[Gllug] vi vs emacs (repeat)

[Tethys]

Nix writes:

>vi is the quintessential `Unix-like editor'; it Just Gets The Job Done
>and does absolutely nothing but edit text in the most minimal way
>possible, and has a baroque and rebarbative user interface

Just for the opposing point of view, I have similar complaints about the
emacs user interface :-)

>You tend to run lots of `vi's, one per file, and traditionally you'd do
>things like indentation by running external commands.

Normal indenting works just fine from within vi. You only need an
external command if you're doing syntax dependent indenting (although
vim now includes the ability to do this directly without the need for
an external command -- naturally, all right thinking people disable
this misfeature anyway :-)

>vi can probably do lots of other things, but I'm afraid that its decided
>irregularity and the lack of an elegant underlying framework has
>generally stopped me learning anything other than the simplest things
>about it: the rest drops out of my head: I can't learn things that don't
>base themselves on simple underlying principles well, and vi doesn't
>seem to bother with principles *anywhere*.

See, one of the things I like about vi is that it *is* extremely
regular. Commands to perform an occasional task can be worked out on
an ad hoc basis because they use the same form as another command that
you already know and use regularly. How you can call it irregular is
beyond me.

In the dim and distant past, I tried to find an alternative editor
to vi, as I wasn't initially keen on it (for all its brilliance, I
will be the first to concede that it has a steep learning curve).
Anyway, I tried to learn emacs, but just couldn't get my head around
the obscure and seemingly random key sequences, and I just couldn't
remember them. For whatever reason, the vi commands fit my way of
thinking much better.

Emacs has only one good thing going for it IMHO, and that's the
inbuilt Lisp interpreter[1]. But that very fact has left it open
to abuse as people have tried to write all manner of ill conceived
extensions, which have just contributed to the general bloat.

Tet

[1] Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that the Lisp
    interpreter has an editor bolted on :-)
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