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Evil, Almost Full Vim Implementation In Emacs, Reaches 1.0

New submitter karijes writes "Evil is a new Emacs major mode intended to implement full Vim emulation for Emacs editor, and it's reached its first stable release. Evil implements many Vim features and has support for plugins, so there is port for rails.vim, NERDCommenter and mapleader among others. You can find details about this release on the mailing list."

252 comments

  1. Finally by enec · · Score: 5, Funny

    So finally Emacs gets a text editor! I must say, it's a nice operating system but it's been missing a text editor for quite a while... ;)

    --
    I'm sorry, I only accept criticism in the form of sed expressions.
    1. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The 1980's called and wants its joke back.

    2. Re:Finally by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 5, Funny

      2013 called and emacs users still want a text editor.

    3. Re:Finally by Mr+Thinly+Sliced · · Score: 5, Funny

      VIM users would call, but a phone isn't in the orignal VI editor, so they don't have one.

    4. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What's a call? Is that what old people did to communicate before they started using email?

      Posted with Microsoft Emacs 98

    5. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Agreed.

      For a hardcore vi guy, I am kind of OK with Emacsians but just can't stand the sight of people who can't make up their minds or try to appease both the religions.

    6. Re:Finally by tehlinux · · Score: 2

      When do the emacs phones launch?

      --
      Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
    7. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whats email? Is that what old people used to communicate before they started using Facebook?

    8. Re:Finally by kthreadd · · Score: 4, Funny
    9. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All they have to do now is implement 'ed' inside Vim inside Emacs, and we'll have a Software Turducken!

    10. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /thread

    11. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    12. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's hardline antifencists like you who guarantee the continuation of the bloody editor war. Declare your interests. Are you selling nerf guns to both sides? Making samizdat copies of The Cathedral and the Bizarre? The revolution will not have a command mode, comrade.

    13. Re:Finally by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      You mean a smartphone with Emacs as operating system? :-)

      Typing all those C-M-somethings on a touchscreen might be a bit complicated.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    14. Re:Finally by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think you're confusing vim with nvi. Vim is the one that has a load of features not present in the original vi (e.g. syntax highlighting and persistent undo).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    15. Re:Finally by tepples · · Score: 1

      Some people don't have a Facebook account because they already graduated and lost their *@*.edu before there was a Facebook.

    16. Re:Finally by BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Some people don't have a Facebook account because they grew up in the 1970s and...

      ...well, some people don't have a facefook account because they grew up.

    17. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, you can always boot linux in a browser and start emacs and start another browser that you can run linux in or whatever.

    18. Re:Finally by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      You're all totally wrong. The one true editor is TECO....

      zj-3d

    19. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only in Korea.

    20. Re:Finally by flyneye · · Score: 1

      So, If I use Evil in Emacs to interface with the Diagnostics/Settings, I can make my Chevrolet run like a Ford?

      --
      *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
    21. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are still smartphones with hardware keyboards, aren't there?

    22. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The undo feature in nvi is less compatible with vi than the one in vim. I still prefer nvi's way. It would be nice to have a .vim that emulated nvi editing behavior while keeping the features and better integration with tools like cscope.

    23. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      God called, he/she/it wants his/her/its attitude back

    24. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a joke. It's still true in 2013.

    25. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Emacs operating system has always had a great text editor.

      It just now has a horrible painful torture device to make you want to take a sledge hammer to your computer.

    26. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VIm common practice has diverged so far from what vi originally offered, that it's not even funny. Vim is not really for vi purists, they tend to still be using elvis or something similar.

    27. Re:Finally by tqk · · Score: 2

      It's hardline antifencists like you who guarantee the continuation of the bloody editor war.

      "Oh, we like both kinds of music; Country and Western." -- The Blues Brothers.

      --
      "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
    28. Re:Finally by rwa2 · · Score: 1

      For a hardcore vi guy, I am kind of OK with Emacsians but just can't stand the sight of people who can't make up their minds or try to appease both the religions.

      Cool, you must be talking about me!

      I'm most comfortable in Emacs for long programming assignments. But I'll bring up vi to make small edits to config files on random boxes.

      On Windows I use emacs but also do a lot in Notepad++ , which has lots of very useful plugins that I'm starting to become reliant upon.

      Not open source, but Sublime Text is cross-platform has some very interesting features that are worth experiencing. The multi-line editing is something I kinda expected someone to make for a long time, but this is the first implementation of it I've seen.

    29. Re:Finally by icebike · · Score: 1

      The Emacs operating system has always had a great text editor.

      It just now has a horrible painful torture device to make you want to take a sledge hammer to your computer.

      Sledge hammer. Spot on.

      Emacs = The computing world's proof that, when the only tool you know is a hammer, you tend to look at every problem as if it were a nail.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    30. Re:Finally by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      All they have to do now is implement 'ed' inside Vim inside Emacs, and we'll have a Software Turducken!

      All they have to do now is implement edlin inside 'ed' inside Vim inside Emacs, and we'll have a Software Hamsturducken!

    31. Re:Finally by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      That's why you should have been using Perl: operating system and text editor. As an added bonus, it also subsumes your criticism format.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    32. Re:Finally by synthespian · · Score: 1

      My left hand prefers Emacs, but my right hand like Vi.

      --
      Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
    33. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While other people "grow up" on Facebook...

