Heretical Confessions of an Emacs Addict – Joy of the Vim Text Editor « /usr

Maybe it will suffice to say: "VisualAssist + ViEmu = <3". They synergize so incredibly well together.

Someday I should record a video of me coding C++ in Visual Studio. In the last 4 days alone, I've written 8,700 lines of C++. No way could I have done that without my precious ViEmu / VAX templates / custom hotkeys. (It's rare to ever need to touch the mouse, which is pretty fabulous.)

At this point, I write systems as fast as I can think, not type.

Getting out of insert mode with a double j instead of moving your hand (esc) or doing the slightly awkward ctrl+[ is a godsend.

It's not perfect, but in my opinion it is certainly the best free option available. I have never used ViEmu, so I can't compare it to that.

At least that's my impression. Obviously there's a lot of posture issues, and you can mitigate RSI to some degree simply by getting up and stretching your hands every 30 minutes. But it's not a simple matter of moving less -> less RSI. If you don't dramatically reduce the number of actions, moving less can be a problem.

The result of this is that "insert mode" stops being so much like a separate mode and starts feeling more like a command itself! It's the difference between:

    move over a word
    enter insert mode
    type "foo"
    exit insert mode
    move back a word

    move over a word
    insert the word "foo"
    move back a word

:e filename

- Run the command once

- Think "Hmm, looks like I have to do this about ten more times"

- Type '10.', repeating the last command 10 times

- See that there's only one left to do, since you guessed 10 and it was 11

- Press '.' one more time to do the last one

You won't win any vim golf competitions like that, but it's very easy to do.

I will record that macro, then repeat it 100 times. Since every command includes a movement at the end (say, a "j"), this will change 100 lines (or words, or regex finds, or whatever).

Damn, I instinctively hit <ESC> after writing that last line.

Occasionally I know I want to delete just 2 words and so use d2w or something, but that's so rare I really notice when it happens.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/s/libtool/manual/emacs/Expressions.html

Emacs is an interactive Lisp interpreter. Once you realize that you can change function and variable bindings on the fly, you can do anything.

Vim is "merely" an editor with an acceptable scripting language and incredible keyboard shortcuts. The shortcuts have survived for 40 years due to their ease of use and intuitive nature.

The only similarities between Vim and Emacs are their ages and the fantastic communities surrounding each of them.

Your guitar analogy is more applicable not between Emacs and Vim but between something like pico/nano and vim/emacs. It's hard to find a good analogy between Emacs and Vim because they are both awesome editors for many different reasons.

Emacs (due to its LISP origins) is highly configurable, probably the most configurable piece of software you will ever use that has a large mindshare and presence in the community. Vim is configurable, but Vim's intention from the beginning was to be an efficient editor over SSH; it just so happens people are now using it as their primary editor of choice on their desktops.

With Vim you can't just start editing text right away (like Emacs, Word, TextEdit &c...) you have to switch from the Console Mode into Editing Mode (by pressing "i" on most installs). Then if you want to delete a few words you have to switch back to the Console Mode (by pressing "esc" usually) position your cursor, and enter "wq" until the words you wanted deleted are deleted. This has the benefit of separating commands from text editing so there are no "control" keys as you will see with Emacs.

With Emacs you can edit text right away and there are no "modes" to change. Emacs instead has control keys (the two main ones are "C" and "M" - on your keyboard that's "Control" and "Alt" - I've remapped my control key to be the Caps Lock key since it makes my pinky finger less angry). So if while I'm editing I wanted to delete a few words, I would position my cursor then hold down Alt and press "d" until the words I wanted deleted are deleted (in emacs lingo: "M-d"). This has the benefit of not "context" switching into other modes but it means you now have to be very clever with your key combinations so you don't end up playing Twister! on your keyboard for more complicated tasks (that's why some people prefer Vim because it negates that problem with "modes").

Emacs doesn't want to be an MP3 player - Emacs wants to be whatever the person using it wants it to be. To me that's what wins me over to Emacs; if I need my editor to do something that it doesn't do stock, I have the full power to add/change/remove whatever it is I want it to do. Additionally there's an enormous community of people with far more knowledge and experience in doing that to tap into, plus, if you want it do something it's most likely someone already has done (and done it better).

Vim also doesn't want to be an MP3 player - matter of fact, you would get stoned by the Vim community for saying that, those guys are all about efficiency. I love Vim because of its efficiency - I actually really hate Emacs over SSH (to all those saying "use TRAMP!" I have, and it's not nearly as cool as using Vim over SSH). My editor of choice when working directly on a server editing code is Vim, it's fast, concise, and very powerful.

There is no editor war today - there's the never ending jihad between annoying emacs users and vim users that think their editor of choice is better than the other (I think those people are stupid, because BOTH EDITORS ARE AMAZING and EVERYONE HAS A DIFFERENT PREFERENCE). Technical people use editors that empower them to write software; people who don't want to think about text editing are still keyboard pecking when writing their emails.