WEBVTT captioned by John Cummings
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Hello, my name is John Cummings, and I'm here today
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to play a Fanfare for the Common Emacs User.
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By "common", I mean the types of Emacs usage
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and comfort that are simpler, more mundane,
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and yes, even imperfect,
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that some may identify with more than others,
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or more at certain times.
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It's hard to use Emacs and not be aware of
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the impressive and interesting accomplishments
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of its community. And here at emacsconf
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we also get pumped up about those things,
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amplified by the energy of the other attendees.
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But this energy fades as we return focus
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to our day-to-day work. And in these circumstances,
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we may unfairly judge our own Emacs usage
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against the community highlights.
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So I want to identify and celebrate the ways
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that we common Emacs users use it,
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the reasons why it's a good fit for those ways,
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and some ways we could take advantage of that.
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What is Emacs to us common users? Well, we're consumers.
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We use whatever was available - whatever our OS gave us,
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or whatever we found when we searched the web.
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We're not even necessarily aware
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of what the latest version is, or what changes it has.
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We may not ever think about upgrading.
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We have what we have, and we use what we have.
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But I think, with this simple act, many of us
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achieve a very significant Emacs milestone:
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we've committed to having it in our toolkit
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and our skillset. We'll probably install it
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on every system that we can, eventually.
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We know it has a use for us today,
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and that it will solve some problems
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that we don't even know about yet.
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It will not just be one tool; it will be many.
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And we know that it will be more than just useful;
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it will also be challenging, puzzling, and frustrating.
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But we still keep it
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as a permanent part of our toolkit,
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and we should be proud of that.
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And regardless of what exactly we've installed,
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it was a good choice.
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It will almost certainly do what we need it to do.
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Old versions are not inert dead-ends;
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they're still functional tools.
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And that's a key aspect of Emacs - it's a tool
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to get our work done. That sounds obvious,
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but it's easy to get distracted by the great things
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that it can accomplish, and think
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that it requires the same accomplishments from us.
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But it requires no advanced state of mind,
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no level of expertise to start using it,
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or use it correctly.
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It just requires that we have it, and use it.
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And with a little effort, we can get results early on,
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and those results are not just preparations
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for better things to come later;
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they have value for us today,
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and we're already using it right.
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And when we do need to tweak whatever we installed,
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we might again be consumers, finding some snippets
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out on the web, pasting them in, and moving on.
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We don't necessarily understand what we did,
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but we got some value out of it. Over time,
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we may participate more, take it day by day,
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and one day we may find that our config
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has become a disorganized pile.
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Maybe it's mixed haphazardly
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with some output from the "customize" feature,
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and eventually we start to feel
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like it's a shameful mess. It's hard to manage;
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we may think of it as append-only or read-only.
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We can't deny there are problems here,
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but it happened for a good reason. It was quick,
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easy, and effective for us
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to enhance our experience this way, and then move on.
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We were using Emacs as it was designed here.
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It just wasn't sustainable indefinitely.
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We may continue doing things this way
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even though we realize it's not a good idea.
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But I think there are some ways
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to mitigate the downsides,
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that let us embrace our tendencies,
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and continue to benefit from them.
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If we allow and encourage ourselves
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to capture our thoughts and circumstances
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along with the work that we do on our config,
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and do so without judgment, or the responsibility
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to "do it right", we give ourselves the context
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to understand and manage it later.
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This should be done however works for us,
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whether it's rambling inline comments,
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keeping a separate journal or notes,
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or even a more advanced literate programming technique,
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if we want to make an investment like that.
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Or putting our config into source control,
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even if it's nothing more than a simple,
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daily record of changes along with our contextual notes,
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will make things a lot easier for our future selves.
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But regardless of how well, or sloppy, we manage it,
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we should also realize that our messy config
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is a personal artifact with inherent value,
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even if it's amusement value, or sentimental value.
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Emacs is not only a tool to get our work done,
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it can also be a very personalized experience.
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And if so, then our Emacs config
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is our experience in written form.
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You can see it as a log of your journey through Emacs,
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and the mark that you made on it along the way,
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mistakes and all.
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We may see our config as a record of failure,
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of things that we did wrong, the things that we repeated,
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or never finished. But it's important to realize
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that a record of failure is a record of persistence.
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In that sense, it's kind of like our genome:
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a set of unique, disorganized,
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somewhat accidental properties, that, on the whole,
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makes us fit to survive in our Emacs usage.
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It's also interesting to think of it
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as an archaeological record. Where we can sometimes
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get some insight into our "ancient times".
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Just being able to see what we were doing years ago
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is interesting -- to see how things changed,
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and hopefully grew over time. And sometimes
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we find some buried treasures that we forgot were there.
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And of course it's interesting to realize
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that when we start Emacs, this pile of config
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also executes in roughly the same order
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that we created it in. Our journey through Emacs
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happens again and again every time we start it up.
