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Why GNU Emacs?

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Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#21

Post by bch »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

Not trying to be confrontational, but conversational --

I'd say that both vi and Emacs have solid fundamentals and have stuck with a model that works, to their credit. I must admit that I shop around for editors occasionally (I'm a long-time emacs person, who swapped back to vi a few years ago to re-develop his vi-fu), but I haven't seen anything so compelling that I've switched to anything else.

It may well be that I'm looking in the wrong place, or that I don't realize the true awesomeness of something that does cross my desk.

In the spirit of advancing text editing, what would you say is missing from vi or Emacs that you've found in other editors (even if the advancements aren't present in one singular other processor)?

Edit: stray words

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#22

Post by alayne »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

Sublime Text is proprietary closed source. That seems counter to modern Unix/Linux goals.

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#23

Post by jamespo »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

A lot of the reason I used emacs is that it works in a terminal... nothing else with its power does.

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#24

Post by jayvanguard »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

I quite like Sublime Text 3 as well, but only because it has a vi mode.

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#25

Post by jnpatel »

pklausler wrote: post #9

Emacs is a fine editor to use until you write your own. It's the only way to make your primary interactive tool work exactly the way that you think it should.

That's a hefty endeavor. Care to share more about your experience writing your own?

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#26

Post by agumonkey »

jake-low wrote: post #16

Once, I used Emacs. All I did with it was play in the land of elisp. I never got any real work done. Then, a passionate friend converted me to Vim. I only ever used it to do battle with my .vimrc. I never got any real work done. Now, I use Atom. Click a button, install a feature. No more distractions. I wish it were faster though; I can never get any real work done.

pen and paper my friend. punched cards even.

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#27

Post by nextos »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

I think they come with quite a lot of baggage, yes. But if you get past the initial steep learning curve, there's a lot of productivity gains waiting for you.

With regards to simpler editors, the problem is that they come and go. Learning an editor is a big investment, so I'd rather stick to something that will still be around next decade.

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#28

Post by MarcScott »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

Given that all these editors are cross-platform, I don't see how the continued development of Emacs could be starving out innovation in the Unix world.

Re: Why GNU Emacs?

#30

Post by lottin »

flogic wrote: post #15

Apparently, I'm feeling ranty today... I've used Vi and Emacs as my primary editor. Now I've moved on to Sublime Text 3. Despite being powerful tools Vi and Emacs have probably harmed the state of Unix text editing. They've kept antiquated UIs from before keyboards were an text editing UIs were standardized. It's kinda sad that MS Dos, Windows and MacOS have all had a plethora of powerful editors with convenient stan…

What is true is that Vi and Emacs are deeply tied to the Unix tradition. Whether they are 'antiquated' or whether there are 'better' alternatives is a matter of opinion. Personally I haven't seen any other editor that comes close.
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