Terrel Shumway

Software I use frequently:

 * Python (http://www.python.org/),
 * Vim (http://www.vim.org/),

Some other interesting (or maybe not so interesting) sites I am responsible for:

When I use emacs, I find myself constantly using the mouse to select a buffer from the menu. (I know that using the mouse is evil, but I don't know emacs well enough to know of any better method.) --TerrelShumway

You might want to try these Emacs commands:

control-x b <buffer-name> : Switch to a named buffer. Hit tab if you don't know the buffer names. Type just enough of a buffer name to disambiguate it, then hit tab again and it'll complete the name for you.
control-x f <file-name> : Switch to the buffer holding a file. If there is none, create one and load the file. The tab trick works here, too.
control-x b enter : Switch to the previous buffer.
control-x k enter : kill a buffer

and for split-window:

control-x 2 : split the window in into a top half and a bottom half (then use control-x f to load different file into the half your cursor is in, or control-x b to load a different buffer.
control-x o : switch to the other half
control-x 0 : Get out of split-window mode

I do buffer management all day in emacs with just these commands. I hope you find them helpful (and keep you away from that mouse). -- WayneConrad

15 March 2002: Thanks for the tip, but I don't use emacs anymore. My finger muscles are hopelessly habituated to Vim. The buffer management problem is still there, but I just open several windows and ALT-TAB between them.

You might be interested in the ScreenMultiplexor, then.

screen is very nice. CTRL+A is not the best choice for the meta-key. It is also the default emacs binding for beginning-of-line (and readline is used by a lot of terminal-based programs). (1 September:) You can change that by creating a ~/.screenrc file for yourself and having a line say something like 'escape ``' (this would change the escape key to be the tick character).

30 Nov 2009: I am trying to use emacs again, but I keep falling back to Vim.

re: UsingPythonDontNeedRuby -- I use Python a lot. With my first look at Ruby, I see a lot of Perl and Smalltalk roots. Perhaps Ruby is what Perl should have been. Having made the transition from Perl to Python a long time ago, I can see that Ruby offers a lot to a Perl programmer, but not so much to a Python programmer. As others have said, the core philosophy is different. The most glaring violation of Python philosophy that Ruby makes is against "no magic" e.g.: 1) automatic string interpolation, 2) backticks, 3) the magic self in __main__ (or whatever it is called) that includes puts, gets, etc.

Did a Perl class in school, realized in was not as terrible as I remembered it being. Looking at Ruby again soon.

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