unpackaged.el VS Emacs-VSCode-Default-High-Contras

The question is almost like asking a fish to describe water. It's the sudden lack of it that produces a really clear example. :)

Anyway, here's a random example that comes to mind: I have some sexps in a Lisp file and I want to sort them alphabetically. Each sexp (usually a top-level form, but not necessarily) usually spans multiple lines, so line-sorting won't do it. Since they may be top-level forms, there may be comments between them that would lose their context if their position relative to sexps were lost, so comments need to "stick to" sexps they're above.

How would you solve this in a random text editor?

In Emacs, I would develop a command that does what I need. At each stage of the development process, I evaluate the command's definition, and it's instantly available to be used and tested. I could even test the function on its own definition, if I wanted to be silly (undoing the sorting after testing, of course).

When I'm done, I save the command definition to my configuration, and it's now a permanent tool in my toolbox. I didn't have to recompile the editor and start a new process, nor did I have to submit a patch to an upstream and ask for it to be merged. Similarly to a carpenter (forgive me if it sounds silly), my editor is my workbench, and as wood is malleable, so is my editor.

So, here's the command I came up with (maybe not the prettiest implementation, but maybe not the worst): https://github.com/alphapapa/unpackaged.el#sort-sexps And using Emacs and Org mode, I publish it into this "unpackaged" package, which I then install into my configuration as a package, and other users can then easily install it into theirs, too.

I don't know of any other editor that can do all of this, certainly not so easily.

Here's the code in my Emacs config. I'll probably add these functions to unpackaged.el (the Org sorting function there is more primitive than these).

Sorting. This is handled within Org, see org-sort. However, you may find this function helpful for sorting recursively and with multiple methods (e.g. first by priority, then alphabetically): https://github.com/alphapapa/unpackaged.el#sort-tree-by-multiple-methods-at-once

The customize buffers can be used with the keyboard. You can tab between fields, and C-c C-c to set values. See also https://github.com/alphapapa/unpackaged.el#set-value-of-customization-option-at-point

I only recently feel like I've "gotten" Emacs, to the point where I'm confident enough to tell others about my setup [1], but in the process of doing so I've realized I have so much more built-ins that I've barely touched. Like, dired. Magit, I've only skimmed the surface of. Hilariously, I only learned about apropos last week!

For some reason though I gain great enjoyment from tweaking my Emacs environment (I even made my own theme [2]), and I'm productive at work, so I really can't complain :)

I'm with the author though... would I recommend it? Yeeeeah maybe not, in the long run it's worth it but for new programmers no way, just use vscode like everyone else.

[1] https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/my-emacs-environment/

[2] https://github.com/komali2/Emacs-VSCode-Default-High-Contras...