    34. Re:Finally by lastx33 · · Score: 1

      All they have to do now is implement 'ed' inside Vim inside Emacs, and we'll have a Software Turducken!

      Drop the "ucken" and you would be very close to the truth.

      --
      "You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead!" - Stan Laurel
    35. Re: Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Multiline editing comes from textmate, but as with everything, there is an emacs mode for that (called multiple-cursors.el).

    36. Re:Finally by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      The multi-line editing is something I kinda expected someone to make for a long time, but this is the first implementation of it I've seen.

      Like renaming an identifier in the whole function?

      That's because VIM (and vi) "has" it for like... forever. That renames `len` to `length` from current line to the end of the function:
      :.,/^}/s!\<len\>!length!g. (OK, vi/VIM's version might be too verbose.)

      One of the most frequently used feature of VIM, missing in other text editors, is the ranges: ability to apply a command/etc to a set of lines. (In the expression above it is .,/^}/, meaning from from current line (the '.') to the next line starting with the '}', the /^}/ regex.)

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    37. Re:Finally by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      Yet it's still line-oriented, a throwback to punchcards.

    38. Re:Finally by fuzzywig · · Score: 2

      I use nano, just to annoy people.

    39. Re:Finally by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      I realize, responding to an AC, you won't see this response, but maybe someone else will.

      Can someone explain how nvi's editing/undo behavior (I'm not sure if the post I'm responding to is talking about two separate issues) is different from how it is in vim?

      I only know simple undo/redo in vim.. u to undo, ^R to redo. In fact, I admit only knowing a very few commands beyond regular vi. Mostly I use the paragraph reflowing (with quotes) for email.

  2. vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    they should call it "vagina"

    1. Re:vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      vi? emacs? no normal English speaker knows what these words mean. Do you need to be a cunning linguist to use these programs?

    2. Re:vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You Sir, are a master debater!

    3. Re:vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You seem to be mistaking a PEBKAC error for a problem with vim.

    4. Re:vim should implement emacs by c0lo · · Score: 2

      vi? emacs? no normal English speaker knows what these words mean. Do you need to be a cunnilinguist to use these programs?

      FTFY.
      The answer of the question in the correct form above is "Highly probable": after an age, even if still interested in a sexual life, that's about all you can do (and you need to have a certain age to know how to use both vi and emacs).

      Now... get off my lawn, kids.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    5. Re:vim should implement emacs by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

      Vim is a cleaning powder. It doesn't suck, it scrubs.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    6. Re:vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      after an age, even if still interested in a sexual life, that's about all you can do

      In this short Saturday morning post, comrades, we witness an older gentleman subtly lamenting his chronic erectile dysfunction.

      And while I am trying not to attract attention to c0lo's condition, I think we can all agree that his is probably the most important post in this thread - even more important than the posts which righteously smite the vi heathens. For he has the wisdom of experience to teach us that we will all one day succumb to the floppiness that inevitably results in us losing any member-measuring contest, editorial or otherwise, to those to whom tomorrow belongs.

      (in b4 creepy responses along the lines of "my grandfather remained hard until the day he died")

    7. Re:vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mod parent up zen-like

    8. Re:vim should implement emacs by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      It also tastes horrible.

    9. Re:vim should implement emacs by c0lo · · Score: 1

      we witness an older gentleman subtly lamenting his chronic erectile dysfunction.

      Hang on, buddy. Just who told you that I mastered both vi and emacs long ago?

      (not that I can't deny it and still stay true, just curious who told you?)

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    10. Re:vim should implement emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A cunnilinguist would know.

    11. Re:vim should implement emacs by donaldm · · Score: 1

      vi? emacs? no normal English speaker knows what these words mean. Do you need to be a cunning linguist to use these programs?

      Well you could use elvis after all just about everyone knows or has heard of him. :)

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  3. Hmmm... still waiting for something by the_humeister · · Score: 1

    Mainly the Linux emulator for emacs.

    1. Re:Hmmm... still waiting for something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the simplest way would be to implement C (and whatever other languages linux code is written in) as domain specific languages in emacs lisp. Once that's accomplished it should be a relatively simple process to run the code from within emacs.

  4. Coming up next - Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Full implementation of Emacs in Vim

    1. Re:Coming up next - Good by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Coming up next: Full implementation of Emacs in Vim

      Actually it's already done, Emacs is available from Vim in Emacs

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:Coming up next - Good by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 2

      Try this in Vim:

      (ESC) : !emacs %e

      Edit your file in emacs and then return to vim (just load file "L").

      Your welcome.

    3. Re:Coming up next - Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your welcome.

      What about my welcome? What about it???

  5. What about viper mode? by dennisr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Didn't emacs already have this: viper mode? Or was that just straight vi? I for one liked viper mode so I am going to try this new mode out.

    1. Re:What about viper mode? by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Viper mode is good, but it is at times confusing, especially when you confuse it with too many Escapes. Evil has quite a few more features too. Both are good projects, though I think Evil has progressed more.

  6. Um, why? by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you want to use vim, why wouldn't you just use vim?

    1. Re:Um, why? by JWW · · Score: 5, Funny

      This vim is for emacs users who just know vi is better but don't want to fully admit it.....

    2. Re:Um, why? by spagthorpe · · Score: 1

      I'm also trying to figure out the point to this.

