get paid as the caretaker. Then the action appears on the GDP.
A coworker approached you and goes “hi, I have two children and one is a boy…” and is promptly vaporized because he doesn’t fit the selection criteria of the problem statement, another approaches and goes “err hi, I have two children and one is a girl…” looks nervously at the vaporizer but is left standing. What is the chance their other child is a girl, who has not been vaporized?
If you phrase the question as “someone with two children tell you the gender of a random one, what is the chance the other is the same gender?” Chance is 50/50 because 50% will have BB or GG and the vaporizer isn’t active.
FWIW the stuff about dealing with the Feds only applies out west AFAICT
There’s lots of rural land in the northeast where you can basically just go to your small town hall and get whatever done without much hassle. Or just don’t tell anyone and nobody cares (if it’s actually rural enough)
Also in the northeast many areas are depopulating due to folks aging out, so there is land available (as long as you avoid the popular NYC and BOS-adjacent areas)
Fair warning you will need to accept that other people may not share all of your “correct” opinions but they will probably still be kind enough to help you IRL with a flat tire or digging your truck out etc :-)
> And even when IA temporarily stopped limiting the number of loans to provide emergency access to books during the pandemic—which could be considered a proxy for publishers' fear that IA's lending could pose a greater threat if it became much more widespread—IA's expert "found no evidence of market harm."
I feel that IA erred very badly in lifting the one-to-one correspondence that is at the heart of "controlled digital lending" (https://controlleddigitallending.org). It is frankly annoying that they did that, and then still purport to be doing CDL, even though the CDL website clearly states the 1:1 "owned-to-loaned" ratio is a key part of the CDL platform.
For the record I'm extremely pro CDL, but I feel the IA did not do any favors to the CDL movement with this boneheaded "activist" implementation of CDL
I find this to be true in many areas of life, esp. in recent years. My perfect trail running shoe was made in 2006. My perfect car was made in 2008. Those products are no longer made, and the new ones are not "better", just "different". (Often worse tbh)
We get to buy the product someone is willing to make, not the product we want to buy. The product is often not "better" for the user, but for the company making it. And as a user you can just FEEL it dripping from every new thing. It's not appealing at all to me.
There must be an economics term that describes this. I've taken to calling it "supply side rules everything around me"
A thousand times this. I distinctly recall going to a Columbia store to get a new basic fleece jacket years ago and all they had were jackets with that stupid breast zipper pocket which I didn't want. It clearly seemed like the new style as anything without it was nowhere to be found on the floor.
I begged the sales person who dug one up in a box in the back room without the pocket.
My guess is slapping an extra pocket on there let them justify increasing the cost and margins because "you're getting more!"
I'm holding on to my iPhone 12 mini and BOSE QC 35 II for dear life. It is rare these days to find a product that just works for you, and you always know that it's gonna be replaced by a crappier, more expensive model as soon as it breaks.
As the years go by one realizes that even these “features” like Org, Dired, etc are just illusions in some sense. They’re just Elisp code someone else wrote and put a name on. You can take or leave them or write your own code that changes/advises/customizes them.
It’s all up to you. You don’t need a blessed “plugin” architecture, some PM at IntelliJ’s permission etc
At some point one realizes the “visual shell” nature of Emacs. Every single piece of text on screen can be programmed to “mean something” (see also: “recognizers” from human interface research) and have actions taken on it either by the editor itself, or external processes / scripts you call with a command. If it’s common enough, make a key binding. It’s your house, do what you want
Depending on how you set up your environment, you may never have to look at text again that you do not have this level of power over. You are no longer at the mercy of “application developers”
I’ve been using it since 2005. Guess how many of 2005’s popular editors even still exist
My recommendation to anyone trying to actually learn is start with the full vanilla config, weird default keybindings, etc, go through the built in tutorials, and only add things to your config that you write and understand yourself. Understand it in its own terms. The plethora of packages, etc have “cool features” but impede learning by adding mountains of complex dependencies that are opaque to the beginner and cause confusion IMO