Re: OT -- An extremely dumb curiosity question?

[ken <gebser@speakeasy.net>]

Congratulations on your early retirement.  Wish I was there....

I've been using emacs for a long time-- somewhere around two decades.
I've done a *lot* of programming and have tried to made something with
elisp, but without the help of folks on this list, most of what I've
tried hasn't worked out.  So unless I've got tons of time on my hands
(never) and go in with no expectation of success, I just modify existing
elisp code.

I do use emacs every day though.  Except for when I pop into a file one
time in the day for just a few minutes, I use emacs for creating C code,
html docs, and flat ASCII files.  I use diary-mode too, but that's only
because there isn't a good linux app (that I know of) for keeping lots
of appointments.

I run a lot of other apps, so run emacs in its own window... most of the
time I have more than one emacs window (aka frame) open at the same time.

I tried a few times to use emacs for email, but the mail setup I have
(four or five accounts using IMAPS and TLS) is just too complicated to
set up in emacs.  It's even too hairy for me to do in pine.  It's a snap
in Thunderbird though.  Maybe someday....


Welcome to the list.  Have fun.

-- 
"The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas.
Tolerant like the sky all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a
mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination
in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his
way." -- Tao Te Ching



On 02/08/2007 10:45 AM somebody named William Case wrote:
> Hi;
> 
> What are all you people doing with emacs ?
> 
> I took an early retirement and now spend most of my time in a nicely
> fixed up den or office in the basement, on my computer using Fedora Core
> 6.  I am learning and exploring computers more and more every day.  I
> love it; I have come to firmly believe computers should be for the older
> and not the young.
> 
> The point of my question is I use emacs to write an occasional bash
> script or a small C program.  I screw around with beginners level lisp
> and watch things not work.  But as I read the posts on the mailing list
> it is obvious emacs is being used for much much more.  Sometimes it
> seems it has replaced the Gnome or KDE desktop.  Outside of programming,
> I am having trouble imagining why people would use it.  Do you use it
> full screen all the time; only in a terminal or a virtual terminal?  Is
> it the only program you have running at start up with everything else
> being done by command line?  
> 
> I ask here because none of my friends have any idea what I am talking
> about.
> 
> This is a casual chatty question not to be taken too seriously, but if
> some of you are taking a break from your real work, I would be really
> interested in knowing just what people really do with it.  Emacs I mean.
>