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

[general_email at technicalbloke.com]

Steve Kemp wrote:
> On Wed May 13, 2009 at 11:01:32 -0400, general_email at technicalbloke.com wrote:
>
>   
>> In the most basic case the mouse is a much faster interface for
>> highlighting chunks of text that are more than a few lines away from the
>> cursor, or more than a dozen characters into a line.
>>     
>
>   Standalone you might be right; but if you consider removing  hand
>  from the keyboard, finding the mouse, using it, then moving back to
>  the keyboard to operate on the selection I think you're mistaken.
>
>   
Well I've just done a few (not massively scientific tests) picking
moderately distant points in a block of code and timing how long it
takes me to select the text between them. In pretty much every case the
mouse takes 3 seconds, the keyboard can take anywhere between 3 and 10
seconds. Even factoring in  a whole second each way to switch between
the two (generous if you ask me) that leaves mouse quicker in many
cases.  If you find it slower maybe your keyboard repeat rate is higher
than mine, or your mouse is slower, or maybe it's because you're only
displaying 80 cols where as I'm displaying double that?



>> Anyway, what's wrong with having and interface you can SEE? If a menu
>> bar takes up a significant portion of your screen then you must be using
>> a pretty low rez screen so it can't be that, and surely not having to
>> keep every obscure command in your head or resort to man pages every
>> time you need to do something obscure is a boon right?
>>     
>
>   Indeed having options be discoverable is useful.  But after using
>  Emacs for many many years now I don't think about things - I just
>  move my fingers by magic.   I don't pause to remember "obscure"
>  commands - I just use them.  Muscle memory is a powerful thing.
>
>   
You've hit the nail on the head with "many many years". I guess if you
don't mind it taking many many years these tools can become very fast to
use,but I've got to wonder, for your average user, would these eventual
time savings ever offset the time lost at the start?


>   If I wanted to I could use the menus, but I think 99% of the time
>  I just turn them off as a distraction.    (If I'm introducing
>  somebody to Emacs I'll point them at the built-in tutorial and
>  tell them to use the menus if they get lost.)
>
>   

That's why I think GUI editors win though, you have menus AND you have
keyboard shortcuts, the best of both worlds eh?

>> I mean I can
>> understand why people NEED terminal based editors, just not why they
>> would CHOOSE them when they have to option to use a GUI editor... 
>>     
>
>   Mostly the graphical editors just aren't as powerful as the ones
>  that traditionally have been terminal ones.
>
>   E.g. Many applications have built in support for regular expression
>  based search and replace these days - but very few allow incremental
>  search, or true macros.  (By which I mean the emacs idea of
>  start-kbd-macro, execute-kbd-macro)
>   
Emacs has a GUI version though right? So there _is_ a GUI editor that's
as powerful as any terminal based app. Why use the terminal version if
you have access to the GUI version? Is it not very good or something? I
understand Vim has a GUI version too so same question there.



>> it's
>> not like they even work significantly differently: they have keyboard
>> short cuts just like terminal apps (except I can define my own and
>> change their behaviour in about a second rather than by having to edit a
>> config file) and GUI editor have the advantage of mice, menus, scroll
>> bars, context menus, non-modal search and replace dialogues, prettier
>> font rendering etc.
>>     
>
>   If that were all there was to it you'd probably have fewer people
>  disagreeing.
>
>   The fact is that Emacs has more built in "primitives" than any
>   <snip>
>   
Yes I acknowledge Emacs is almost an operating system in its own right
but I refer you to the argument above, why choose the terminal version
over the GUI one if you don't have to?

Roger.

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