This document outlines a presentation about using Emacs as a development tool. It discusses many of Emacs' features for development like Rtags for references, compilation buffers, Flycheck for errors, Helm packages for searching and navigation, and Magit for version control. The document provides examples commands for these features and suggests key bindings. It also covers basics of Emacs, configuring it, and reasons for choosing Emacs like its extensive customization, integration, and longevity.

1. Getting things done
with Emacs
An editor for Jedis :-)

2. ❖ Not going to evangelize, no
comparisons; things I find
useful, nothing more
❖ “Show and Tell”
❖ My own history …
❖ What editors do you all use?
Background

3. Outline
❖ Dive into features
❖ Present workflows
❖ Day-to-day development, nothing more
❖ I’ll keep the “why Emacs” and “setup tips” for the end
❖ Demo stuff along with the slides
❖ Please do interrupt with questions!

4. Basic stuff
❖ Essential fact: Emacs is (mostly) non-modal. M-x is your
friend.
❖ helm-M-x (also, Helm is your friend)
❖ Save your keystrokes!
❖ Another example: M-x helm-swoop (just bind it to
search)

5. Development Tools
❖ Rtags integration
❖ M-x rtags-find-all-references-at-point
❖ M-x rtags-find-symbol
❖ (... and much more)
❖ Compilation buffer
❖ M-x compile
❖ Flycheck
❖ Get error descriptions as you type!

6. Development Tools (2)
❖ Helm-projectile
❖ M-x helm-projectile-find-file-dwim
❖ Searching
❖ M-x helm-swoop
❖ M-x helm-projectile-ag
❖ Imenu/Semantic
❖ Lightweight/heavyweight
❖ M-x helm-semantic-or-imenu

7. Development Tools (3)
❖ Splitting and moving windows
❖ Aside: “Frames” and “windows”
❖ M-x windmove-{left,right,up,down} (bind to useful keyboard shortcuts!)
❖ Formatting
❖ M-x clang-format{-region}
❖ (Why wait to run make clang-format-patch-stack!)
❖ Diffing
❖ M-x smerge-{…}
❖ (Show colorized diff in place, hotkeys for keeping “mine”/“other”/“base”)
❖ Undo-ing
❖ M-x undo …. meh … M-x undo-tree-visualize … whoa!
❖ Copy-pasting
❖ M-x helm-show-kill-ring

8. Misc useful stuff
❖ Multiple cursors
❖ M-x mc/mark-all-like-this
❖ Eshell
❖ Nifty! s-expressions in your shell …
❖ M-x eshell
❖ Org mode
❖ Some people think it’s really cool
❖ Spacemacs
❖ Some people think it’s a good “batteries included” version of Emacs, “Vim-friendly”
❖ OSX Key bindings
❖ They’re everywhere, once you start looking for them
❖ Try it now! (Ctrl-n, Ctrl-p, Ctrl-f, Ctrl-b, Ctrl-a, Ctrl-e, Ctrl-k, Ctrl-y)

9. (Ma)Git
❖ “Magit” autocorrects to “Magic”
❖ M-x magit-status
❖ The best git porcelain, ever. Ever.

10. Sample dev flow
❖ (tying it all together)
❖ Checkout branch / Make some changes / commit /
search-replace-make-changes / Rebase (interactive!
reorder!) / Push

11. Beginning with Emacs
❖ Getting it
❖ Ubuntu: …
❖ Mac: just use brew
❖ Configuration
❖ .emacs
❖ But, I recommend another level of indirection
❖ E.g. I keep a dotemacs.el inside .emacs.d, version-controlled
❖ Easy to add new packages these days (I was done on day 1 here!)

12. Beginning with Emacs (2)
❖ Remap keys (save your fingers!)
❖ “Ctrl”: Get rid of Caps Lock
❖ Seriously, you don’t need that
❖ “Alt”: I replace M-x with C-x C-m
❖ Add the Elpa/Melpa/Marmalade repos
❖ Tons of packages, especially in the era of Github
❖ M-x list-packages

13. Beginning Emacs (3)
❖ Some resources
❖ Internal: Slack channel #emacs
❖ External: Stack exchange, LMGTFY
❖ Book: Mastering Emacs
❖ So, if you were waiting to try it out, go for it!
❖ But, yeah, it can take time (months? years?)

14. Tl;dr:
❖ There are lots of practical optimizations possible in the
day-to-day workflow
❖ It’s good to keep trying to find different/better ways to
do something
❖ You don’t have to use Emacs (obviously) — but, make
sure you find some equivalent of each plugin/function
mentioned here.

15. (finally) Why Emacs?
❖ Limitless customization
❖ Custom-built for you
❖ The usual pros and cons
❖ Limitless integration
❖ (I’m not that hardcore, but …) mail client, browser, IRC client,
therapist?
❖ Future proof
❖ It’s been around for a while
❖ It will outlive everything else (except, perhaps, Vim)

16. Questions?