      --

      WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
      (Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)

    3. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have been on ...I think two systems in my life that had emacs, but no vi.

      The sysadmins were psychotic assholes.

    4. Re:Um, why? by MoonFog · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is the world of open source software, "because we can" is ALWAYS a perfectly acceptable reason :)

    5. Re:Um, why? by spintriae · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because vim users would like to take advantage of nice emacs goodies like Slime without changing the way they edit text.

    6. Re:Um, why? by mrprogrammerman · · Score: 1

      If you want to use vim, why wouldn't you just use vim?

      They were tired of all the jokes and decided to add a text editor to their operating system?

    7. Re:Um, why? by retchdog · · Score: 3, Informative

      someone who always has at least one emacs window open wanted to drop into vim for quick edits without having to save and reopen the file. a throng of under-employed people thought it was cool for various reasons and joined in. same as every other open source project. it is its weakness and strength.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    8. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm also trying to figure out the point to this.

      Perhaps the point is the person who made it was bored and wanted something to fill his otherwise empty and meaningless life?

      Perhaps the creation of a new problem - that is, setting out the goals of the project - allowed the author to avoid addressing the real problem in his life: his lack of meaningful interaction with the humans around him. Thus, the more serious problem of social failure was supplanted with a airy, light, and ultimately unimportant problem.

      Further, the new problem was one for which failure had no real consequence: the pointlessness of the project becomes a virtue when you want to avoid consequences for failure. This is in stark contrast to the public humiliation that could come out of a failed attempt at socializing.

      Perhaps, in naming his software 'Evil', the author was admitting to himself the existential evil inherent in avoiding the important problems in life: writing the software was a sin of omission, and was itself, therefore, an act of evil.

      But you, posting here on Slashdot on a Friday night, might know all of this already, because you are living the same life, and creating the same imaginary problems: the only difference is that, for you, the imaginary problem is figuring out what the author of this software intended.

    9. Re:Um, why? by inglorion_on_the_net · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I like Emacs's features and find vim seriously lacking. But Emacs key bindings hurt my hands. I use viper, but it confuses me (or rather, I confuse it when I press escape). Maybe I'll give evil a shot.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    10. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There already are two major implementations of vi for emacs, this is just a new, improved implementation with support for modern vim features.

    11. Re:Um, why? by guttentag · · Score: 2

      If you want to use vim, why wouldn't you just use vim?

      That's like asking "why would you install Linux on a toaster oven?" Because it might be possible, and it would be just awesome. Actually, it's probably more like asking "why would you install a toaster oven in my overly-versatile Linux box when the internal temperature already toasts slices of bread perfectly?" Because there are many shades of perfection and if you are to truly understand the zen of emacs you must experience them all.

    12. Re:Um, why? by chromas · · Score: 5, Funny

      and the vi-curious.

    13. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You really need this answered ? Cause your geek card may be in danger.

      As we all know, emacs is a great operating system, it only lacks a decent editor. Now someone is implementing just that, and you want to know why ?

    14. Re:Um, why? by suy · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you want to use vim, why wouldn't you just use vim?

      There could be many reasons to that. One might be becase Vim has a limited interface to writing plugins. There are plugins that use the Python interface to create different processes, or one that uses Vim's libcall() to run a task asynchronously, but are just nice hacks that work acceptably, but not great.

      I've been quite impressed by Shougo's plugins, becase, for example, Unite.vim, loads files from the disk in a background task that doesn't make Vim unresponsive, but is still limited in that it seems Vim can not have some kind of timer that polls the background job to update the UI (even less a fully asynchronous interface). The solution is probably resort to using Vim with the client-server interface, but I don't think is the common case of most Vim users.

      On the other hand, lately I've been suffering frequent blocks and even full crashes of Vim when using the clang_complete plugin, because uses Python in some unsafe way.

      In short, a new Vim implementation that doesn't suffer from such limitations would be welcome. I doubt that making that implementation on top of Emacs is the right way, but who knows. Ideally it should be native, but Vim's development is a bit slow. I can't find the relevant links now, but I remember a conversation on IRC that pointed out to a patch that a YankAdded (or something like that) autocommand. The patch was simple, and it would make plugins like yankring and yankstack almost trivial, since instead of doing map tricks, they could plug into such autocommand and work comfortably. But the patch is about 18 months old, and still has not been applied. Bram Molenaar's response is that bug fixes have priority over features (which makes all the sense of the world), but gives a bad impression over the scalability of Vim's development. Last time I checked the version control, Bram was the only one committing.

    15. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, if "because we can" is a good enough reason to put a jet engine in a motorcycle, (the Y2K) then it's a more than good enough reason to make the program equivalent of a turducken like this.

    16. Re:Um, why? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Maybe because vim has no elisp.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    17. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now does vim have an emacs emulator and does it run in evil?

    18. Re:Um, why? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Emacs scripting is better than that in vim. Vim's scripting language is an abomination, and although it has some scripting bridges to other languages, they are not always installed and bring in big external dependencies. On the other hand, emacs' user interface works on the assumption that a 105-key keyboard means a 105-fingered user. Being able to use emacs' scripting facilities with vim's interface might be quite tempting.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    19. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I occasionally use emacs because it has a mode that is useful for a particular file (say org-mode and a nicely formatted table). Doing this in viper mode (with vimpulse) means I don't destroy half the document with bad keystrokes due to vim muscle memory.

