I move my s-expressions back and forth

30 Nov 2015

Some people find lispy too weird and/or complex to try, quite possibly because of it's sort-of-modal key binding structure. Which is a shame, since out of 7k lines of lispy's code, only 500 lines do key bindings, the rest do all sorts of useful stuff, like sexp navigation/modification, outlines and REPL interaction.

In this post, I'll show a short example of using lispy's functions outside of lispy-mode, and compare it with the default approach.

Moving s-expressions while the point is anywhere

Using this simple hydra, and the key sequence C-c m sss www I got the following GIF:

Doing the same lispy-way

To do it the lispy-way, I move the point before the list that I wish to operate on (with [ key), and press sss www to get the following GIF:

The difference here is that no hydra is necessary in the second case, the key bindings come only from lispy-mode. But the first case will also work if lispy-mode is off.

Which way is better?

I think the second way is better, since it's faster and more clear, but you can decide for yourself. By the way, you can also move symbols, comments and sub-words (if that makes sense) with w and s, provided you mark them with a region first.