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How Emacs changed my life

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yukihiro_matz

1. The document describes how the author's experience with Emacs as a student taught him about software freedom and how to read and modify source code. This led him to create his own Emacs-based tools and influenced the design of Ruby. 2. Emacs taught the author the power of Lisp and how to implement a programming language and garbage collection. Using Emacs to write code, documents and email made him a more effective programmer. 3. Emacs had a profound influence on the author and changed his life by helping him become a hacker and free software advocate.

TechnologySelf Improvement
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How Emacs changed my Life Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto @yukihiro_matz Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 1980 1/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I started programming 2/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 3/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 BASIC 4/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 400 steps 5/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 1988 6/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I met Emacs 7/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 on Sun-3 8/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 shared by 200 undergraduates 9/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I tried Emacs 10/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 but I never used 11/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Emacs was prohibited 12/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 It consumed too much precious memory 13/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 We are free to download free software 14/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 We are free to read the source code 15/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I downloaded Emacs source code 16/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 and investigated 17/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Emacs was my first Lisp interpreter 18/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I learned a lot about language implementation from Emacs 19/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Embedding integers in pointers 20/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Mark and sweep garbage collection 21/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Calling convention between Lisp and C 22/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I really understood how Lisp work 23/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I was fascinated by Lisp objects 24/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Lisp objects implemented by C 25/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Then I got a Sparc Station 26/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I started to use Emacs 27/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Emacs become part of me 28/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 If I didn't like anything in Emacs, I could change it 29/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Emacs is totally configurable 30/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Emacs made me realize anything can be changed by a programmer 31/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 It is total freedom 32/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I could edit without thinking key binding 33/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I didn't want to write anything without Emacs 34/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Programs, Documents and Mails 35/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 so I wrote my own mail client 36/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 named "cmail" 37/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 in Emacs lisp 38/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 It was my first non-trivial (Emacs) Lisp program 39/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I used it everyday 40/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 1993 41/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I started Ruby development 42/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 with influence from Emacs implementation 43/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Integers are coded in tagged pointers 44/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 It uses simple mark and sweep garbage collector 45/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 It uses similar object model to Lisp 46/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Then I put Smalltalk-like OO system on top 47/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 For syntax, I wanted Algol/Ada/ Eiffel like one 48/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 But as an Emacs addict, I needed a language mode 49/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 auto-indent was a must 50/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Back in 1993, there was no auto-indenting language mode for a language with such syntax 51/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 So I tried to write experimental ruby-mode.el 52/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 fighting with emacs lisp and regular expression, 53/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 for almost whole week 54/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 I somehow succeeded to implement auto-indentation 55/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 for a language with "end" delimiters 56/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 If I couldn't make ruby-mode to work 57/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 the syntax of Ruby would have changed 58/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 to more C-like one 59/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 too similar to other scripting languages 60/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 as a result, Ruby would not have gained current popularity 61/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Summary 62/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 1. Emacs taught me freedom for software 63/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 2. Emacs taught me how to read code 64/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 3. Emacs taught me power of Lisp 65/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 4. Emacs taught me how to implement a language core 66/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 5. Emacs taught me how to implement a garbage collector 67/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 6. Emacs helped me to code and debug 68/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 7. Emacs helped me to write and edit text/mails/documents 69/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 8. Emacs helped me to be a effective programmer 70/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 9. Emacs made me a hacker 71/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 10. Emacs has changed my life 72/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 forever 73/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2
　 Thank you 74/74 Powered by Rabbit 0.9.2

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How Emacs changed my life