    20. Re:Um, why? by GNUALMAFUERTE · · Score: 1

      Oh, I see you've worked on one of my servers.

      --
      WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
    21. Re:Um, why? by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2

      Simple BOFH approach, assuming presence of the One True Editor(TM):

      ln -s /usr/bin/{vi,vim,emacs} /usr/bin/teco

    22. Re:Um, why? by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      That's like asking "why would you install Linux on a toaster oven?"

      Indeed. Everyone knows Linux runs better on a kerosene fridge.

    23. Re:Um, why? by phayes · · Score: 1

      thank you for the 105 fingered image, lol.

      I've always regretted not keeping the Lisp Machine keyboard I used 25 years ago: Shift-Control-Alt-Meta-Super-Hyper-X...

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    24. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the world of open source software, "because we can" is ALWAYS a perfectly acceptable reason :)

      Is this also the same reason why an open source government would suck ass?

    25. Re:Um, why? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it just be easier to use emacs if you already have it running? I thought the major argument (other than usability and ubiquity) for using vi/m over emacs was startup time...

      drop into vim for quick edits without having to save and reopen the file

      If you already have it open in emacs, just save it and leave it open...?

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    26. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So build a vim with elisp support?

    27. Re:Um, why? by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      You.do know/you can change those 'bindings' to anything you want right?

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    28. Re:Um, why? by sourcerror · · Score: 1

      Also Emacs has very good Prolog mode that communicates directly with the Prolog debugger so you can do line by line execution, watch variables, etc.

    29. Re:Um, why? by efitton · · Score: 1

      No.

      Vi(m) is a text editor. Some of us don't know what emacs is anymore. Personally I'm waiting for them to release their own kernel.

    30. Re:Um, why? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I'm also trying to figure out the point to this.

      There are many nice application and interaction packages for Emacs, perhaps people might want to use them with a less contrived editing interface?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    31. Re:Um, why? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Emacs scripting is better than that in vim. Vim's scripting language is an abomination, and although it has some scripting bridges to other languages, they are not always installed and bring in big external dependencies.

      Hmm, the Lua binding is hardly a "big external dependency". And, when combined with LuaJIT 2... :-)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    32. Re:Um, why? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      sure, :sh and run emacs or anything else command line. after quitting emacs, type exit to return to vi.

    33. Re:Um, why? by allo · · Score: 1

      its called gnu/hurd

    34. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, vi is certainly better than vim. It's the emacs way to have, what, four vi-ish modes now?

    35. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great news! Now all we need is a plugin for emacs to emulate powershell + mono and I could replace my entire windows workstation!
      We can call it Mononukeliosis.

    36. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Introverts are fine with little human interaction and projects like this. If you are projecting your own feelings then it is possible you are a shy extrovert which is more in line with your concerns.

    37. Re:Um, why? by xxdinkxx · · Score: 1

      because if I could have vim inside emacs and get to have emacs ORG Mode, all the better!

    38. Re:Um, why? by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      I have been on ...I think two systems in my life that had emacs, but no vi.

      The sysadmins were psychotic assholes.

      I don't think I've ever seen a unix, linux or BSD system that didn't have some kind of vi on it. I've seen very many that don't have emacs.

      I really don't see why emacs still exists, I can only assume it does something better than vi that I don't know about.

    39. Re:Um, why? by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Also Emacs has very good Prolog mode that communicates directly with the Prolog debugger so you can do line by line execution, watch variables, etc.

      That's great if you program prolog but I've not used prolog since university.
      Slime seems to be a lisp thing. I've never used lisp.

      What else have you got?

    40. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm curious: what emacs feature does not have a vim equiv (either built-in, or via a plugin)?

    41. Re:Um, why? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Also Emacs has very good Prolog mode that communicates directly with the Prolog debugger so you can do line by line execution, watch variables, etc.

      That's great if you program prolog but I've not used prolog since university. Slime seems to be a lisp thing. I've never used lisp.

      What else have you got?

      Anything having to do with LISP works pretty well w/Emacs - because the editor is primarily written in LISP.

      What else about Emacs or XEmacs? Just about anything you can imagine and/or write.

      • See: Emacs Features and Great Emacs Features
      • FTP directly in/out of a buffer.
      • Edit an unlimited number of files at once, in an unlimited number of windows and/or sub-windows (as desired).
      • IDE for various languages w/compiler integration.
      • Full regular-expressions Macros, basically w/o limits.
      • Extensibility, customization, basically w/o limits.
      • Language and formatting support for just about every programming and text language.
      • SQL mode - run SQL Plus within Emacs.
      • A few games.
      • Okay, the list actually never ends.

      Once you're proficient with Emacs, there's no need to know any other editor. I've been using Emacs (or XEmacs) since the mid 1980s for system admin/programming on many types of systems and application programming in many, many languages. If you know Perl and Emacs, you can do almost anything.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    42. Re:Um, why? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

      You.do know/you can change those 'bindings' to anything you want right?

      I've used Emacs since the mid 1980s and I've always discouraged changing the standard key bindings and only encourage people to extend using unbound keys sequences. The reason comes from trying to help a co-worker, a long time ago, who had extensively re-bound the standard keys. I couldn't function within his editing sessions and he couldn't function in any other.

