tomabechi@YALE.ARPA (Hideto Tomabechi) (10/09/86)
<< In article <21600007@uiucuxc> dorner@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU writes: > >I've used lots of editors, even wrote one once. I've been using vi for >some time now, and like it. But I hear such fanatical comments from >emacs users that my curiosity has been piqued. I tried it once, but when >I found out that I had to use control characters to get around, I backed >out in a hurry. > >So, emacs evangelists, convert me. Tell me why emacs is so nifty. Others will probably go into all of emacs features, but I would like to stress what I found important. I will start with some personal history. I used a modified ed for close to two years and managed to get quite a bit done. I probably could have used vi, but on a PDP 11/23 it would have been pretty bad. Then I started to program on VAXes and of course I wanted to use a full screen editor. I started using vi and continued for a couple of months. Before mastering vi, a friend introduced me to emacs. (I still haven't mastered vi.) The feature that really attracted me was the multiple windows. I have a tendency to want to look at related code at the same time and I hate to fight with printouts. The 'compile' commands which would catch the error messages from the compiler and parse them was also a nice feature. The automatic C indentation mode is very nice. This, however, can be very obnoxious if it doesn't match your coding style. I have backed off from emacs a bit now and I currently use the jove editor. It has most of the standard emacs commands, but it doesn't have a built-in programming language for writting functions. On systems where I have compared it, it takes up no more space then vi and gives you all of the features mentioned above. It is also useable on systems without job control unlike full blown versions of emacs. I should probably note that I do still go back to ed on occassion when I am doing some really heavy text massaging. Usually, this is something which should be better left to sed. I avoid using vi whenever possible. Bill Bogstad bogstad@hopkins-eecs-bravo.arpa >> I have an exactly opposite experience. I used emacs for few years on a Unix machine; however, I no longer use it. It is because my o/s now supports multi-window and also that it is easier to manuever text by mouse then by Ctls' and Metas'. -- hideto tomabechi tomabechi@yale.arpa -------
jr@CC5.BBN.COM (John Robinson) (10/10/86)
In reply to Bill Bogstad, you said: >> I have an exactly opposite experience. I used emacs for few years on a Unix >> machine; however, I no longer use it. It is because my o/s now supports >> multi-window and also that it is easier to manuever text by mouse then by >> Ctls' and Metas'. But mice are not incompatible with emacs at all! And of course it allows multiple windows and (require 'job-control) shells and compiles and greps and whatever. I sure get frustrated using MacWrite, for example. Yes I can point to where I want to go and define a "region" to kill and yank (cut and paste), but I sure wish I had a way to point somewhere and type ^T. I am a lousy typist, having gotten used to supportive editors. So I use Mac microEmacs for heavy editing at this point. I'd love to have a year to port GNU... With the 2 or 4 meg memory and 68020 upgrades, it ought to be a respectable citizen even on that "little" machine (as long as you didn't have to launch it too many times a day). But then, Apple is supposed to be bringing out Unix, so I'll wait just a bit. /jr