Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!tekcrl!!eirik From: eirik@tekcrl.TEK.COM (Eirik Fuller) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: vi vs emacs in a student environment Message-ID: <2817@tekcrl.CRL.TEK.COM> Date: 8 Jul 88 01:39:45 GMT References: <399@cantuar.UUCP> <11418@steinmetz.ge.com> <6056@megaron.arizona.edu> <2844@ttidca.TTI.COM> <1633@hoqax.UUCP> Sender: ftp@tekcrl.CRL.TEK.COM Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 55 In article <1633@hoqax.UUCP> bicker@hoqax.UUCP (The Resource, Poet of Quality) writes: > ... > >I learned vi first (well actually, I learned TECO first, but that's >another story) and then learned emacs. I prefer emacs. I wonder >how many people would be able to say the opposite. >-- When I first started using Unix, I chose emacs for its online documentation; I don't like reading things on paper. I went over the deep end with mock lisp (this was Unipress emacs); the most useful thing I wasted my time on was mouse support that essentially made a copy/cut/paste editor out of emacs. When I got a workstation with no "real" (termcap-compatible) inverse video (where'd that mode line go?) in its terminal emulator, but with built-in vi mouse support and clumsy (at best) support for emacs mousing, I decided to learn vi. My switch in duties to user support soon thereafter made this decision yet the wiser. I went to the trouble of writing a terminal driver for emacs so it could use the unusual terminal emulator without giving up inverse video mode lines, partly because of the claims it couldn't be done. The author of the terminal emulator wound up fixing bugs in order for this to work; because it didn't comply with termcap nobody had ever used the inverse video before. So, after all that trouble, and hacking a bit on the X support in Unipress emacs to get my mouse support working right, I still never use emacs. I actually took the trouble of adding vi mouse support to xterm because I prefer vi. I've written a smalltalk terminal emulator too (it does essentially everything xterm does, including responding to the resize command), and it too has vi mouse support. I still know enough emacs to answer users' questions about it. But I never use it myself. I much prefer vi. Don't ask me for practical reasons. I don't do it because of startup time; I could leave an emacs X window running perpetually and startup time wouldn't matter. I don't do it so my environment is uniform; everything I use has Unipress emacs if I want it, and smalltalk has its own editor (though I prefer vi in a smalltalk terminal window for large files). I'm not shy about rebinding keys in emacs to cope with the brain-dead defaults. I just simply prefer the feel of vi. It's strange, but so am I. One of my coworkers watches me type vi (he's an emacser himself), and can't believe a file can be changed that fast. I'm a basically lazy person, and vi seems more efficient to me than emacs. In case it's unclear from the above, I have tried GNU emacs too. I don't like it. If I want the universe as part of my text editor, I'll use smalltalk. (If that didn't make sense, don't sweat it). Maybe you asked the wrong question. Has anybody switched from vi to emacs for practical, logical reasons? Mine are all silly, but a little detail like that won't change my mind.