Vim vs Emacs

[randumb]

I've come to the consensus that I can't use notepad anymore. I've played around with both Vim and XEmacs, and was wondering which one to use. They both seem nice, but I'm only going to learn one, because I don't feel like memorizing too many commands.

 

[Descartes]

What are you looking for in an editor? Both are powerful, but it depends on what your requirements are. I would suggest either Crimson Editor (free) or UltraEdit (not free). Both are excellent, but Crimson's regular expressions support is more robust. UltraEdit also has a hex editor which is a requirement for what I do. Both are superior to Vim in my opinion, but Emacs has more potential if you're willing to invest the time.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

One reason I would never be able to use emacs is that you use the control key ALL the time, and my left hand and especially pinky get sore enough as it is when coding for a while.

I don't know if my pinky is weak or my keyboard sucks (a pretty average logitech) or what, but I honestly don't understand how people can code for hours and hours in emacs.

But other than that it's kind of up to personal preference. I feel that in the end, the editor matters less than the person using it. The biggest nerd I've ever met uses nano and uses the arrow keys to move around, and he's pretty damn productive.

 

[Gibson12345]

Whichever one felt more intuitive the first time you used it is the one to pick. They're both fine programs, so it comes down to user preference.

 

[Nothinman]

If either one feels 'intuitive' the first time you run it something isn't right heh.

 

[n0cmonkey]

You don't want to learn "too many commands," but you want to learn vi or emacs? What am I missing? 😛

 

[edmicman]

editpad lite

 

[Replicon]

You won't retain anything if you just memorize commands. Start by learning the basics, and use it for a while. Eventually, you will get to a point where you're working as fast as you possibly can with that knowledge... Once it becomes second nature, look through that command list, and you will pick out things that you think are useful ("wow, I didn't know i can go ':s/blah/cleh/g', that would come in so handy!"), and you kinda soak it in as you go. Usually, everyone knows a different set of commands, and when you're pair programming, and your friend sees you scroll needlessly, he'll say "you know, 'w' gets you to the next word".... that's just my experience though.

As for which to choose... blah, I'm a vim person myself. This is an age old debate, and I don't think anyone can decide but yourself.

 

[Descartes]

Hopefully he'll reply and tell us why he needs a new editor. It's my firm opinion that anything vim/emacs can do can be supplanted with independent tools that do them better. I'm not a fan of all-in-one tools that have their own little malformed idea of how things should be done (e.g. Vi's regular expressions implementation), so I prefer to have a lightweight editor and use CLI tools for the rest. If I need to parse some text, I will most likely simply drop to the CLI and do it in Perl (which has a lucid regex implementation compared to any of the more antiquated unix tools). If I want to edit, I'll use an editor. If I want to parse, I'll use a language more suitable for doing so.

It's all about functional orthogonality, the primordial philosophy of unix.

 

[randumb]

Sorry about not answering. I've seen people work with emacs before, and they can literally fly through text. I just want a text editor where I can make changes to files fast. I've used programs like UltraEdit before, but after I tried out Vim I really liked some of the functions.

 

[Nothinman]

Most editors will offer the same functions in one form or another, the trick is picking one editor and learning it inside and out. Any of them will do what you want, you just have to take the time to learn how to do it.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

I consider my usage of vim "flying." 🙂