Emacs Zen Coding - Write markup quickly

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ZenCoding#toc2

by kirubakaran • 17 years ago

41 10 17 years ago

This is pretty neat, but I'm not sure it's really practical. I don't want to learn a new syntax just to save a few keystrokes. When I use JQuery, it's nice that it cuts down on some typing, but the reason I use it is because it abstracts away things like animations.

Is how fast I can write mark-up really bound by how many characters I have to type? For me at least, it's more bound by thinking, so I don't want to do anymore of that. And I don't even type that fast.

noahlt• 17 years ago

This isn't really a new syntax, though -- it mostly just uses standard CSS selectors (.class, sibling+sibling, parent>child, etc).

10ren• 17 years ago

Wow, you're right: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#child-combinators

It also reminds me of HAML (discussed recently): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925573

Looking at one aspect: The idea of abstracting the verbosity of HTML/XML by just stating the element name once (instead of both open and close tags) is not new. Many people have implemented this idea, but it doesn't seem to catch on. It could be that that very verbosity is a significant factor in the success of HTML and XML (both have widespread adoption).

SGML (the common ancestor of both HTML and XML) allowed a "</>" close tag, which goes part-way towards reducing verbosity, but it was deliberately omitted from HTML and XML. Both have been much more successful than SGML. Though it's hard to know what impact that particular omission had, greater abstraction is harder to read for newcomers, and therefore probably decreases adoptability...

Perhaps it's the Abstraction vs. Verbosity being played out in another forum e.g. Lisp abstraction being more powerful but Java verbosity being more popular.

andrewljohnson2• 17 years ago

Well, it's totally new to me!

misuba• 17 years ago

How about a command for closing whatever tag is open where the cursor is? For repeating the last closed tag? For wrapping a tag in another tag?

I'm an emacs noob but it seems like the tools for actually working with existing markup are impoverished. You only write markup once; you have to maintain it forever.

mccutchen• 17 years ago

> How about a command for closing whatever tag is open where the cursor is?

Try `C-h m` to find out what commands your HTML editing mode provides. In HTML Mode, `C-c /` closes the current element, and in nxml mode, `C-c C-f` does the same thing. Even better, in nxml mode, when `nxml-slash-auto-complete-flag` is non-nil the current element is automatically closed when you type a "/".

The nice thing about Emacs is that it's pretty trivial to write a little elisp code to add the other functionality you're looking for.

swannodette• 17 years ago

Ahh the power and fun of Emacs :) Good stuff.

SlyShy• 17 years ago

What's the advantage of this over Haml?

buugs• 17 years ago

That it isn't compiled but is immediately transformed. (In regards to Emacs)

Emacs Zen Coding - Write markup quickly

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