I use Vim on Windows. I tried to learn Emacs but I keep running into roadblocks because of poor Windows compatibility of plugins.
I use Cygwin emacs in the terminal (mintty). The experience I get from this is very close to Linux (emacs-nox in rxvt).
Emacs and Vim
61–70 of 277 posts
Re: Emacs and Vim
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
They take a while to master, but once you get there no other editor on the planet can compete. Not by a long shot. And then you keep on learning. They also can run in a remote console which for me is reason alone not to use another editor.
"They also can run in a remote console which for me is reason alone not to use another editor." As a developer, that makes no sense to me. Do you really need a powerful remote editor? What do you need a remote editor for, other than checking that a config file was set up correctly, or reading a log file?
Working remotely for one, where the code is not allowed to leave the office.
Also, quick & dirty code changes on development/QA environments when it needs to be fixed ASAP.
There's not many uses as you mentionned, but there are times when its really useful.
Re: Emacs and Vim
#63I do wonder what it would be like to use an editor where the main cursor navigation was forward/backward incremental search. One case of this is the Canon CAT[1] word processor, which used "LEAP" keys for cursor movement (and nothing else). I'm often curious how productive it would be to use while coding. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat Bonus link: http://clickamericana.com/media/advertisements/the-canon-c…
The EasyMotion plugin for vim has a feature similar to this. When I start searching it matches incrementally, highlighting matches on each screen which I can cycle through with tab. When I see a screen with the match I want, I press enter and then the first 1 or 2 characters of each match are replaced with something like a, b, or ;a. Pressing the appropriate key combination jumps straight to the desired word.
However, if you're just editing text on the same screen you can skip the search. I have it set up so that I press ,w and then every word after my cursor has its first one or two characters replaced. I can jump to any word by pressing those. There's also a hybrid mode where pressing one key and then the first letter of the desired word highlights only those matching words on the entire screen, which I can then jump to.
Re: Emacs and Vim
#64Brace yourself, an editor war will follow... and people commenting on the presence of an editor war... like this comment.
"I used to make jokes about Emacs just as Emacs users about Vim but actually it seems to be a pretty decent piece of software."
BURN THE APOSTATE!
[Will this do?]
Re: Emacs and Vim
#65I really wanted to use Org-mode, but my vim muscle memory and lack of knowledge of keybindings to do useful things like copy/paste and move around with more than just arrow keys were preventing me from being productive. Finally got Evil installed and haven't looked back! Evil and Org-mode work great together.
Re: Emacs and Vim
#66It's still too slow for me. I have often several vims open, usually for a short time, and I'm not going to start a daemon in my session to have a decent startup time, that's unreasonable. Also, even setting a theme like solarized dark turned out to be a headache last time I tried. I think I'll wait for neovim.
> even setting a theme like solarized dark turned out to be a headache last time I tried.
(package-install solarized-theme)
(load-theme 'solarized-dark t)
Re: Emacs and Vim
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
They take a while to master, but once you get there no other editor on the planet can compete. Not by a long shot. And then you keep on learning. They also can run in a remote console which for me is reason alone not to use another editor.
"They also can run in a remote console which for me is reason alone not to use another editor." As a developer, that makes no sense to me. Do you really need a powerful remote editor? What do you need a remote editor for, other than checking that a config file was set up correctly, or reading a log file?
It might make sense if you are working in a project which runs on vagrant or something similar.
Re: Emacs and Vim
#68Re: Emacs and Vim
#69I still do not undertand the devotion that people have with these text editors. I prefer Vim however I could see myself using it soley or even half the time. I feel like I know the basic commands and it is fast but with the ease of a sublime text or something similar why do people still use these pieces of software so frequently? (Not a rhetorical question)
Vim is extremely powerful once you master it. It was released in 1991 and is still around. If you go back to Vi it's history goes back to the 70s. It might not matter to you, but as somebody who has written code for more than a decade, I'm glad I don't have to learn a new interface every time the producer of a proprietary editor goes out of business.
Yes, learning the basics is harder than with other editors. Once you master them you have a superior tool you'll be able to use for the rest of your life.
Re: Emacs and Vim
#70Whether it's vim or emacs, I've always been amazed how these tools can become an extension of the brain like an instrument whose purpose is to materialize a thought process. Framed that way, the editor wars look like a pianist debating with a violinist of the superiority of their respective instruments to convey human emotion.
Watching a seasoned vim or emacs user create, mold, shape, reformat text like it was a piece of clay in the hands of a potter is truly inspiring.
As for me, my instrument of choice is Sublime Text (which, I guess, downgrades me to the status of a flute player), though I occasionally use vim for Ops stuff. I think there are some mac-centric UX patterns that I have a hard time giving up.