[BC] Editor Wars [WAS: Browser Wars]

[Fred Gleason]

On Wednesday 07 December 2005 09:48, Cowboy wrote:
> EMACS is a great editor, optimized for writing code, and Fred and I have
> ?had issues with the link vi points to on occasion, but I don't know EMACS,
> ?and learning it has proven quite daunting.

Comparing VI to EMACS is a bit like comparing a motor scooter to an 18 wheel 
semi.  Emacs can do many, many things beyond file editing, including reading 
e-mail, Usenet news, acting as an Integrated Development Environment (with 
front ends to things like version control, compilation, debugging), etc, etc.  
Probably 99% of Rivendell was written, compiled and debugged in Emacs.  What 
gives it this flexibility is a very powerful, built-in scripting language 
(Emacs LISP) that allows new modes to be easily added and extended without 
having to mess with (or even understand) the core C code at all.  There's 
even a mode available that allows one to edit waveform audio.

Of course, this much customizability comes with pitfalls of its own.  If you 
happen to be working on a system without your '.gnu-emacs' file handy 
(containing all your custom modes and key-bindings), it can be difficult to 
remember the default command bindings.  Thus, for those times, as well as 
when Emacs isn't available at all, I've found Cowboy's policy of staying 
familiar with at least the basic Vi commands to be an extremely good idea.  
Vi really is the closest thing to a universal (in the sense of 'universally 
available') file editor there is, at least in the Un*x world.

Cheers!


|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Frederick F. Gleason, Jr. | Director of Broadcast Software Development  |
|                           |             Salem Radio Labs                |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  At the beginning of the week, we sealed ten BSD programmers into a     |
|  computer room with a single distribution of BSD Unix. Upon opening     |
|  the room after seven days, we found all ten programmers dead,          |
|  clutching each others' throats, and thirteen new flavors of BSD.       |
|                                       -- Anonymous                      |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|