The famous “considered harmful” would be a vast overstatement, but I see them as a solution preventing better solutions. I’m going to talk about the GNU Emacs flavor of them so not all problems and alternatives will apply to other text editors.
Multiple cursors considered… suboptimal
Emacs as a Shell
, updated on
When I log into a new server, one of the first things I do is install a minimal Emacs package1. Of course assuming nobody minds if the server is not strictly mine, I’m not a monster. Emacs serves me as a de facto shell when setting up whatever there is to set up. By “shell” I mean a broader meaning of this word than just a command prompt: it’s the central program I use to interact with the system.
One year with Notmuch
Email… One of the last bastions of non-proprietary communication with the freedom to choose both service providers and clients alike. Some call it archaic but none can avoid using it to some degree. For years I struggled to find an email client I actually liked. I tried all the usual suspects: Mozilla Thunderbird, mutt, alpine, and others. Even mu4e didn't scratch that itch. I've spent the last few years on Thunderbird as I made a point that even if everything else is failing, email must work, so I tried to avoid any unnecessary hackery.