vim or emacs? (i know that this is a recurring issue, but now it is mine).

[F.G.]

hi folkes,

so, until recently i did all my coding in gedit (or, prior to that kate) or netbeans, or eclipse. OR in windows in notepad++.

however, i recently started to work in a company where i strongly believe that i will be laughed at, (or at least thuororghly mocked). ((out of house and home), most other people seem to use vi) for using something like gedit or nautilus ("tab" or autocomplete, on the command line would be preferable). i now have a few days to learn a new skill (before i will be back at the grind stone).

i know that there is a long standing split between the emacs folk and the vim enthusiasts. still, i have about five days. i tried vim yesterday and it really slowed me down (although this may just be a learning curve). i tried emacs a long time ago and it didn't seem to stick.

so, my question is WHY?? and which one??

can any useres of either editor help me decide which to learn???

[doorknob60]

Inb4 recurring.

I use vim, once you leanr at least some of the more basic commands (not too hard, try vimtutor), it's pretty nice to use. Is it better than the GUI editors? Well, not necessarily, it's all up to user preference, but inn my opinion it's not worse either. It depends on what you prefer, and GUI and CLI editors both have their pros and cons, and both are good in my opinion, just use what you like best. Maybe use something like Gvim which is a GTK interface for vim.

[matthew.ball]

I don't really think you could go wrong with emacs (or vim for that matter, though I don't have any experience with vim).

As far as emacs goes, just spend 5 minutes (give or take?) going through the initial tutorial. It makes a bit more sense after that.

The "vanilla" emacs is pretty bare-bones, while there is a lot of functionality in there, most of it is hidden. So, you should look at some .emacs files (probably this) and find out how to get some things working for you.

I'm sure the same applies to vim, but as I said, I just have no experience with it.

[ninjaaron]

There are the traditional advantages and actual advantages today.

In the past, vim was a much smaller, lighter program, and emacs had more functionality because it is infinitely extensible with the elisp programming language. However, vi has historically been a core Unix utility, and as such, it works well with a Unix system environment in a way that took some extra doing in emacs.

Today, Vim has more than one million lines of code, and is little "smaller" or "lighter" than emacs. In addition, vim is extensible with vimscript, which is a pain to learn but it gets the job done. Furthermore, Vim apparently supports python plugins now (don't know too much about that, but I read it somewhere recently).

Basically, emacs probably still has a very slight edge in functionality, and vim is still probably a tiny bit smoother in talking to the system (and does seem to use less RAM than emacs, thought they are both minuscule in comparison to most gui programs). They both have tab completion and advanced tools for helping programmers, and both have syntax files for almost every language imaginable. They both also have tools for writers like spell check, thesaurus, a multitude of wrapping options and more.

----------------------------------------

Probably the most important difference today is the key-bindings. Most gui programs for manipulating text, including Open Office and Gedit, us key-bindings borrowed from Windows (for obvious reasons). Emacs and vim are older than Windows, and they retain their legacy bindings. Key-bindings in both can be redefined, but I can tell you now that it would be easier to set up emacs with windows bindings than vim.

This is because vim is a modal text editor (though emacs has plugins for vim modes, "evil" and "vile"). Emacs, like windows, relies heavily on modifier keys for key-bindings. In vim, many commands are just single key strokes, or a series of single keys without any modifiers (but also sometimes with modifiers). This is because vim has separate modes for entering text and entering commands (and for some other tasks), and those modes interpret keystrokes differently.

This has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that you have to learn an entirely new way of working with a text editor. The advantage is that there are many things you can do very, very quickly which are not possible without modes. For example, in command mode, you could type `5G6wd3w`, which would jump to the fifth line and move six words in, and delete the next three words. It's a bit strange at first, but it becomes very fast once you get the hang of it.

vim's command system is said to be more ergonomic because the hands remain on home-row more, and are required to do less stretching, which can cause RIS. Vim people had been saying this for a long time, when Richard Stallman, the creator of emacs, got RIS and lost the ability to type. I'm sure some vim users have gotten RIS as well, but the irony was still delicious. Of course, it's terrible that Stallman was injured.

