Helm (and?) or Icicles (possibly using Evil)

[Hans BKK <hansbkk@gmail.com>]

I'm looking feedback on these from those (perhaps few?) that have actually become somewhat familiar with both. Since EmacsWiki has so much information on Icicles (thanks Drew!) there isn't any need to give an overview/run-through on that package, but I haven't seen so much on Helm, just a lot of side-mentions on how fantastic it is from people whose opinion would seem to carry a lot of weight.

For example, does Helm actually help you learn how to use regexp?

Has anyone tried running both together? or is the overlap so great they interfere with each other as with icicles and ido?

My current context is facilitating exploring the "self-documentation" aspect of emacs, searching/browsing/jumping between info docs and other sources of help docs and the relevant source code.

I also plan to use emacs straight off for org-mode, shell usage and files management. Actual coding myself will come later, but is of course very relevant. Mostly web dev to start, but I want to get to know Python to start with and then Haskell, and plan to use pandoc to convert language/framework-specific docs to gnu info wherever possible, and to try to make my own code self-documenting as with elisp.

Does Helm have any support for creating info "books" as does icicles?

Drew, do you happen to know if your "Help Plus" libs are compatible/helpful with Helm's approach?


It's also possible I'll be learning emacs editing in evil mode, except in modes where there are still conflicts (apparently few these days), so feedback on that aspect is also welcome, apparently Helm's fine there.

I've stuck with del.icio.us since beta, over 20K bookmarks there, so Helm's support there as a platform for creating a DAG tree from that (self-documenting brain activity) is a tempting little project:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/helm-delicious.el