      Leaving the standard key bindings in place allows one to be immediately productive anywhere, anytime. Unless you have a good reason, like a physical limitation or keyboard issue, I recommend leaving things standard as much as possible. I carry this philosophy to other areas of sysadmin and life as well. This way others can easily step in when needed - like if I get hit by a bus...

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    43. Re:Um, why? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      I have been on ...I think two systems in my life that had emacs, but no vi.

      The sysadmins were psychotic assholes.

      I don't think I've ever seen a unix, linux or BSD system that didn't have some kind of vi on it. I've seen very many that don't have emacs.

      I really don't see why emacs still exists, I can only assume it does something better than vi that I don't know about.

      Us psychotic assholes love Emacs, but it didn't make us that way...
      I've been using it since the mid 1980s for everything and I haven't killed anyone - yet.

      True that most systems come with Vi (or a clone) in the base install - probably because it's small, simple and everyone that knows Emacs also knows Vi. But to your last point, Emacs does just about everything better than Vi (except start time) and probably every other editor on the planet. Sure, it's not super simple to learn and/or master, but the powerful and the standard key-bindings are fairly well though out. Give it some time and you'll be amazed. It can also emulate several other popular editors, which is the basis of this thread.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    44. Re:Um, why? by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      Um, off the top of my head...tetris? :)

      How about: wordstar-mode? changelog-mode? outline-mode? rich-text mode? terminal emulation? interactive sgml composer? interactive diff/merge mode? debugger-mode? bibliography mode? several mail readers? web browser? calendar? calculator? object-browser? version control browser? adventure game? Pong?

      Seriously, emacs is competing more with X than with vim. :)

    45. Re:Um, why? by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      What a bad idea. Why insist everybody does that just to satisfy your needs? It's trivial to write a bit of elisp to save their keymap and load your own. Having your configuration on usb or online is even better.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    46. Re:Um, why? by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

      Keybindings aside, emacs is a better system.

    47. Re:Um, why? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      What a bad idea. Why insist everybody does that just to satisfy your needs? It's trivial to write a bit of elisp to save their keymap and load your own. Having your configuration on usb or online is even better.

      It's not to satisfy *my* needs - geesh - the recommendation is so anyone can drop down and be useful - either with a new configuration or to work with someone else - w/o having to carry around their own key mapping. You don't go around aliasing "grep" to be "awk" or redo the layout of /etc and such things? [ If you do, you'll never be in charge of one of my systems. :-) ]

      The standard mappings are pretty well thought out and consistent. Why trouble yourself or others with *your* desire to simply be different? Customization (of anything) should be done for a specific operational purpose, not a whim or because of laziness.

      P.S. I don't have bad ideas - at least none that I offer up.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    48. Re:Um, why? by Javagator · · Score: 1
      I thought the major argument ... for using vi/m over emacs was startup time.

      Maybe 20 years ago, but I just opened a file in Emacs and it loaded in about a half a second.

    49. Re:Um, why? by Javagator · · Score: 1
      Leaving the standard key bindings in place allows one to be immediately productive anywhere

      I have a 90 line .emacs file that allow me to be even more productive on my computers. You win some and you lose some.

    50. Re:Um, why? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Leaving the standard key bindings in place allows one to be immediately productive anywhere

      I have a 90 line .emacs file that allow me to be even more productive on my computers. You win some and you lose some.

      Sure I get it. Mine is 540 lines, carried forward from the mid 1980s when I was a LISP coder, but I can work without it - 99% standard key bindings and all. And back then, you couldn't carry your config around on a USB drive...

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    51. Re:Um, why? by retchdog · · Score: 1

      Like Javagator said, startup time isn't a problem anymore, but neither is RAM. It's trivial to just keep an emacs window open at all times, and most emacs users do.

      Since emacs can do so many things, it's natural to keep it open so you can do them, and since an emacs window is always open, it's natural to extend it to do more things! :)

      By reopen, I meant open it in vim, although yeah, you would have to reopen the file in emacs to load the vim changes from disk. It's not a huge problem, but it can get confusing if you have a lot of buffers open and are going back-and-forth.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    52. Re:Um, why? by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      Logically thought out and ergonomically thought out are two very different things! Besides the odd cases of people wanting familiar windows or vi mappings it seems practically every single desire to change bindings is because of pain and the physical akwardness of the bindings. One could argue that the bindings are actually very poorly thought out because they give high priority to things that really don't deserve priority.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    53. Re:Um, why? by synthespian · · Score: 1

      Emacs is great for doing some text processing text you might otherwise do with, say, a Perl (or whatever) script.

      I'm not talking about the equivalent stuff you can do in Vim too. AFAIK, you can do "batch text processing" with Vim, but it's not nearly as sophisticated as Emacs, simply because emacs has emacs lisp, with its huge number of primitives for text processing. It's not a coincidence that, whenever someone wants an editor to understand the syntax of their new, "crazy" (or maybe "cutting edge"), programming language somebody writes an Emacs mode for it.

      Emacs power user Xah Lee has many examples for Emacs in the context of text processing at his site:

      http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/elisp.html

      Although Vim is a powerful editor, it certainly is a primitive experience writing code in it, in particular when you compare it with the syntax and error checking today's best tools can do (such as the awesome Xcode). So, I can see why people like Vim (it's very ergonomical) but, down the road, I don't see people programming with it for much longer.