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And it's ready for us to keep working on it.
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And when it comes to packages,
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we may not make extensive use of them, if any at all.
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We probably have different reasons for this.
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We may feel like we need to reach
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some level of mastery before we start using them.
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We may not have the mental room to think about packages,
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or may not want to take on the administrative burden
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required to keep track of which packages we have,
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the dependencies and versions, and their compatibility.
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Some of us may just be uncomfortable
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letting new third-party code run in our environments.
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It could also just be the case
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that our needs haven't driven us to need a package yet.
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We're already doing what we need,
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and doing it efficiently enough.
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And here we find more alignment
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between Emacs the tool, and our common mindset:
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They work well when they stay needs-driven.
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We're not obligated to use
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as much of Emacs' functionality as we can,
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or every package that we're aware of
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if we don't have a need to.
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And in fact, that's a great way to stay overwhelmed.
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But if we stay aware of our needs, and then find
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that there is a package that might address them,
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then we can deal with it. And a need to explore,
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and a need to be curious, is a valid need.
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And if we do need extra confidence for that exploration,
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then the things we talked about before,
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like keeping good notes of our experiences and needs,
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or version controlling our config,
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will help us keep that connection to our needs,
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that gives us the freedom to experiment
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in the wide world of packages.
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And if we really do just need what's built in to Emacs,
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the vanilla out-of-the-box experience,
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then we can also be proud that we're making use
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of all the work that went into that experience,
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because a lot did.
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And when we report any problems that we find,
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we're also working to keep that experience
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smooth for future users.
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Of course, some of us may find this intimidating,
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and if so, feel free to reach out to me,
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and probably anyone in the community,
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that can help you navigate that process.
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So how do we use our Emacs installation?
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We often use it very simply: we get simple results
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in simple ways. Often we do things the same simple way
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for a very long time, and this is of course great,
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since we're getting done what we need to get done.
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There's no result or method too simple for Emacs.
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And we're not oblivious to the alternative.
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Many of us are at least aware that there are ways
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we could iterate on what we do,
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or some polish that we could apply,
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and we may even quite enjoy
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reading about more advanced Emacs possibilities,
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and thinking about how they could apply
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to our own workflow, but at the end of the day,
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we still keep our own usage the same, and basic.
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And this is another fundamental aspect of using Emacs.
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You can work simply and successfully,
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but you'll always be conscious of the possibility
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for far more complexity. And many of us
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do try to iterate on our ways, and sometimes succeed,
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but often we run into trouble and we stop or defer.
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A lot of times we're intimidated by the scope of things -
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we're not sure how to make measurable progress.
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We may find that the first ways we learned
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are so ingrained in us, that learning even a second way
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is many times harder.
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And sometimes we do make sudden progress
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after years of sameness,
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and wonder why we waited so long.
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And these are universal pains
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that everyone has to feel who wants to improve.
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But this is again where we can benefit
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from letting our needs drive us.
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Sometimes they'll tell us that it's OK
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keeping things the way they are, and sometimes
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they'll tell us that it's good to keep pushing,
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because there's a reason for it,
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and we'll be glad that we did.
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And what are the ways that we do learn,
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and grow, and create within Emacs? One constant
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is that we forget a lot. We learn something
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and then remember that we already learned
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and forgot it once before. Sometimes we just hope
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to learn more than we forget.
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And staying driven by our needs can also help here,
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because it's easier to learn something
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when we have a reason to, and an application for it.
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In Emacs, it can be tempting to do this backwards,
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and want to learn all there is about Emacs first,
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and then apply it. But again that's a surefire way
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to stay overwhelmed.
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And when we code and build things, we tend to create many small, quick things,
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but never really integrate them deeply
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into our environment or workflow.
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We leave things half-finished once we get bored,
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or find ourselves in over our head.
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And this is natural, because we're curious and creative,
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and Emacs makes it relatively easy, and actually fun,
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to experiment and get these quick results.
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But it's less clear how to see them through,
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and inherently less fun to do the follow-up gruntwork.
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But if we embrace our ways here,
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and structure our workflow to support them,
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we might find ourselves more satisfied.
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So let's give ourselves permission, and a logical place
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to put all our fun little quick experiments,
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without having to worry about integrating
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or polishing them, unless we find a need to later.
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Let's use source control wisely to give ourselves
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a place to experiment, and a place for stability.
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Let's stay needs-driven so that we know
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what we really do need to follow up on,
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and what's OK to drop. And let's remember
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that there is someone who will always appreciate
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any notes about our thought process we can take,
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no matter how rough or rambling they are:
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our future selves.
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And so I hope that some people can identify with
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at least some of what I've shared today.
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And I hope that we realize that,
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no matter how we see ourselves as Emacs users,
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and no matter what we see other people building,
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we're proud of the fact that we have built
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an experience that fits us. Thank you to everyone.
