VsVim

Generally, I like it, but it can be a bit sluggish at times. The only plugin I have running is JSLint, so I suspect it's VSVim causing the problems (though it only generally bogs down when I leave VS2010 for a bit). The keybindings work as one would expect. As I mentioned in a different thread, I wish it could break out of the tabbed window convention of VS and use buffers.

ViEmu did feel a bit faster (and was less prone to crashing).

Whilst I prefer *nix, when I have to use Visual Studio, I use the VsVim plugin, and it's a real pleasure to be able to seamlessly move between platforms and development environments, IDEs and text editors in this way.

Not only do I love VsVim, but it significantly reduces the friction of using Visual Studio, and even adds some enjoyment to coding on that platform. VsVim is F# under the hood too (which shouldn't matter to the user, but it _is_ kinda cool).

Thoroughly recommended!

One way to do that is to provide IDE functionality as an external service to the text editor. There's a Scala editing package for Emacs called Ensime that uses the Scala presentation compiler, a service that runs in the background. Every time Ensime is asked to colorize code, provide code completion, or jump to the definition of a symbol, it asks the presentation compiler, which gives it the right answers. No half-assed guessing; it actually runs the relevant compiler passes and provides correct information.

Another way to do it might be to embed a real text editor (not just a crappy emulation mode) into an IDE somehow. I think that's what I would prefer. Emulation modes in IDEs will always be playing catch-up, and power users of a Emacs or vim shouldn't have to maintain a mental catalog of which features have been emulated and which haven't. I don't know how it would work, though, and I don't know of anyone working on it.