From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jan 26 14:25:34 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF2BD14C56 for ; Wed, 26 Jan 2000 14:25:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.3/8.9.0) id IAA53129; Thu, 27 Jan 2000 08:54:59 +1030 (CST) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 08:54:59 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Jerry Dunham Cc: Jonathon McKitrick , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: programmer's editor choice Message-ID: <20000127085459.I44457@freebie.lemis.com> References: <20000127083154.X44457@freebie.lemis.com> <200001262222.QAA95197@freeside.fc.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0pre2i In-Reply-To: <200001262222.QAA95197@freeside.fc.net> WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog X-PGP-Fingerprint: 6B 7B C3 8C 61 CD 54 AF 13 24 52 F8 6D A4 95 EF Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wednesday, 26 January 2000 at 16:22:07 -0600, Jerry Dunham wrote: > 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. Not my understanding at all. Once you get beyond a certain level of complexity, there's no way to make it intuitive. This applies to *any* editor you care to name. Hiding functionality behind a maze of twisty little menus, all different, also doesn't help. If you want that anyway, Emacs also offers menus as standard. Greg -- Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message