Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 10:43:48 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> Cc: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@hub.freebsd.org>, vanderh@ecf.utoronto.ca, dillon@apollo.backplane.com, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: kern/13644 Message-ID: <388F3254.CF5F1C41@softweyr.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0001261505140.31955-100000@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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Jonathon McKitrick wrote:
>
> Well, right now i'm trying to decide if emacs is worth the trouble. I just
> decided to start using VIM, and i love it. It is very efficient, and does
> what i need for now. I realize i should probably use Emacs eventually
> but it seems too much trouble than it is worth for right now. VIM
> seems so efficient for deletes, copying, search-and-replace, and the like.
> And VIM has nice syntax highlighting. Plus it loads quickly. The thing
> that bugs me about emacs is remembering the extra keys- control, alt,
> meta, escape, etc. It seems easy to mix up C-c and M-c and Alt-c.
It depends on what you're doing. If you make large, complicated changes,
or large, complicated programs, Emacs can help you manage that complexity.
It's ability to hold numerous source files open in buffers, to move back
and forth between the buffers, and to assist you in keyword searches in the
source, are quite valuable.
When I first decided to learn Emacs, I was starting a brand new project. I
bought the O'Reilly "Learning GNU Emacs" book and promised I would give Emacs
two weeks, then decide if I wanted to go back to vi and multiple xterms. Hah!
At the end of two weeks I was reading mail in Emacs, using vmail mode. Any
decision was made on the third day when I learned how to create a TAGS file
and do tags-searches within Emacs. Two days later learning about Emacs
built-in support for RCS and CVS really put the nail in vi's coffin.
As for load time, you haven't quite grokked the Emacs philosophy. You don't
load Emacs to edit a file; you load Emacs when you login, so it's always
available when you need to edit a file. If you want a command-line editor,
start the Emacs server in your .emacs file and set your EDITOR to emacsclient.
It took you years to learn vi; you should give Emacs a serious try before you
write it off. I think it highly likely it will increase your productivity in
many common programming tasks.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/
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