Testing GNU/Emacs

Some time ago, I have started to write on this blog some of the articles using reStructuredText instead of Markdown. There is no particular reason, Markdown is great, but I like to learn new things.

In the same logic, I am starting to edit my documents using Emacs instead of Vim. I have been using Vim for years, I am still not good at it, as it is not easy to work with it. I mean, there is a lot to learn and you almost never finish. I know is the same thing with Emacs.

Vi vs Emacs

This is one of the most ancient flame-wars among hackers and programmers, with no one really winning it. You can read more about Vi vs Emacs in Wikipedia, as most of this nonsense discussions, this one leads to nowhere, and the arguments from both groups are most of the time subjective.

First things I needed to learn

One of the most important things for me, as a non-native English speaker, is to be able to run spell check on my editors. To enable spell check on Emacs in my Mac I had to install ispell, I did that with the help of brew.

 brew install ispell

Then I had to learn that the Meta Key in the my Mac and running Emacs in the terminal, is the ESC key. So, to enable the spell checker, I had to enter this: M-x flyspell-mode, where the uppercase M is the ESC key.

Considering this my first text file, using Emacs, it was a nice experience. The spell check worked great, the reStructuredText syntax highlight worked out of the box, which was nice too.

I will keep posting more about Emacs as I start learning it.