Emacs Editor - 11 Tips For The Road To Mastery

Emacs is a very powerful text editor used by geeks the world over. Now I am not trying to fuel a Emacs vs Vi war but mastering Emacs editor will definitely make you more productive and save time, compared to doing the same tasks using a more common text editor. What is more, Emacs is available cross platform which means, no matter which operating system you use, a native version of Emacs is available for your OS.

However, mastering the use of Emacs involves a learning curve. At the least, you need to be aware of a few terminologies used, and must be prepared to change your mind set as far as text editing is concerned.

Ben Simon has put together a nice compilation of the 11 things a potential Emacs user should be aware of before he starts using the editor.

So without further ado, the following are the 11 Emacs Concepts that a newbie should master.
Killing and YankingBuffer switchingDynamic AbbreviationsParenthesis ModesSpell CheckingUndoNarrowingIncremental SearchKeyboard MacrosDired Mode, and Version ControlAs an aside, did you know that Emacs has built-in games ? Well, I have played Tetris in Emacs. You can accomplish so much using Emacs that some die-hard fans of Emacs call it an operating system.

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