      Emacs OTOH has a whole lot more to offer. And every once in a while talks of re-writing Emacs in Common Lisp come up. Now that would be something!, because you would potentially end up with an excellent tool with GUI capabilities (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp_Interface_Manager), that would simply rock for the creation of more & better non-proprietary IDE tools. Of course, that involves re-implementing CLIM (available on proprietary Common Lisp IDEs, so no-one really cares to), because of the GPL license (yet another example on how the GPL is counter-productive).

      --
      Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
    54. Re:Um, why? by donaldm · · Score: 1

      I am now running Fedora 18 and "vim" is not actually installed by default however "vi" is. Of course I could install "vim" or better yet "gvim" (graphical vim) since it is only about 20 MB however I don't do a huge amount of programming so I would not make use of the enhanced features of "vim" which IMHO are excellent.

      IMHO emacs is the better editor than "vi/vim" however it may not be on all systems (by default it is not on Fedora) and anyone who is a System Admin really needs to know "vi" and possibly "ed". The learning curve for emacs is actually steeper than for vi however for those people that are willing to learn it is well worth the effort.

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
    55. Re:Um, why? by donaldm · · Score: 1

      Emacs scripting is better than that in vim.

      I would have to agree however using a scripting language in a text editor depends on what you what to do. Personally for what I normally do I actually use the :map feature of "vi" (also in "vim") which in reality is the "ex" editor which allows me to quickly map a set of "vi/vim" key-presses to a single key. In this way I can see what is going to happen and if there is a problem I can undo, edit appropriately (if applicable) and skip to the next mapped key press. By doing this I can actually edit hundreds of lines in a few minutes.

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
    56. Re:Um, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like vim, but emacs proofgeneral just rocks. Will be great use vim inside emacs if you can still use proofgeneral.

  7. Time to recurse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somebody should really write an "Emacs mode" VIMplugin so that we could run Emacs inside VIM inside Emacs inside ...

    1. Re:Time to recurse by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 2

      Try this for your amusement:

      Launch emacs.

      Step 1: M-x term ; screen vim
      Step 2: in vim type :!emacs
      Step 3: return to step 1

      You can stack as many sessions as you want. Why you would want to do that is of course completely your affair.

    2. Re:Time to recurse by phayes · · Score: 1

      In step 2 you are just suspending emacs, not running it actively. Trivial. You might as well just run emacs, ^Z, vim, ^Z, ...

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  8. waiting for ed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If vim and emacs merged into one application, would the resulting application donate Richard Stallman to Uganda?

    1. Re:waiting for ed by Chompjil · · Score: 1

      If vim and emacs merged into one application, would the resulting application donate Richard Stallman to Uganda?

      No, more likely North Korea

      --
      People once told me 68K ram was all we needed,
    2. Re:waiting for ed by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      If vim and emacs merged into one application, would the resulting application donate Richard Stallman to Uganda?

      No, more likely North Korea

      Because he is the bomb?

      --

      Did Satan sell Evil to Bill Gates?

    3. Re:waiting for ed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If vim and emacs merged into one application, would the resulting application donate Richard Stallman to Uganda?

      No, more likely North Korea

      Whatever. As long as his parrot is happy.

    4. Re:waiting for ed by phayes · · Score: 1

      Did Satan sell Evil to Bill Gates?

      No, BG embraced & extended evil but left extinguishing it to the chair thrower...

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    5. Re:waiting for ed by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      ooo, I saw the picture of their new leader, an ugly kung fu panda, that doesn't know kung fu.

  9. Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used to use Emacs, then I switched to Windows, and finally settled on Kubuntu.

  10. 'Sup Dog? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard you like to edit text, so I put a text editor in your text editor so you can edit text while you edit text.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:'Sup Dog? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You still won't be able to pick up chix, that's why emacs really is short for emacs..ulated.

    2. Re:'Sup Dog? by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

      Yo, I heard you like to put text editors in your friends' text editors, when you hear that they like text editors, so they can edit text while they're editing text. Here's a text editor you can put in the text editor you put in your friends' text editors, so you can put text editors in text editors while putting text editors in your friends' text editors which they can use to edit text while they edit text.

    3. Re:'Sup Dog? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      I like the subtle endorsement of yoghurt

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    4. Re:'Sup Dog? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1nB4l0ck btards!

  11. :X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hopefully, there is still the 'feature' of accidentally encrypting your file during exit if your caps lock is on

  12. OMG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Abomination

  13. Screw those guys! by evil_aaronm · · Score: 1

    I'm evil. And I've been evil for years...

  14. VI VI VI by 0WaitState · · Score: 5, Funny

    vi vi vi, the editor of the beast.

    --

    Remain calm! All is well!
    1. Re:VI VI VI by captain_dope_pants · · Score: 1

      Can't mod up past 5, but really this comment score should go up to 11

      --
      while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
    2. Re:VI VI VI by SlashTom · · Score: 1

      Ha ha haa. Made me laugh out loud ;-) Mod +11 from me as well !

    3. Re:VI VI VI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      vi vi vi, the editor of the beast.

      vi vi vi, the editor of the beast.

      vim = 994 then?

    4. Re:VI VI VI by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      and emacs backward is scam-e

    5. Re:VI VI VI by qubezz · · Score: 1

      No, it must be -994. And I've been waiting for VII to to come out for years, so I can finally stop pirating Pico.

