[aklug] Re: Emacs, vi(m) or other

heh. Actually, neither.

On linux I end up using nano or gedit mostly. Emacs on occasion, but the learning curve
is too long for my curmudgeonly 'It needs to J.F.W.' attitude I've developed in the last
couple of years. I know, I know....

I loathe vi in a way that I do very few other things in life. There were times,
particularly on Solaris, when having to use vi could ruin my whole day.

I understand that the reason vi is so weird and screwed up is because of ancient
history, but sometimes it's better for everyone to just let history go. We've had
104-key keyboards with arrow keys and page-up page-down home end etc keys for decades
now. So I want up-arrow to be a move up, not '[^A' or whatever stupid thing vi decides
to insert. Sometimes. When the moon is full. And I want a right arrow to move the
cursor right, not capitalize the character on the right. And delete should be delete
and backspace should a backspace, not whatever weird characters vi inserts. At least
emacs gets that sort of thing right.

And an 'editor' is not a 'viewer'. A viewer should not be an editor. Apples. Oranges.

I could go on and on. I won't though because I really try to avoid frothing rants these
days. Really, I do. Heh. But I seriously believe that whoever concocted vi would get
along well with Picasso as far as logical consistency and cognitive coherence goes. If
they get let out of the rubber room, that is.

I do know how to get by in vi because sometimes you have to. Right, wrong, good bad or
indifferent it is universal, and like someone said, it looks bad when you don't know how
to use a 'basic' tool, but I generally only use it enough or until I can get nano or
something else more sane set up.

I do dabble in emacs still, there are apparently some pretty powerful IDEs that can be
used with it. But I do agree with whoever it was that said 'it shouldn't be so
convoluted to do simple stuff.'

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Received on Sat Aug 14 19:20:33 2010