Re: [emacs-humanities] Why Emacs-humanities?

[Oliver Taylor]

Hello!

I'm not a programmer, not a researcher, and not an academic, I work in the
visual effects industry, within the film/TV business. Paul R. will know me
because I wrote Textplay[1], a command-line script for converting
screenplays written in a markdown-like language into HTML. Before Textplay I
wrote the "screenbundle" for TextMate[2] (I can't believe that was 15 years
ago) whose closest spiritual successor is probably Paul's fountain-mode.

Despite all that background I found Emacs difficult to understand and learn
how to use. I tried org-mode a few times and it seemed really promising, but
Emacs itself was a hurdle I didn't want to invest in surmounting until the
global pandemic suddenly landed a bunch of spare time in my lap. I took the
time to dig in and man... I finally got what all the fuss is about.
Particularly in regards to org-mode.

What got me over the hurdle in those first few months was learning how to
re-bind keys and make Emacs work like a standard mac app[3]. Once it was
effortless to open and save files, tweak my "settings" (in a way that was
familiar to me), and read the info pages, I was able to explore, experiment,
and make progress in my Emacs education.

Things I do with Emacs:

+ Manage my time/productivity for work and home.
+ Prepare work documents for print/PDF.
+ Write screenplays, stories, etc.
+ Manage and edit my dotfiles.
+ Write and publish (via magit) my personal website.
+ Collect notes and research for things I'm reading/learning.
+ Read RSS feeds.
+ Interact with my pinboard bookmarks.

I too was surprised that so many respondents to the 2020 Emacs survey use it
primarily for writing and not coding, and that a full 76% said their Elisp
proficiency is only simple functions or config copypasta. I mean, that’s me!
So I think this list is great idea, and targets an audience I haven't seen
targeted much (outside org-mode tutorials).

Excited to learn and contribute what I can.

1: https://github.com/olivertaylor/Textplay
2: 
https://lists.macromates.com/hyperkitty/list/textmate@lists.macromates.com/message/E74HL4BSPKLHBQTGMV6PMZNZHXPLB7HM/
3: https://github.com/olivertaylor/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs/mac.el