  15. :wq oh-shit by junkfish · · Score: 1

    Entering Ex mode. Type "visual" to go to Normal mode.
    oh shit what's this
    E749: empty buffer :w
    E32: No file name
    :
    E749: empty buffer
    :
    E749: empty buffer
    :
    E749: empty buffer
    :
    E749: empty buffer ::W
    E492: Not an editor command: :W :QW
    E492: Not an editor command: QW :wq
    E32: No file name

    fuck it, i forgot what I was going to comment anyway

    1. Re::wq oh-shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been using emacs for over 20 years. In vim on Linux I'm always getting in that mode. Never had that problem with Bill Joy's version on the Vax

  16. Memory Demands by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The new EVIL editor was heard demanding "One MILLION bytes of core," to which GNU/Linux distributors reacted by doubling over with laughter.

    After a hurried conference with its aides, the EVIL editor revised its demands to "One BILLION bytes of core".

    1. Re:Memory Demands by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Well, I guess Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping doesn't sound like much any more, when most editors hog at least ten times that.

  17. Funny Story... by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Back in the 90's one of the contracting gigs I took was security auditing code for Data General, for their B2 unix certification. Our team was mostly doing the C standard library but once we finished that we started working on the utilities. One of my co-workers got vi (I got awk and telnetd, but that's another funny story entirely.) He wasn't a fan of vi when he started but he turned into a vi guru and fanatic as he started going through the code. At one point I mentioned that Emacs had a vi emulation, and he started going over it to see how it differed from real vi. I seem to recall that he thought it was a pretty good emulation overall, but he lamented the lack of a couple of fairly esoteric features of vi. We also found a comment in there from the 70's about how the author didn't really like how he was handling something to do with the terminal handling, with a note to fix it one of these days.

    I never liked that newfangled vim. It's far too... colorful. I usually swap it out for nvi, which is much more vi-like. Distributions (like Redhat) that install pico as the default editor make me punch someone. Maybe the guy who thought pico should be considered in any way an acceptable UNIX editor. I always have to swear, abort back to the command line, and export VISUAL=vi.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Funny Story... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess you had to be there, eh?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess you had to be there, eh?

      A hush washes over the room, like the deranged mist that spews from a border collie in heat.

      A door in the back opens, and a small, angry looking man explodes through it. He walks towards 93 at an aggressive pace, but comes to a complete stop 10 feet away.

      "YOU SIR ARE AN ASS!", he screams. He then turns, and leaves.

    3. Re: Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a backer of wl2, I take it. Nice!

    4. Re:Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the busybox version of vi is the only editor that makes me want to punch someone.

    5. Re:Funny Story... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      I have to wonder how anyone would actually run into these editors, like pico? I've rarely 'accidentally' run an editor I didn't want to run. Emacs is not lurking in the background somewhere when I type 'vi(m)' to edit files.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    6. Re:Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a matter of fact, during one of my security audits we discovered a previous admin left a root escalation option hidden in the systems date command.

      After that experience, I would suspect cal just as much.

    7. Re:Funny Story... by dissy · · Score: 1

      The command 'visudo' will launch whatever editor is defined in an environment variable, and if that is not set it will traverse the /etc/defaults/ tree.

      On certain distros a brand new install will have those set to pico or nano.
      After having configured the defaults on a previous system many years prior, one tends to forget about that "feature" even existing.

      Not coincidentally, using visudo is more likely immediately after a new installation as well, and where I most often first run into it.

    8. Re:Funny Story... by chromas · · Score: 1

      Some systems have a symlink to editor and/or an environment variable for other programs to check if they feel the need to start a 'default' editor.

    9. Re:Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Setting pico as default is a GOOD thing: it's easier to use for the noobs.
      Learning vi/vim is an investment ... we don't want to scare peaple away straight away by giving them an editor with no onscreen clues ?

    10. Re:Funny Story... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Eh, this is oldschool unix stuff. Go back to the front page for more worthless stories on things you're more comfortable with, like copyright, drones, and other day-to-day bullshit politics. We' re talking about vi here, kindly fuck off.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    11. Re:Funny Story... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I have to wonder how anyone would actually run into these editors, like pico?

      Raspberry Pi.

      The default image contains pico but not vi. Installing vi requires installing quite a few dependencies and on that slow machine takes time. End result is that it's actually simply easier to run pico.

      Or simply use a linux image with a decent text editor :-)

    12. Re:Funny Story... by c · · Score: 1

      Distributions (like Redhat) that install pico as the default editor make me punch someone. Maybe the guy who thought pico should be considered in any way an acceptable UNIX editor. I always have to swear, abort back to the command line, and export VISUAL=vi.

      My instructions for installing a new Debian(-like) build system at work include "apt-get purge nano" as the first thing you do once you're able to login. After (over? Yes. Fuuuuccckkkk....) 20 years, I just can't use an editor where "hjkl" aren't cursor movement keys.

      I don't care which vi implementation, just give me something close enough and I'll survive.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    13. Re:Funny Story... by Greyfox · · Score: 1
      I don't know, really. I just always seem to somehow end up in pico (or nano I suppose) at some point in the system install or on a new account somewhere. Oh yeah, IIRC it's usually 'crontab -e'. A few years back I stole a bash_rc.d directory style approach to bashrc from cygwin. I should just sanitize my startup scripts and check the whole damn directory into github. That'd let me pull my user environment to any new machine I ever have to work on, and I'd have VISUAL set by default after that. Hmm. Probably not a bad idea...

