-hello and welcome to my -
-Emacs conference lightning talk today -
-I'll be talking about -
-my journey into Emacs as a high schooler -
-and how it has changed my life -
-right so who am I I am a senior at -
-stanford online high school -
-and I am also a violinist -
-I started violin when I was two and a -
-half and I have been -
-keeping it up ever since violin is a -
-huge part of my life -
-and I am very much a musician at heart -
-I am also a somewhat capable programmer -
-I've done a lot of informal programming -
-in the past -
-and this year I'm taking my first ap -
-compsci course -
-in my high school and so -
-I've done a lot of side projects -
-mainly in python and some very short -
-scripts in e-lisp -
-and last but not least I am a tinker -
-I love to play around with things and -
-see what I can do better and just -
-have as much fun as possible -
-so how did I find Emacs -
-I discovered it actually through a talk -
-funnily enough -
-at a vim conference given by aaron -
-bieber -
-titled evil mode or how I learned to -
-stop worrying and love Emacs -
-I watched that talk a couple times over -
-just marveling at all the wonderful -
-things that he could do in Emacs -
-and being a previous vim user myself -
-I found it very enticing to be able to -
-have -
-the evil mode package and very quickly -
-switch to Emacs -
-at the time I was also in my sophomore -
-year and so -
-I had had sort of a note-taking system -
-in the past -
-but it was not good um and I needed a -
-more organized note-taking system -
-my parents had suggested paper for a -
-while and -
-there was the whole organization -
-part of that but that did not really -
-work out for me -
-and so I was trying to find this better -
-note-taking system -
-and it was very hard -
-I had two main criteria which I did not -
-define at the time -
-but I realized was really what I was -
-looking for -
-first of all it had to be flexible -
-enough and second of all it had -
-I had to have control over the data and -
-so -
-through this process I actually went -
-through a bunch of note-taking softwares -
-rather systematically I went through -
-google docs -
-which very much did not work out -
-I also went through evernote which also -
-was not -
-great for me and one note which I -
-settled on for a little while -
-but it did not meet these criteria -
-particularly the second one I had taken -
-some notes -
-and I wanted to export it and onenote -
-did not let me do that -
-it was pdf horribly organized pdf -
-and that's when I knew I needed some -
-change -
-so I discovered Emacs through this talk -
-and through the wonderful features of -
-org mode -
-this is my first journal entry in Emacs -
-I had been playing with it for one day -
-and I was on the org agenda and I -
-happened to press I -
-which for the Emacs combined is the -
-default for -
-diary entry and so I was very excited -
-um and I shouldn't stay on the slide too -
-long unless you read it -
-um so let's move on to the next one -
-um so the learning curve for me I think -
-particularly being an xbm user -
-evil mode made it very easy to switch -
-thankfully I there was the emax -
-reference sheet -
-and having evil mode to -
-switch between um -
-texts and whether it be editing a text -
-file -
-or going to other parts of just Emacs in -
-general -
-I think vim really helped with making me -
-feel comfortable within this new -
-environment -
-and so having that experience I also -
-wasn't -
-new to the keybind-based world I have -
-been very comfortable with computer -
-and the keyboard for most of my life -
-and so it was not a totally new -
-environment for me -
-I also spent a lot of time looking at -
-the Emacs reference sheet -
-just thinking about trying to find -
-all of the different functions if I -
-didn't know what something was -
-then I queried it in Emacs and then I -
-figured out what it was -
-and that was one of the best ways for me -
-to discover -
-all of the capabilities of Emacs -
-thirdly of course the self-documenting -
-feature -
-or nature of Emacs and narrowing -
-frameworks such as helm -
-really helped find things especially for -
-mx -
-for a while I was just -
-I would go about my day and if I pressed -
-to keep mine that I didn't know what it -
-did -
-I would do the losses and -
-see the list of key binds that I had -
-pressed and -
-tried to find that one and query the -
-function -
-and what not so -
-yeah and now we jump to now so -
-there there is at least one moment in -
-each day when I think -
-how would I live without umax -
-particularly now during my senior year -
-in high school -
-things are very busy with school violin -
-and other side projects it's pretty -
-crazy -
-and so Emacs -
-and org mode has really helped me stay -
-on track with everything -
-and the flexibility of these software is -
-being able to have things in different -
-files notes within the tasks -
-all of that stuff has been truly a -
-lifesaver -
-and so I think I can confidently say -
-that I have found Emacs to be -
-the perfect software for me -
-over the past two years of using Emacs -
-now it is about two years and two months -
-I have built a fairly well organized -
-2000 -
-plus line org literate config -
-and so I actually I started with an -
-e-lisp config -
-just the vanilla e-max with evil mode -
-and I built it up -
-from there eventually I switched to org -
-literate configs -
-and used that to organize the snippets -
-that I was putting in there and so -
-yeah this is really my workflow now -
-currently about 90 of everything I do on -
-my computer is in Emacs -
-the most notable things of course the -
-list is far -
-too long to put on one slide but I do a -
-lot of my programming in Emacs -
-mainly python and e-lisp -
-because of my ap comp sci class I have -
-to do java as well -
-and thank goodness Emacs has wonderful -
-support for that as well -
-also I do all of my school assignments -
-more or less in Emacs essay writing I do -
-an org mode and I have some template -
-files -
-template org files which I just include -
-at the top -
-and then I can export easily to latex -
-and a beautiful pdf -
-math physics same thing latex fragments -
-are a lifesaver -
-and also really pretty -
-and I take notes on basically everything -
-at first I had things separate and then -
-I started -
-sort of putting it all into onenotes.org -
-file or most of it into one -
-file and that has actually worked out -
-surprisingly well -
-especially with all the searching -
-features of agenda -
-and whatnot um and I also use mail -
-I recently made the switch probably -
-about one or two months ago -
-and it has been one of the best switches -
-I've -
-I've ever had especially given -
-connecting to tasks all of this -
-wonderful stuff -
-just putting even more in Emacs is -
-always a good thing I found -
-so reflecting back on my journey I think -
-one of the most important things was -
-just having a reason to use it -
-when I came to Emacs I had something -
-that I was looking for -
-and as soon as I found it I delved right -
-in -
-and I I started using it for that thing -
-and so I was sort of forced to -
-take the time to read the docs and -
-figure out what functions I needed -
-to function and how -
-I was going to put my workflow -
-and also of course the desire to tinker -
-and yeah so really what's next for me -
-is just wanting to become a more active -
-member of the Emacs community -
-I want to give back and I think this -
-talk is sort of the first step to that -
-being a more active part of this -
-community that has -
-indirectly perhaps um but just like -
-really helped me become a better and -
-more organized human being -
-um I have some package ideas that I'm -
-slowly working on and yeah I just hope -
-to spread the word -
-so thank you very much for listening to -
-my lightning talk -
-if you'd like to contact me here are -
-three modes of -
-or two modes of communication I will be -
-on irc more -
-soon and you can always email me if you -
-have -
-any questions you can also search me on -
-youtube -
-pierce wong violin thank you very much -
-and -
-I hope you enjoy the rest of the -
-conference -- cgit v1.2.3