[Gllug] ed vs emacs/vi, was: ed vs emacs, was: OpenMoko Neo Freerunner

[Nix]

On 13 May 2009, Alain Williams told this:

> Oh, how can you really be productive at programming if you need to use
> the mouse to do it ? I can touch type, so I type without looking away from
> the screen. I cannot 'touch mouse', so if I need to use it I need to look
> away, move my hands off the keyboard, move the mouse/click, then move
> my hand back again ... slooooow.

You need a keyboard with a trackball built into it ;) but in general
your point stands.

One thing in particular that torpedoes me when using lesser editors is
the absence of any equivalent to emacs's mark ring. I rely on being able
to do things like searches, followed by hopping *back to where I was
before*[2]. And *everything* that moves the cursor a large distance
or in a way that isn't trivially reversible (so not pg-up) pops the
old position on the mark stack.

(I know you know this, I'm just pointing it out to the poor sods who
think that other editors are in some way preferable).


Emacs's biggest downside is appalling defaults. Once it's configured
nicely, it's impossible to go back to anything else. Everything else is
just too crude. (I tried Eclipse the other day. I couldn't extend the
editor on the fly or fix niggles in its behaviour! You have to 'load
plugins' written in some horrible halfwitted procedural language plainly
unsuited to interactive use, 'Java' or something.)


[1] emacs: one keystroke to start the search, then as much of what you're
    looking for as you need to find it and not one character more, then
    one keystroke to accept. vim has this too. Other editors, especially
    GUI ones: often multiple keystrokes, an extra dialog box and no
    equivalent of incremental search

[2] emacs: C-u C-SPC, two keystrokes. Other editors, no equivalent.

>> the point? On a side note, I've just decided I'm going to call the next
>> machine I build chocohammer ;)

I wish I'd thought of that. plasma-lolly is still free, though, as is
coalshuttle.

> [**] - that statement was not designed to start another mail war on which MUA
> is best.

<kook class="Saklad">
rmail, obviously. (Date last maintained, 1979.)
</kook>
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