emacs offers a customized modes for different kinds of files that you might be editing. Some of these are chosen automatically for you depending upon the file name you give. Others can be chosen automatically by giving the command M-x name-mode where name indicates the desired mode. Some of the most popular modes are: text, pascal, c, and c++. The programming language modes generally offer automatic indenting at the end of each line, though you may have to end lines with the “Line feed” or “C-j” key rather than “Return” or “Enter” to get this.

Try this: Start up emacs and visit a C++ file from one of your other classes (or create a new one, typing in a few lines of C++ code). At the very least, you should see a “(C++)” indicator in the status line indicating that you are in C++ mode. In this mode, you have available special commands for compilation and debugging (which we will discuss in a later lesson). If your terminal program supports color and you copied my .emacs file as suggested earlier, you may see colored “syntax highlighting” as emacs renders reserved words, string constants, and comments in different colors and/or fonts.

And there are little, more subtle things that you will come to appreciate over time. For example, each time you type a “)” or “}” in your code, the cursor briefly flashes back to the “(” or “{” that you just closed.

The command M-/ is a special friend to all programmers who use long variable names but hate to type them. Type a few letters of any word, then hit M-/. emacs will search backwards through what you have previously typed looking for a word beginning with those letters. When it finds one, it fills in the remaining letters. If that wasn't the word you wanted, just hit M-/ again and emacs will search for a different word beginning with the same characters.