Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!apollo!gallen From: gallen@apollo.uucp (Gary Allen) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: vi vs emacs in a student enviro Message-ID: <3d1d2b9f.d8e9@apollo.uucp> Date: 7 Jul 88 21:40:00 GMT References: <370@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> <47800011@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: gallen@diskless.UUCP (Gary Allen) Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA Lines: 27 In article <47800011@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > >I just have to say something about the vi vs. good editors debate. >Vi is an ergonomic disaster area. Its basic problem is that it is modal, [...Mucho deleto...] >seem to do that. I feel it would be better to teach a better editor than >vi. Emacs is certainly complicated, and might not be the answer, but >there HAS to be something better than vi. This about sums it up for me. I dislike both (although vi a bit more) because of the amount of stuff that has to be remembered. I expect an editor to do just a couple of things, move left, right, up, down, and insert a character. Above that I really don't care. I really hate all the shift-hyper-meta-super- cali-ctrl-fragilistic of emacs, although it's generally unnecessary until I hit the wrong ctrl-character and wind up in hyper-space. I guess my favorite so far has been EDT but that generally requires VMS (The last place had a reasonable facsimile on UNIX) for which I have even less use. A good rule of thumb that I use in weighing editors is just to weigh the documentation (but then, I guess vi would win, huh? :-)). Anything that won't fit on a 3x5 card represents the over-active imagination of its author. Gary Allen Apollo Computer Chelmsford, Ma {decvax,yale,umix}!apollo!gallen