[Wylug-discuss] Favourite FOSS apps and tools?

[Mark P. Conmy]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Smylers wrote:
> Dave Whiteley writes:
>
>> I have tried hard to persuade undergraduates that (x)emacs is a better
>> editor for programming than $soft notepad, and in rare cases have
>> succeeded.
>>
>> I do not think that this would have been possible with vi.
>
> Vi and Emacs are both good.  I'm very much a Vim user, but I wouldn't
> recommend it to anybody who already knows Emacs well and is happy with
> it.
>
> However ... to anybody using a primitive Notepad-esque editor I would
> very strongly recommend that they he the time in to learning one of Vim
> or Emacs.  It doesn't really matter which: using either will vastly
> increase his productivity.
>
> If somebody chooses to learn (or teach) Emacs, VI users should see that
> as a vote of confidence in having a powerful editor, not as a slight
> against VI.

Hear, hear.

The recognition of the right tool for the right job is the important
issue.  The person who insists on forcing use of vi or emacs for
users who will use it once a year is as bad as using notepad or pico
for programming eight hours a day...

All IMHO, of course.

Mark