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Emacs for the win!
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CSE 501 Technology Presentation
Mike Prentice ([[mailto:mjp44@buffalo.edu][mjp44@buffalo.edu]])
Oct 14, 2010

* What is a text editor?

** A text editor edits text
   Text is the plain, raw characters of a text file.
   - Source code files
   - HTML
   - Text files
   - Encodings: ASCII, ISO-Latin-1, UTF-8

** A word processor edits markup
   Word processors such as MS Word use codes that control formatting.
   These codes are typically hidden.
   Aside: WordPerfect "reveal codes"
   MS Word files are binary.
   - Older: Proprietary format
   - docx: zipped up container of XML files
     XML files are the text that a text editor would handle.
     Contains all the formatting instructions, etc.
     docx is the file that Word opens and displays to you.

** An IDE does "project management"
   ... as long as your project conforms to what the IDE expects.
   Aside: a note about Eclipse, Java, C++, plugins


* Why should you care?
  - Aside from tinkering...
  - Editing text is a job for a text editor
  - Viewing the text that is actually there in the file
  - Text editing and document formatting
    - Document formatting is the domain of word processing
    - Editing source code files is the domain of text editors
    - LaTeX: Document formatting as source code
      ... whoa, I know Kung Fu
  - Control!
    ... and the Control key


* Why is Emacs a good text editor?
  - Large library of existing plugins
  - Plugins written in elisp, same code as the bulk of the editor
    ... means the "API" is just functions available 
    ... to the editor and plugins equally!

** Cross-Platform Support
   - Mac OS X: Aquamacs [[http://aquamacs.org/]]
   - Windows
   - Linux
   - Lispbox [[http://www.gigamonkeys.com/lispbox/]]

** Highly hacktastic
   ... Ahem, I believe you mean *customizable*
   ... Why yes, I believe I do.
   ... Hacktacular?
   ... Please, stop.
   - Emacs grows with you


* Demos
  - ielm: Interactive Elisp mode
    - REPL: Read Eval Print Loop
    - tab-completion
  - shell
  - run-ruby, run-python, run-haskell
  - slime clojure
  - Source control: git and magit-status
    - CVS, SVN also supported
  - mike-make-beamer
    - My own function, show elisp code
    - Show yasnippets expansion, codeframe
  - Keyboard macros

** Emacs over SSH
   - X11: emacs &
     - Eliza demo
   - Text-only: emacs -nw


* How do I get started?

** Check out the Help menu
   - Emacs manual
   - Emacs tutorial
   - Emacs Lisp introduction & reference
     ... Emacs Lisp? ("elisp" for short)

** Tutorial
   - M-x help RET t
     - What is M-x?
       - Meta key
       - Alt (Windows), Option (Mac)
	 Diamond key (Sun workstation keyboards)

** Emacs help
   - M-x help
   - Aquamacs: F1 bound to help
   - All of these have tab completion
   - Keybindings: k <key you want to know about>
   - Functions: f <function name> RET
   - Variables: v <variable name> RET
   - Apropos: a <topic keyword you want to search> RET
   - Mode help: m
     - What is a mode?

** Emacs starter kit
   [[http://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit]]
   - Emacs defaults are "interesting"
   - Starter kit helps get started with some useful modes
     and bindings out of the box.

** Some vocabulary
   - Font-lock == syntax highlighting
   - Frame     == window
   - Window    == pane or panel
   - Buffer    == document
     - Buffer is the actual text data
     - Shell, REPL, file, scratchpad, etc.


* CSEGSA meeting 6pm 242 Bell


* Real Programmers: [[http://xkcd.com/378/]]