From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jan 26 14:23:48 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freeside.fc.net (freeside.fc.net [207.170.70.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C62E914E06 for ; Wed, 26 Jan 2000 14:23:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jdunham@freeside.fc.net) Received: (from jdunham@localhost) by freeside.fc.net (8.9.3/8.8.8) id QAA95197; Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:22:07 -0600 (CST) From: Jerry Dunham Message-Id: <200001262222.QAA95197@freeside.fc.net> Subject: Re: programmer's editor choice In-Reply-To: <20000127083154.X44457@freebie.lemis.com> from Greg Lehey at "Jan 27, 2000 08:31:54 am" To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:22:07 -0600 (CST) Cc: jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org (Jonathon McKitrick), freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Greg Lehey babbled: > On Wednesday, 26 January 2000 at 14:11:24 +0000, Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > > On Sat, 22 Jan 2000, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> On Friday, 21 January 2000 at 23:39:12 +0000, Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > > > >>> Not to start a war or anything, but i'm trying to decide on a fast > >>> powerful editor. I've been using joe, and i just started learning > >>> vi, and i like it so far. But there are new editors and new > >>> versions of vi that seem to have a lot to offer. I've narrowed it > >>> down to vi, an enhanced version of vi (vile or vim?) uemacs, or joe. > >> > >>> I really like the efficiency of vi so far, but i have a long ways to > >>> go before i am proficient. > >> > >> It's a steep curve. > > > > Well, i installed emacs 19 and then 20 (didn't see much of a difference, IIRC, > > but the problem i had was there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the > > key bindings. The keys for moving the cursor make some sense, > > but when it comes to extra commands, well, it just doesn't seem intuitive. > > Maybe i'll get the hang of it in time. > > They're not intuitive. Neither are vi commands. The fact is that it > doesn't matter too much; you learn them just as quickly. Or just as slowly. The learning curve for vi is very painful, and I understand the curve for Emacs is no better. I'm a vi user, and use it on every platform I use: UNIX, WinNT, and Atari. I really appreciate that it's so universal. Even so, the interface sucks. It's a shame we often have religious wars over a choice where all the available religions fall so short. How am I supposed to work up a proper religious fervor for something I know sucks? Yet I use vi more than any other piece of software on the planet, and can see no good reason to change. For me it's still the best choice. *sigh* -- Jerry Dunham FreeBSD Atarian ordinaire jdunham@fc.net (512)335-0674 (H) Gerald_Dunham@dell.com (512)728-4026 (O) E Pluribus Unix To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message