[Beowulf] [OT] EMACS vs VI

[Egan Ford]

> Bob Drzyzgula wrote:
> > There's a saying among photographers that the best camera
> > is the one you have with you. I think a similar argument
> > can be made for editors -- the best editor is the one
> > you know how to use.
> >
> > While I am firmly in the vi camp
> >
> > While I tried to learn emacs a couple of times, it just
> > seemed like it took forever for the thing to load.

I am also in the vi camp.  Mostly because it is what I have been using
since the late '80s.  I remember building emacs for AIX in the early
'90s.  I was told of its amazing capabilities and that I should move
to it.  It felt like building and operating system.  It took forever
to build and if I striped out the debugging code it would coredump.
And, it was generally slow and a resource hog.  I never really learned
how to use emacs.

I like vi for its simplicity.  No function keys, no arrow keys
(required), no meta key.  Just the ESC and CTRL keys to work its
magic.   It's fast and efficient on any keyboard.  IMHO, of course.

Bill Joy had many achievements, IMHO vi tops the list.