[geeks] vi vs. emacs - rational discussion

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Bill Bradford wrote:

> I learned vi when I first touched a unix box.

Same here.

> I now use VIM, solely for color syntax highlighting.

Same here, and split-screens in a screen in a fat-by-tall rxvt.

> Why (if any reasons), should I consider learning Emacs?

One of the really neat things I like about Emacs is the easy access to a
lisp interpreter.  Don't want to learn lisp?  Just use it for simple
things:

  C-x b *scratch*
  (* 24234 34234)
  C-j

And Emacs happily replies with 24320388, the product of 24234 and
34234.  Then you can C-x RET to get back to what you were working on.
The +, -, /, and % (modulo) arithmetic functions work similarly.

You can even use it to help you decide what you want for lunch:

  (defun pick-x (theList x) (if (= x 0) (car theList)
                                (pick-x (cdr theList) (- x 1))))
  (defun pick-random (theList x)
                     (pick-x theList (abs (% (random) (length theList)))))
  (setq lunch-options '(burger sub indian mexican chinese))
  (pick-random lunch-options)

And Emacs says I need Indian food.

On a more serious note, being able to run a shell interactively in a
buffer is very useful, since you can cut-and-paste from within Emacs.
Granted, if you're a screen user, you've already got all that.

> (note: I have vi movement/editing commands hardwired into my
>  brain by this point)

Emacs is pretty easy.  Largely, you just use the arrow keys and cursor-
movement keys like in most GUI text-editors.  The text-selection stuff
irritates me.

While there are a lot of things I like about Emacs, there are a lot of
things I like about vim.  When I'm writing C code or shell code, I
usually use vim.  When I'm writing Lisp or Scheme code, I typically use
Emacs.  When I'm editing email, I use vim.

It just basically boils down to that I'm a -lot- faster with vim, and I
only rarely need the comfy stuff that Emacs provides.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "Being on the Internet is not the same as being
Elgin, TX         (   famous.  That's like calling Cheetos 'dinner'."
USA                )                                    --Metal Steve