Emacs starter kit

Emacs starter kit

[Vikas Rawal]

There are multiple versions of Emacs Starter Kit. The two main
versions that I currently see are one maintained by Eric Schulte
(http://eschulte.me/emacs24-starter-kit/) and the other maintained by
Phil Hagelberg (https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit/). 

The important difference between the two is that Eric Schulte's
version is a collection of org-mode files from where the .el files are
generated. The startup options are maintained as org documents.
Package.el, and ELPA, are a part of the starter kit in this case. The
starter kit installs the packages.

In Hagelberg's version, this is inverted. Starter kit is installed by
the package manager that is now a part of Emacs (version 24). The
package manager directly installs a bunch of .el files and there are
no org files to see.

Which is the recommended way to go? What is the experience of people
on this list?

(This mail perhaps belongs to the emacs mailing list, but since at
least one of these versions is based on using org-mode to manage
emacs, people on this mailing list will perhaps have some interest in
the issue.).

Vikas

Re: Emacs starter kit

[Eric Schulte]

Vikas Rawal <vikaslists@agrarianresearch.org> writes:

> There are multiple versions of Emacs Starter Kit. The two main
> versions that I currently see are one maintained by Eric Schulte
> (http://eschulte.me/emacs24-starter-kit/) and the other maintained by
> Phil Hagelberg (https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit/). 
>
> The important difference between the two is that Eric Schulte's
> version is a collection of org-mode files from where the .el files are
> generated. The startup options are maintained as org documents.
> Package.el, and ELPA, are a part of the starter kit in this case. The
> starter kit installs the packages.
>
> In Hagelberg's version, this is inverted. Starter kit is installed by
> the package manager that is now a part of Emacs (version 24). The
> package manager directly installs a bunch of .el files and there are
> no org files to see.
>
> Which is the recommended way to go? What is the experience of people
> on this list?
>
> (This mail perhaps belongs to the emacs mailing list, but since at
> least one of these versions is based on using org-mode to manage
> emacs, people on this mailing list will perhaps have some interest in
> the issue.).
>
> Vikas
>

Hi Vikas,

As the maintainer of my "literate" version of the starter kit, I can
share my opinions on the differences...

I think the most important differentiator is whether you want to keep
your configuration in .org or .el files.  I have all of my personal
config in a single 2255 line Org-mode file.  Thanks to Org-mode's
folding outline structure I've found this to be much easier to navigate
than either one single large or many small emacs-lisp files.

Aside from that, Phil's version of the starter kit certainly has more
users and is probably more actively maintained -- I actively fix
reported bugs in my version of the starter kit, but don't have any real
development planned.

Best,

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte

Re: Emacs starter kit

[Vikas Rawal]

> I think the most important differentiator is whether you want to keep
> your configuration in .org or .el files.  I have all of my personal
> config in a single 2255 line Org-mode file.  Thanks to Org-mode's
> folding outline structure I've found this to be much easier to navigate
> than either one single large or many small emacs-lisp files.
> 
> Aside from that, Phil's version of the starter kit certainly has more
> users and is probably more actively maintained -- I actively fix
> reported bugs in my version of the starter kit, but don't have any real
> development planned.

Thanks Eric, and best wishes,

Vikas