Emacs is very powerful. Amazingly so. But it’s so arcane, the keystrokes could take you years to master. So what’s a developer to do?

Enter spacemacs. I honestly don’t know where this idea came from, and my brain is structured in such a way that I could have ever pulled it off myself. But an emacs configured like Vim (thank you evil mode) with discoverable keystrokes … I am always flabergasted.

Tonight I discovered how to open the kill ring. While it sounds aggressive, it’s really just Emacs version of a clipboard. Anything you cut or copy ends up on the kill ring. For so long I treated it like the opaque clipboard on so many operating systems. The last thing I cut is the only thing I have access to. And God help me if I cut something else, because I’ll lose the last thing to oblivion.

But not anymore, baby. With an interactive kill ring (SPC-r-y for those of you following along at home) you get a searchable compendium of everything you’ve cut or copied in the current session. Absolutely brilliant.