
On vim vs emacs - b-man
http://www.sanityinc.com/articles/vim-vs-emacs
======
Xurinos
I hear about the viper-mode and vimpulse stuff a lot, and while they go a long
way towards helping emacs be more useful for text editing, I find the
discontinuities disturbing.

For example, I am no longer in vi-mode if I end up in a help window of some
sort. I cannot just Ctrl-W+Ctrl-W my way back to the original window; that
suddenly deletes words. But I like working with multiple windows in vim
sometimes. This gets frustrating for a vim user.

Also, macros are still not fixed, still using the emacs assumption of what
people want for an enhanced vi. We want the easy qq and @q.

Definitely, if you are going to try it out, grab vimpulse. viper-mode is a
joke to the developers coming from the vim world. vimpulse makes visual mode
highlighting sensible.

~~~
jrockway
viper is not for vim users, it's for Emacs users. As a long time Emacs user
who doesn't really enjoy holding down the control key while editing text,
viper is wonderful -- it gives Emacs a command mode, without making Emacs work
like vi. If I wanted vi, I would just use vi.

That's the logic behind Viper, anyway. I believe a few people are working on a
vim emulation layer for Emacs; giving Vim users the ability to have a proper
scriptable environment, without having to give up anything they know from Vim.
Ask on #emacs.

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naner
Heh, I've ended up doing the same thing. The issue is that Vim's key scheme
has a much better economy of motion (faster with less movement) while Emacs is
much more extensible and flexible. So this is the compromise instead of
creating yet another text editor.

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BoppreH
I hear a lot about this vim vs emacs war. But I have never seen a battle, so
to speak.

Where can I see videos of people actually _using_ this text editors? A side by
side comparison of interesting/useful features?

I really would like to choose, but the most I managed to find was a guy
playing snake on his emacs.

I'm currently using the very basics features of vim, but just because I felt
like it and it came with a tutor file.

~~~
revaaron
All the really matters is that you use what you like. If you like gedit or
notepad++ that's just fine. FYI, emacs also comes with an extensive tutorial.

Personally, I used emacs and clones (mg and JASSPA MicroEmacs) for a long
time- though I never really went very deep into the features. Then, I started
a job where I'd be doing some sysadmin work on AIX boxes- nothing but vi and
ed installed- so I figured I should sharpen my rusty vi/vim skills. I've found
myself using more of the features available in VIM, as well as writing plugins
myself. After you get past the initial weirdness (for folks coming from emacs
and other modeless editors) I've found it easier. Less of a learning/feature
curve, far fewer keystrokes, and almost no "Meta-Shift-Control-Z Ctrl-X abc"
acrobatics. UI feels more modular in that I'm stringing together simple
commands rather than using a command that does something specific.

Not advocating so much as trying to explain where I came from when I started
using vim...

~~~
BoppreH
Thanks for the info.

The problem with the "use what you like" approach is that the emacs/vim
learning curve are too steep. By the time I am actually _using_ one of them
I'll have spent so much that the fear of change starts to strike and I'm stuck
with that editor.

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kennu
Vim is cool because it's built in to every OS (except maybe Windows) and
highly usable even without any configuration and requires very little
resources.

For me knowing vim has proven a very productive skill. I often work on random
new OS installations like virtual machines and cloud instances, and sometimes
in very limited environments like embedded Linux devices. It works there just
as well as in my regular Mac/Linux environments.

~~~
jrockway
vi is the one built into every OS. Sometimes it happens to be vim, but not
always... and other vi variants are quite different from vim.

~~~
krakensden
Really? I thought nvi and elvis had fallen by the wayside, and now everyone
shipped vim (in compatibility mode).

~~~
Xurinos
I noticed recent distributions (last couple years) deploy a crippled form of
vim, halfway between vi and vim. You still have to "sudo apt-get install vim"
to get something that is nice.

~~~
krakensden
You have to turn off compatibility mode

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jroes
I used to do the same thing, but I missed out on a lot of good emacs
shortcuts. Today I use the dvorak version of Xah Lee's layout. You get vim-
like navigation by holding Meta.

<http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html>

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SlyShy
Somewhat specious, since Emacs can be run inside Vim too.

This is a screenshot of Vim in Emacs in Vim: <http://i.imgur.com/fxlm4.jpg>

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Marwy
I've tried using Emacs with Caps Lock as Control key, and it didn't worked
well. So I changed Ctrl to (1)right-click-menu key (or whatever it's called)
and to (2)right Alt; and turned Caps Lock into Alt. Now I can easily move
around Emacs without hurting my pinky to much :). Long live Emacs!

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j_baker
I like using vim in emacs, but it makes it too easy for me to fall back to my
emacs muscle memory.

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xtho
BTW, vim is the perfect editor for tablets and similar devices with a shrunken
keyboard.

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againstyou
i like vim, that's it

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cubes
Seriously? Seriously? It's 2010, and we're still having this religious debate?
Pick an editor that works for you. Learn it. Use it. Done. NB I'm a heretic, I
use both vi and emacs.

~~~
benatkin
If it's a religious debate, why is it surprising that people are still having
it in 2010? Aren't _religious_ debates known for never getting resolved? Also,
aside from the article's title, I don't see the religious debate in the
article or the comments. I see people saying how they use vim and/or emacs,
and providing tips.

I'd like to know how you're using both vi and emacs. I like both, and used
both for a while. Please do tell.

~~~
mapleoin
I use emacs and vi at the same time, too. I usually have a two-pane emacs open
that takes the whole screen and an 80x22 terminal in the back. When I need to
navigate to some config file/log file etc. I use ls/pwd/pushd etc. and use vi
from that terminal on whatever short edits I need. I use emacs for the code
that I'm writing, the one that's under VCS and everything.