---------------------------------

Emacs has tended to be more popular cross-platform with programmers. This is due in part to the fact that it uses a more standard command system, rather than a modal system, and also due to the fact that it has always been infinitely customizable through elisp (though vim's python extensibility should mitigate this). Stallman and Torvalds, the two great patron saints of Linux, are both emacs users.

On the other hand, vim arguably has a more devoted following among hardcore *nix hackers and sys-admin types. This is partially because vi is the legacy Unix text editor which embraces Unix philosophy, and though vim has grown a lot over the years, it still arguably is more focused on "doing one thing well" than emacs, and still plays extremely well with a *nix system. In fact, you will be hard-pressed to find any *nix system that does not have some version of vi or vim installed by default. There is one other advantage to being a legacy Unix app, and that is the fact that vi keybindings are effectively legacy Unix bindings. Many, many *nix terminal apps use vi bindings, as well as quite a few gui apps (like banshee, for example), such as / and ? to search rather that ctrl+f. These are great to know for any Linux or BSD user. Almost all of the programs I use regularly utilize a vi-based system of bindings. As mentioned above, emacs can also be made to work with this system of bindings.

The steeper learning curve also gives it something of an elitist appeal, and partially for this reason, and partially because it's fast as heck, it tends to be rather popular with hackers.

------------------------------

to summarize:

Emacs
-----
Pros:
infinitely customizable (maybe vim is now too)
uses a 'normal' (aka: windows-like) binding system.

Cons:
Less ergonomic by default, reported to cause RIS (this can be fixed)

Vim
---
Pros:
a pillar of *nix culture
very ergonomic by default

Cons:
steep learning curve.

---------------------------------


I use vim in an xterm for the Unix-cred and the speed. I seriously think that gedit is also a great editor for something too though, and I think you should use whatever editor helps you to be the most productive. Of course, there is something to be said about the advantages maintaining credibility with your peers, even if it is by rather superficial means.

Should you decide to use vim, I would also suggest installing a firefox plugin called Pentadactyl, which makes firefox 100% keyboard accessible via vim bindings. This will get you over the hump very quickly.

[JDShu]

Flip a coin, heads - vim, tails - emacs (even better, flip a fair coin ) then stick to it. It's really a lifelong thing either way. You'll continue to learn new tricks as your needs increase. I started using emacs 5 years ago, and I still know very little about editing the .emacs file and what scripts might be available to make my life easier. I believe the vim experience is similar.

All that said, emacs is better than vim.

[ninjaaron]

emacs is better than vim.

no

[Elfy]

Thread takes an unsurprising move to Recurring.

[Frak]

Thread takes an unsurprising move to Recurring.

It was Super Effective!

I think the largest difference between Emacs and Vim is the method of navigation and mode traversal. Emacs is all editing all the time, while Vim is focused around different modes, such as selection, navigation, editing, macros, etc. Emacs also use modes, but in a different way. They're abstractions between scripting, programming, markup, etc.

Anywho, Vim is better than Emacs.

[F.G.]

thankyou ninjaaron for your interesting and comprehensive response, i like your historical keybinding reasoning. (and thankyou everyone else).

i guess i'll probably do a short tutorial in both and then decide (although i'm currently inclined towards vim as i've been learning bits of it already). when i say vim, i do actually mean gvim, with the gtk interface and everything, from the command line i generally use nano and i'm pretty happy with that (mainly because it has a cheat sheet at the bottom, so i don't wind up wondering "how the hell do i exit vi??")... i have heard the argument that nearly all *nix machines have vi on, but then again nearly all the linux distros i've used recently seem to have nano on. i look forward to the next few days learning a bit of both emacs and vim. i'm not at all surprised to see a bit of "x is better than y" smacktalk, and would expect no less from dyed in the wool users. no alternative suggestions though? i guess these are the two real contenders then.

it seems to me that a lot of Mac users seem to use emacs? i wonder if this is a general thing, or just my incidental experience?

[BHEJU]

VIM baby VIM...