This should be cited whenever monstrous dotfiles are produced without understanding the reason for defaults.
I often see Emacs newbies stealing hundreds of LOCs from different sites, only to end up with a lot of added complexity that is hard to understand let alone maintain. I imagine it's the same for Vim.
Emacs defaults are quite usable. I've been using Emacs for 15 years and I'm only altering a dozen variables. The rest of my .emacs is simply use-package directives. As I become more proficient, I trim down my dotfiles, not the other way round.
Some defaults seem to be there for historical reasons. When I see such a thing, I wait a few months. If I'm still convinced the default is legacy code, I try to lobby for a change. I've found that developers tend to be very receptive if changes can be well justified. E.g. there's a long discussion now in emacs-devel on how to modernize many defaults and make the editor more friendly.
My goal is to push all my dotfiles upstream, and end up with almost empty configurations. And I'm getting there.
+1 to waiting a bit, incurring the inconvenience, and seeing whether you come across alternate solutions. Often the first thing I think of (customize, or install a new package; both of which incur maintenance costs) is just masking not understanding another aspect of Emacs.
Every few months, if I'm not 100% on the utility of a customization/package, I'll remove it and see if I survive without it.
I often see Emacs newbies stealing hundreds of LOCs from different sites, only to end up with a lot of added complexity that is hard to understand let alone maintain. I imagine it's the same for Vim.
Emacs defaults are quite usable. I've been using Emacs for 15 years and I'm only altering a dozen variables. The rest of my .emacs is simply use-package directives. As I become more proficient, I trim down my dotfiles, not the other way round.
Some defaults seem to be there for historical reasons. When I see such a thing, I wait a few months. If I'm still convinced the default is legacy code, I try to lobby for a change. I've found that developers tend to be very receptive if changes can be well justified. E.g. there's a long discussion now in emacs-devel on how to modernize many defaults and make the editor more friendly.
My goal is to push all my dotfiles upstream, and end up with almost empty configurations. And I'm getting there.