[dundee] Text editor decision question

[Colin Brough]

Kris Davidson wrote:
> Okay, this is an actual serious question, serious Kris is serious
> and all that.
> 
> Anyway for a while now I've been meaning to learn one of the big two
> text editors; Vi/Vim or Emacs. I'm familiar enough with both to do
> basic editing but want to become an expert in one of them.
> 
> I'm going to primarily use the chosen editor for general editing,
> taking notes, modifying config files, Python/Bash/Perl programming and
> some LaTeX stuff.
> 
> I've bought books and downloaded learning material for both
> 
> The problem is everytime I think I've made a decision I change my mind
> or go back to neutral. I'm looking for help in making the decision. So
> which editor do you use and why?, have you tried both etc? Does it
> depend on your particular field of computing, do genuine programmers
> lean towards one, while Sysadmin and networking people another?

Emacs.

Probably for largely historical reasons - 'ue' (Micro Emacs) was the
only editor on the first Unix system I used in 1988, and then emacs
was so much better than the Suntools editor on my Sparc workstation in
the early 1990's when I was first programming full-time. I also prefer
not having  separate command mode/text entry mode.

These days I'm mostly doing text in it rather than coding - LaTeX and
plain text e-mail, as well as some custom PostScript, for which I have
some home-grown macros and bindings. Occasional C and shell scripting.

Where it really comes into its own is in doing substantial, repetitive
reformatting of long text files - for simpler cases with a keyboard
macro, for more complex ones or where I'll be doing it regularly,
coded in Emacs Lisp.

I've also got it set up to create pre-formatted skeleton documents
depending on the filename - so open
"/home/cmb/Letters/2009/2009_06_25_TLUG.tex" and I get a readymade
letter with my letterhead, space for subject line, normal signature,
all already in the file. But if I open
"/home/cmb/MainsOfFintry/Service/2009/2009_06_28_am.ps" I get an
outline order of service for the church service I'll be leading on
Sunday morning...

-- 

Cheers

Colin

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Brough                             Colin.Brough at blueyonder.co.uk