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

[Steve Kemp]

On Wed May 13, 2009 at 13:19:47 -0400, general_email at technicalbloke.com wrote:

> 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. 

  I display more lines than that, and I type at approximately 120
 words a minute.  Selecting lines, words is almost instant for me.

  By contrast my mouse is far away and only really used if I'm surfing.

> 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?

  Possibly - but it starts off slow.  First you use vim and you use
 the arrow keys to move around.  Then you learn to type "/test" to
 jump straight to the occurrence of text you're looking for, etc.

  It all builds up.

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

  It would be *if* the GUI editor provided all the options which
 the Emacs/Vim users are used to.  That's the crux of the argument,
 so far the graphical editors which have been explicitly mentioned
 simply do not have menu options for things that we would like to do.

  They might have "Edit | Copy", "Edit | Past", for example, but not
 a rectangle selection mode.

> 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.

  Nobody really is claiming Emacs is a terminal editor.  It runs
 either in a graphical environment *or* in a terminal, and it is largely
 the same in both environments.

  You seem to be conflating emacs to a mere terminal editor, but most
 previous posters didn't.

> 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?

  I use Emacs.  90% of the time I'm using the graphical version, not
 in a terminal.  But I can use the terminal if I wish, and I use it
 via telnet/ssh - thats something the IDEs don't give you.

Steve
--

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug