Emacs vs VI

Posted Nov 2, 2006 7:51 UTC (Thu) by ldo (guest, #40946)
Parent article: Pre-testing Emacs 22

When I first started using UNIX systems with some frequency (from 1985 onwards), I stuck with vi, because it was the only full-screen text editor that I could be pretty sure would be available on whatever UNIX system I might find myself on. I never liked it--not only did I not like the insert-versus-command-mode dichotomy, but it seems to be the only text editor that completely fails to grasp the concept that the insertion point lies between characters, not on a character.

Nowadays, it's a rare *nix system that doesn't include Emacs. So I've decided to learn it. Old habits die hard, but I feel I'm making progress. I was intrigued to read our esteemed Editor admitting that he still uses vi for editing system config files--I often do that too. But frankly I don't notice much difference in startup speed between the two. So I don't see any reason in principle not to use Emacs as root and for editing system configs.

Of course, when my fingers forget which one they're driving, much hilarity ensues... :)

to post comments

Difference in startup speed.

Posted Nov 2, 2006 13:01 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] (6 responses)

You start emacs more than once per login?

Difference in startup speed.

Posted Nov 2, 2006 13:39 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (5 responses)

It's XEmacs that has the slower startup, because its package manager must recurse over all package directories to find and load all auto-autoloads files. Emacs is quite nippy by comparison.

I consider the three-second wait to be *more* than worth it for the increased flexibility that the package-management system brings.

Difference in startup speed.

Posted Nov 2, 2006 15:37 UTC (Thu) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] (4 responses)

Or use Jed (http://www.jedsoft.org/jed/) and get vi startup speed with many emacs features. It's typically one of the first things I install on any system I'm administering.

Difference in startup speed.

Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:30 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

And like any self-respecting programmer's text editor, Jed is
programmable (with Slang). I don't understand how Linus can
use an editor (microemacs) that isn't programmable... :-)

I use Vi, Emacs and some GUI text editors in addition to Jed.
Long ago my original reason for starting using Emacs (on 8 Mhz
/ 4MB machine) was its regex-replace feature (at that time
my main text editor was Mutt (programming language) editor).

QEmacs -- another fast emacs alternative

Posted Nov 6, 2006 10:37 UTC (Mon) by pink18 (guest, #32445) [Link]

49KB. The killer feature for me, compared to other clones, is that vertical split mode works (out of the box).

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemacs/

Difference in startup speed.

Posted Nov 9, 2006 9:59 UTC (Thu) by anandsr21 (guest, #28562) [Link] (1 responses)

The fact that you have to install it, is no good. The reason I use Vi for quick editing is because I can depend on it to be there. If I have to work substantially more then I will think of installing something, and in this case why not go with the real thing.

Difference in startup speed.

Posted Nov 14, 2006 21:00 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

But you have to install *everything* on a Linux box, or how does it get
there? It's not as if we have a `core' like the BSDs.

(In any case the argument is nearly-inverted on Solaris boxes, which tend
to get XEmacs as a matter of course on development platforms because Sun's
flagship development environment has XEmacs integration.)

Emacs vs VI

Posted Nov 2, 2006 13:38 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I used to use vi for editing config files, until I discovered Kai Grossjohann's tramp: sort of like ange-ftp or efs, except that it can transfer files via ftp, scp, sftp, telnet, rsh, raw shell (using uudecode, shell script, or a perl program transferred across the line), over a su (!), and even tunnelled across multiple-hop connections (`I have to ssh in there and then telnet there and then su to *that* user before I can edit anything').

So now I can edit everything, no matter who owns it, in the same editor.