path: root/2024/captions/emacsconf-2024-students--an-example-of-a-cohesive-student-workflow-in-emacs--daniel-pinkston--main.vtt

WEBVTT captioned by sachac

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Hello, my name is Daniel Pinkston. I'm in my last year of high

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school, about to go to university. About two and a half years

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ago, I discovered Emacs. My life has now been separated into

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two chapters: before and after Emacs. How could this tool be

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so impactful? Well, you'll just have to see. I made this talk

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for people who ask questions like this, but don't know where

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to start. When I started using Emacs for school, it took me a

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long time to find what I liked. There wasn't many examples of

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a full process for an organization. This talk was made to

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guide students like me, those who wanted more from their

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software workflow that they can learn and adapt from. My

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main idea was essentially explained by Zaiste in his

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EmacsConf presentation in 2019. He said something to the

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effect of, one of the great parts about Doom Emacs as a

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starting point is that it shows beginners how different

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packages mesh with each other. He says that people often

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have trouble seeing how to develop workflows using the

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thousands of packages Emacs has. In this talk, I introduce

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some Emacs tools and how they work together to improve a

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student's academic workflow. Let us commence. If you are

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watching this talk and have never heard of Emacs, it's a

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customizable text editor. When you become more

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experienced, it becomes your entire operating system. You

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just live inside of Emacs. It's also free as in free pencils

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and open source, which means that you don't have to pay to

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download Emacs and its source code. Emacs doesn't charge

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you a monthly subscription, nor does it steal all of your

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information. Yeah, I know, it's pretty crazy. In this talk,

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I introduce some Emacs tools and how they work together to

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improve a student's academic workflow. Earlier I read this

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post on this website that said, I can only imagine the great

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things you'd be able to learn and retain in your brain thanks

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to the great Emacs ecosystem. You've made the best choice,

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with far-going implications. I promise you not once, not

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even subtly, have I ever regretted having invested in

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learning Emacs. It's the best gift anyone can present to

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themself. You will forever feel indebted to your younger

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self for this gift. I guarantee that. I think that this is a

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real testament to the true power of Emacs. There's simply no

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other software like it. It's a complete and fitting

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solution for those who are willing to master it. Hopefully

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by now you're invested in learning Emacs. But before we jump

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into the technicalities of everything, we should outline

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the main things that you need it to do as a student. The best

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students have their system figured out so that it can do

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these things quickly and efficiently. They should have no

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problem quickly organizing what they need to do along with

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capturing information from their classes. But you may be

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wondering, how does Emacs do all that? Well, it does it with

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Org Mode. It was built to be an outliner for note-taking and

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list management, exactly what a student needs. One of the

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key features is that it's plain text, which means that you

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can migrate it between computers, and it's not a

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proprietary format. For those of you who have heard of

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Markdown, Org is similar in that it's a markup language.

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However, it's a bit older, and it goes way beyond Markdown's

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simple text formatting, with its scheduling, task

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management, and organization features, all captured

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within plain text simplicity. This slide shows off one of my

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notes from a heavily customized Emacs window. Yours

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probably won't look like this from the start, but you can

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personalize its appearance with custom themes.

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It's finally time to get into the technicalities. What you

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need to do with your notes in Org Mode is create, search, and

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possibly publish them. I prefer Denote for creating my

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notes, but there are many Emacs packages for that. Denote is

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just lightweight and gets the job done. I used to use Org

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Roam, but I didn't need or use all of its features. I also use

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Anki, a free and open source flashcard program, but of

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course, I make all my flashcards in Org Mode. For searching,

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I often use find and grep, which are both standard

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utilities on Linux. Other operating systems probably have

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a tool to replicate this functionality. The final item is

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exporting. There are many scenarios in which I want to

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publish my notes to share them with teachers or peers. One of

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my favorite features of Org Mode is the exportability of the

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notes you make. This presentation was actually made in Org

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Mode, and so are all of my lab reports and essays for school. I

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also write my webpage articles in Org Mode, which a program

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called Hugo converts into static HTML. So far, you haven't

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actually seen what it's like to use these tools. Here's a

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quick demo of how I track what I need to do. First, I always

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open up my todo.org file in my denote directory. For school

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assignments, I have a heading under Inbox where I have

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entries for each class I'm enrolled in. Each class's

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heading has a tag on it, which the assignment inherits as a

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subheading. Here's an example assignment. I have a test in

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physics next next Wednesday and the deadline to finish

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studying for it is the day that I'm taking it. When I plan my

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studying, I run the keybind for org-schedule to schedule the

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day on which I will study it. I can also mark it as the highest

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priority, making it the most important thing to do. I can

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also open up my agenda to see my tasks. I've cleaned it up as to

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not reveal any of my nefarious plans. This agenda is

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customized, but there are many tutorials on how to do this.

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My agenda has been the most transforming part of my student

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experience, and I've gotten a lot better at managing what I

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need to do. Next, I'll show you what I like to do to take notes.

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The main entry point for a new note is always starting with

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M-x denote. You fill out a couple of customizable prompts

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that will ask for values of the note. I'll start by making a

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new note, which we'll call test note. Then we'll give it a key

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for what category it's under. For this, I usually put the

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subject of the class that I'm doing this note for, be it

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programming, English, history, or science. Try to keep

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them short. And then Shazam, we have ourselves a brand new

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note which we can start typing away in. The cool thing about

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the note is you don't have to manually name your note files.

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It uses a standard convention using the time, the title, and

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the keywords of the note to make it unique. You can even make a

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meta note, a note about notes, to show a list of notes under a

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certain keyword. The final step in creation is flashcards.

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There is a great package called Anki Editor that makes Emacs

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able to push cards into Anki. There isn't much to

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overcomplicate here, it's just content on front and back,

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sometimes with images and complete the phrase. You can also

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set up LaTeX math formatting, but I don't really use it that

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much. If you're living in Emacs all the time, you may want

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some creature comforts. These are some of my favorite. Org

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Download is a package that allows you to paste images from

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your clipboard into an org file.

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Logos is a text narrowing tool that helps you restrict what

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text you can see and focus on what you're writing. It extends

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Emacs default narrowing, also adding functionality for

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quickly switching to headings for a presentation look. It

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can remove your mode line and center your text for better

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focus. org-fragtog allows you to move between previews of

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your LaTeX formulas and the unrendered syntax.

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pdf-view-mode is a fully fledged PDF reader, complete with

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annotations and org syntax, highlighting, and clickable

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links.

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Something you may want to consider is digital versus

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handwritten notes. There have been several talks in the

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past about how to integrate handwritten notes into Emacs,

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such as retyping them or scanning them in with an OCR tool. I

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don't think that type notes are the only way that you should

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take notes, but if you do try writing, at least get some nice

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stationery. I've seen people ask online to YouTubers and

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Twitch streamers asking, what is your keyboard? What is

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your window manager? I understand that they're curious,

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but cosplaying as a productive person by using the same

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tools won't accomplish anything. Emacs will not make you a

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productive person. It can be a significant time investment

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because of how customizable it is. However, I believe it

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will make it easier for you to be productive, as it certainly

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has for me. This was just an example workflow to show

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prospective students how they can use Emacs for their

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needs.

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Even if you don't end up using Emacs in the end, you can still

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apply most of its ideas to other software. It just won't be as

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customizable and extensible as Emacs is. Thank you for

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listening to my talk. It's been a great pleasure to finally

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take part in this conference in some capacity, and I'm glad I

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was given a chance. To all the students who may try Emacs in

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the future, good luck because there might not be any going

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back. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an

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email. Thank you for your time.