I started to work on a web application the other day. It's nothing special but if I ever finish it, it will be a pretty complete project. The backend will be a REST API and I'm planning on writing the frontend in Clojurescript. The problem with developing a web application like this is that you can't really write the front end until you have enough of the backend to provide data.

Org-mode is my markup of choice. I spend the vast majority of my time working on text files working in org-mode. Since GitHUb started rendering org-mode files in their site I've also used org-mode for things like Readme files in my projects. I even force it on my students at times. When I make an assignment, I seed it with an org-mode file that they have to modify - that is - fill in things like their names, group members etc.

I've been wanting to check out lsp-mode under Emacs for a while now. LSP stands for Language Protocol Service. The idea is that you have a standard interface between your editor and some language server. If you program in multiple languages and each has an LSP server you end up, in theory, with a simpler configuration and a consistent interface. This certainly sounds more appealing than how we did it in the old days where you have some ad hoc configuraiton for each language you work in.

One of Emacs power features that I've never quite gotten into is dired, the Directory Editor. I've already done a video on the package. It's really cool and I do use it at times but I still haven't started using it for my day to day. Well, I just started using a couple of packages that might change this. They're part of a set of dired addons that you can check out at the dired hacks page.

One of the great things about Emacs is that it's not just for writing programs. Sure, you can set it up as an IDE for just about every programming language under the sun but that's just the tip of the iceberg. I use Emacs for just about all my text processing. This includes writing blog posts, reading and writing emails, creating lesson plans and pretty much anything and everything having to do with text.

Last year I put together a post and video on some basics of Emacs for C++ development. In the video I didn't quite get completions fully working. I also used ggtags in that video but find myself using dumb-jump more frequently. Here's a quick video showing how to set up irony-mode which uses libclang for completions. It's pretty slick. Now the only thing I think I'm missing is header file completions.

As you know I use Emacs for all sorts of things. In addition to coding, I use it for email, my schedule, note taking, and much much more. As part of my job at Hunter, I read and evaluate some of the Macaulay Honors College applications. I also have to evaluate all the applicants to my CS honors program. I described how I use Org-mode and Emacs to help with that here.

I use both org-mode and Google Calendar for scheduling. I like Google Calendar because: It's pretty universal so I can issue and accept calendar invites. It works well with my phone and other mobile devices. The rest of my family doesn't live in Emacs :-(. I prefer using org-mode beacuse: Emacs I prefer, for the most part, to control my data. I partially sync the two platforms. I've already talked about syncing Google Calendar and org-mode.

I was originally going to do a video on how I set things up so that I get an email every morning with my org-mode agenda but that's going to be something of an ordeal. I have to create a droploet on Digital Ocean, set up SyncThing and a mail server and lots of other things. I'll get to that video at some point but in the meantime I saw this thread on the Emacs subreddit.

I can't believe that I haven't made a video since the beginning of summer!!! Part of the reason is that I haven't had any video ideas that have motivated me and the other reason is that the Fall is my busiest season. In any event, here's the latest installment. Take a look at how I use Emacs and more specifically org-mode for my day to day work. Sometimes I use the fancy power tools but to be honest, most of the time, I stick to the basics.