[Gllug] vi vs emacs (repeat)

[Richard Cohen]

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 21:50:57 +0000 (GMT), Benedikt Heinen
<gllug at ml.icemark.net> wrote:
> >> The editor is strongly modal: you're typing text or doing other things,
> >> never both at once, and you need to explicitly switch (ESC goes one way,
> >> `i' and `a' and a myriad of other keystrokes go the other way).
> >
> > I dispute that vi is modal - any more than Emacs is modal because you
> > are in "minibuffer command mode" whenever you type M-x. vi has insert
> > commands and they take potentially lengthy arguments, that's
> > all.
> 
> There still is a difference. For commands that are bound to key sequences,
> you won't need M-x. Whereas in vi you can't circumvent using ESC mode
> switches...

It might just be a vim thing, but ctrl-o in insert mode lets you use a
single command-mode command and return immediately to insert mode.

> (Though, strictly speaking it might be argued that the C-x / C-c prefixes
> are also kind of modal).
> 
> 
>    Benedikt

Cheers
Richard, in a slightly damp Israel
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