I’ve become somewhat more of an Emacs celebrity than I could have predicted. After giving that talk and spending a couple years blogging and tweeting about Emacs, people frequently ask for my opinion or advice regarding its use, how to learn it, or whether to learn it at all.
Today I want to share my long-form answer to a few related questions that I get asked pretty often. Those questions are, roughly:
- Should I start using Evil Mode right away, or learn “pure” Emacs first?
- Should I learn Vim before using Evil Mode?
- Is Emacs the right editor for me if I am a: computer science student, professional programmer, astronaut, whatever?
The answer is: maybe.