###Full Disclosure

I am really a Vim guy. I have been using Vim for more years than I care to acknowledge, probably going on 15 years now if I had to guess. The reason I like Vim so much is really two-fold.

1. I love the ability customization it
2. I totally appreciate the text-editing language that takes your text-editing to a whole new level

All that aside, when I started playing around with ways to migrate from Evernote to a more text-based, open source solution to note-taking, I kept running into this thing called “org-mode” in Emacs. To be fair, I did give a solution called VimWiki a try and found it alright but when I started watching tutorials on Org Mode I was just blown away. When I installed Emacs, I was totally out of my element and hated everything about the way Emacs functioned from a keyboard perspective. I loved Org Mode, totally fell in love with a git package called Magit and also was totally into the philosophy behind Emacs but those damnable key-bindings! I was so used to using Vim that switching to the Emacs way was just dumb to me.

To make a long story short, after much trial and error with Evil and then Spacemacs, I found a pre-built “distribution” of Emacs called Doom. Once I got it up and running I felt so much more at home and loved it. That was until about a week ago when I decided it was time to update it after like a year of not thinking about it (hint, stay on top of updates!).

###What Happened Next?

So, when I ran the update commands, of course it did not go well and when I restarted Emacs, my familiar Doom home screen was now a white void! Good grief…After some internet searching and some trial and error, I was able to get it fixed. The solution was quite simple. I posted a YouTube Video on my channel detailing the process of fixing it (shameless plug, what the video, please…)

###Conclusion

So, what does it all mean?

1. Never wait a year to update anything…unless it’s a server in production somewhere that really shouldn’t be touched.
2. When you run across an issue, do what you can to figure it out yourself first, before bugging the developers….it will help you gain knowledge you previously did not have and you might find you can fix it on your own without having to ask the often very busy developers.
3. When you do ask the dev for help, make sure to do so in the approved way that the devs have specifically setup for asking for help. This makes it easier for them to help you.
4. Provide as much information as possible. The more information you can give them, the more effective they will be at helping you.

Spoiler alert, I needed help because I was lost. The Doom developer helped me out super quick and I am thoroughly grateful. Always be grateful and make sure you show your appreciation, many open source developers are not getting paid or are getting very little to do what they do and this goes a long way.

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for dropping by.