Living with only Emacs and a browser

I was thinking earlier about trying to get by with only Emacs and a browser.

How much of my general daily computer work1 could be done primarily with those two apps? Not enough, but it’s a fun thought experiment that may turn into a real experiment.

After a quick pass through my Applications folder, here are the apps I (currently) consider must haves…

  • Emacs
  • Firefox
  • Messages (Apple)
  • 1Password (but 1Password X might not count as a separate app)
  • Preview (I’m constantly dealing with PDFs and haven’t gotten comfortable doing that with Emacs yet)
  • TextExpander (I could go without it, but I don’t want to)
  • iTerm (because command-line apps don’t count as Apps” so I cheat with this)
  • Finder (I’m not sure this counts as an App, though)
  • Keybase

So what does this long list-that-contains-way-more-than-just-emacs-and-a-browser mean I leave behind?

  • DEVONthink
  • Tinderbox
  • TheBrain
  • Bear
  • Apple Notes
  • MarsEdit
  • BBEdit
  • iA Writer
  • Calendar
  • Day One
  • MacVim
  • MailMate

I may try it for a few days and see what happens.


  1. I’m not including photo or video editing↩︎