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[[!meta title="Sharing Emacs is Caring Emacs: Emacs education and why I embraced video"]]
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2023 Jacob Boxerman"]]
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# Sharing Emacs is Caring Emacs: Emacs education and why I embraced video
Jacob Boxerman (he/him) - <mailto:jakebox0@protonmail.com> - <https://www.youtube.com/c/JakeBox0> - <https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-boxerman/>
I am looking for a summer internship for Summer 2024, please feel free to reach out, I am looking to network :)
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My YouTube Emacs series, "Straightforward Emacs," started as a quick video to
share with one person. That video now has over 50 thousand views, and inspired
me to do my part and give back to the Emacs community, creating what I wish I
had when I started my journey.
150,000 views later, I still find my YouTube channel one of the most
fulfilling things in my life at the moment (despite the fact that I am very
busy and don't have so much time for videos these days), because it is my way
of giving back and sharing Emacs with a wider community.
In addition to the technicalities of video production and teaching Emacs, this
talk will also address two crucial topics in our community — a love of Emacs
and desire for its longevity, and spreading Emacs to new users.
In particular, I will discuss my views on the sharing of information in the
Emacs community — how we do it, what it does for us, and how we can do it
better.
People often complain about the Emacs learning curve. As we all know, Emacs is
a beast, and those who use and love Emacs spend years tweaking, adjusting,
modifying, and, above all, learning. Because at the end of the day, Emacs is a
personal journey. Everyone has preferences, searching for what makes them most
comfortable, happy, and productive. Still, I believe that we are stronger
together than we are apart. One of the best ways to find out what we like is
by seeing what other people like. What's important is that what other people
like, other people can understand.
I hope you'll come check out my talk, and that it will inspire you to do one
of the most honorable things one can do: teach and share with others.
About the speaker:
Jacob Boxerman is the creator of Straightforward Emacs, a video-based
Emacs series with practical, easy-to-follow and implement tutorials
and advice. He is a 2nd-year computer science student at Columbia
University in New York and is interested in the intersections of
computer science, finance, and psychology. In his talk today, titled
"Sharing Emacs is Caring Emacs: Emacs Education and Why I Embraced
Video," he will share his views on communication and sharing in the
Emacs community, and how we can all do our part to spread Emacs,
support each other, and ensure its growth.
# Discussion
## Questions and answers
- Q: Are you using ox-reveal to make your slides? If not, what are you
using? They look very elegant.
- A: Yes, and Jacob has a video about it on his channel!
- Q: Videos can be very inspirational to learn about something by
watching it used. I often find I need to do some research after
watching a video to learn more. Do you give people links to relevant
resources etc?
- A: Definitely something that I can do more of. I like to think
of my videos as jumping-points to the manual.
- Q: What are your fellow cohort of students using for their editors?
What kinds of "feedback" do you get from them when they learn
about you using Emacs? (Missed your talk so perhaps you answered
this)
- A: Professors making entry to comp sci as "accessible/simple"
as possible. In 3rd course the professor gives option of either
Emacs or Vim. Professor uses vim; so the class gravitates
towards that. A 4th course, in assembly, and the professor
suggests Emacs. At Columbia, vim is more used (as it's
modeled)
- Q: Did you start those university classes using Emacs?
- A: Yes. (Two years before entering college); taking notes in
org-mode for programming classes is the BEST!!! Syntax
highlighting, inline code blocks, literate-esque programming is
great for school. Professors want PDFs on their desk! And
org-mode simplifies this process.
- Also presenter is in humanities, and writes their humanities
essays in org-mode
- Q: To Leo: Before NeoVim, you had to do as much (or more)
configuration to get basic editing done than in Emacs. It's also
slower with modal editing compared to Emacs keybindings because you
have to press Esc and two keys to get things done while in Emacs you
only have to press C/M-something (one keypress) to move or search or
whatever and then write. I instantly became productive for writing
when I switched to Emacs. (I have 5 times tried to adopt Vim...and
each time I get a bit better. But Emacs was lightning in a bottle
for "productivity"; for those where vim works, I love it. And am
eccstatic that they are owning their editor)
- A:
- Q: Wha was a question you'd hoped we'd ask of you?
- A:
## Notes
- Cool talk! :-)
- I've used your videos before! Thanks for all the good work.
- So awesome to hear that!! You are welcome and thanks for letting me know, love to hear it
- Ha ha. I think Emacs users might just enjoy inconvenience. If a picture is worth a thousand words ... then maybe the value of a video is based on frame rate.
- Agreed, jakeb --- video is worth it.
- Interesting to think about video beeing worth it while watching a video of the conference.
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