How Emacs changed my life

How Emacs changed
my Life

Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto
@yukihiro_matz

Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2

1980

1/74

I started programming

2/74

3/74

BASIC

4/74

400 steps

5/74

1988

6/74

I met Emacs

7/74

on Sun-3

8/74

shared by 200 undergraduates

9/74

I tried Emacs

10/74

but I never used

11/74

Emacs was prohibited

12/74

It consumed too much
precious memory

13/74

We are free to download free
software

14/74

We are free to read the source
code

15/74

I downloaded Emacs source
code

16/74

and investigated

17/74

Emacs was my ﬁrst Lisp
interpreter

18/74

I learned a lot about language
implementation from Emacs

19/74

Embedding integers in
pointers

20/74

Mark and sweep garbage
collection

21/74

Calling convention between
Lisp and C

22/74

I really understood how Lisp
work

23/74

I was fascinated by Lisp
objects

24/74

Lisp objects implemented by C

25/74

Then I got a Sparc Station

26/74

I started to use Emacs

27/74

Emacs become part of me

28/74

If I didn't like anything in
Emacs, I could change it

29/74

Emacs is totally conﬁgurable

30/74

Emacs made me realize
anything can be changed by a
programmer

31/74

It is total freedom

32/74

I could edit without thinking
key binding

33/74

I didn't want to write anything
without Emacs

34/74

Programs, Documents and
Mails

35/74

so I wrote my own mail client

36/74

named "cmail"

37/74

in Emacs lisp

38/74

It was my ﬁrst non-trivial
(Emacs) Lisp program

39/74

I used it everyday

40/74

1993

41/74

I started Ruby development

42/74

with inﬂuence from Emacs
implementation

43/74

Integers are coded in tagged
pointers

44/74

It uses simple mark and
sweep garbage collector

45/74

It uses similar object model to
Lisp

46/74

Then I put Smalltalk-like OO
system on top

47/74

For syntax, I wanted Algol/Ada/
Eiﬀel like one

48/74

But as an Emacs addict,
I needed a language mode

49/74

auto-indent was a must

50/74

Back in 1993, there was no
auto-indenting language
mode for a language with
such syntax

51/74

So I tried to write experimental
ruby-mode.el

52/74

ﬁghting with emacs lisp and
regular expression,

53/74

for almost whole week

54/74

I somehow succeeded to
implement auto-indentation

55/74

for a language with "end"
delimiters

56/74

If I couldn't make ruby-mode
to work

57/74

the syntax of Ruby would
have changed

58/74

to more C-like one

59/74

too similar to other scripting
languages

60/74

as a result, Ruby would not
have gained current popularity

61/74

Summary

62/74

1. Emacs taught me freedom
for software

63/74

2. Emacs taught me how to
read code

64/74

3. Emacs taught me power of
Lisp

65/74

implement a language core

66/74

implement a garbage collector

67/74

6. Emacs helped me to code
and debug

68/74

7. Emacs helped me to write
and edit text/mails/documents

69/74

8. Emacs helped me to be a
eﬀective programmer

70/74

9. Emacs made me a hacker

71/74

10. Emacs has changed my life

72/74

forever

73/74

Thank you

74/74

How Emacs changed my life

More Related Content

How Emacs changed my life