      I like the directory-based setup. It's very easy to specialize by machine, OS type, and so forth. I'm always tempted to write something to let me manage the entries in it better, but so far managing them manually hasn't pissed me off sufficiently to actually go do that.

      I'm usually an emacs guy for editing source and a vi guy for editing system files. If I need to make a quick change to source, I'll fire vi up for that, too. This always seems odd to me, but I try not to let it bother me.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    14. Re:Funny Story... by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      The moral is, you're a total bitch!

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    15. Re:Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you take away the option of others to choose whatever they want as text editor?
      Just because you're so rusted into your habits that you can't stand to accidentally start up nano?
      You seem proud of it, but that's sad actually.
      Disclaimer: vi(m) is my editor of choice on the CLI.

    16. Re:Funny Story... by Pale+Dot · · Score: 1

      I never liked that newfangled vim. It's far too... colorful. I usually swap it out for nvi, which is much more vi-like.

      Funny, but I find vim to be the vi that's closest to visual!

    17. Re:Funny Story... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Interesting that you should mention DG: I was heavily involved with their boxen back in the AOS/VS days, when their user manuals implicitly directed the user to SPEED (one of the better implementations of TECO I've seen) as the default editor, or the alternative of SED (a truly horrible screen editor that bears absolutely no resemblance to the *nix-land sed.) SPEED was a nicely scriptable editor, capable of performing all sorts of abstruse things on flat files, faster than some compiled binaries.

    18. Re:Funny Story... by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      Distributions (like Redhat) that install pico as the default editor make me punch someone.

      Is this anyone in particular or just whoever is closest?

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    19. Re:Funny Story... by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      I never liked that newfangled vim. It's far too... colorful. I usually swap it out for nvi, which is much more vi-like. Distributions (like Redhat) that install pico as the default editor make me punch someone. Maybe the guy who thought pico should be considered in any way an acceptable UNIX editor. I always have to swear, abort back to the command line, and export VISUAL=vi.

      Debian does this too (installs nano by default as a newbie-friendly always-works editor). If you're the admin, the right way to solve it is to uninstall pico.

      I'm an Emacs user, but if you're serious about using Unix you need to be able to handle some simple editing using vi -- sooner or later you're stuck with a system which has nothing else.

    20. Re:Funny Story... by b1t+r0t · · Score: 1

      I prefer Elvis, the standard vi editor of Slackware.

      --

      --
      "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
      "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
    21. Re:Funny Story... by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Disclaimer: vi(m) is my editor of choice on the CLI.

      Sorry to be pedantic but it's a Text User Interface, not a Command Line Interface.

    22. Re:Funny Story... by c · · Score: 1

      So you take away the option of others to choose whatever they want as text editor?

      All of the other developers that normally touch these systems are vi users. All zero of them. I don't give a shit what people use on their own systems, though, as long as it doesn't fuck up the indentation on the source tree, and I don't mess around much with the default on systems other people are supposed to manage.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    23. Re:Funny Story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Way to out yourself as a GUI weenie... anyone who's ever tried to commit to sourcecontrol from the command line knows what it means to have an unwanted editor run.

      (just kidding, but it does happen, and not through typos).

  18. Well, that's cool and all, but.... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    It's still emacs.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:Well, that's cool and all, but.... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Emacs and its Lisp extensions are great, unbelievable it was made more than 30 years ago with no successful "competitor" (not only editors, but almost everything else: something with that level of customization thanks to a clever "scripting" (lisp) integration). To realize how Emacs is good, just look at Gimp: they tried to implement a similar Lisp based architecture (script-fu) and is, unlike Emacs, all but practical and convenient (eg macros like "C-x (" in Emacs?). I use Vim to do quick changes, but long edits or complex changes are always made through Emacs.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:Well, that's cool and all, but.... by dfghjk · · Score: 0

      People want to believe that lots of text editing is somehow more complex than a little text editing. It's just text editing.

      The niche emacs succeeded in was editor tribalism. emacs vs. vi has been a successful implementation of nerd clan wars for decades. Intelligent people understand it's meaningless and that there have been viable, and superior, alternatives to both as long as each has existed. Perhaps not on Unix or in open source, but that itself is a niche. There's a whole world out there.

      It's just text editing. You learn the commands and the motions to execute them, then it's muscle memory. That's what matters, not that it's Lisp. People who think that editing should be done through on-demand coding are trapped in a 70's low-bandwidth terminal mentality and are thinking too hard.

    3. Re:Well, that's cool and all, but.... by elijahu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I started to agree with you, but then you went a bogus direction.

      "Intelligent people" do understand that it's meaningless (though occasionally amusing) to argue whether vi/m or emacs is better, but that's because they understand that if you've invested the effort to truly learn and use either, that your text editing capability will be far superior to what can be done in any other text editing tool.

      Yes, it's just text editing. While there are some new features that crop up from time to time as new tools or formats come along, the basic complexities of text manipulation have been pretty well figured out and solutions implemented for a long time. This is the reason why emacs and vi/m remain so successful, because they remain a collective memory of decades worth of solutions to text manipulation challenges (just as Linux is a collective memory of solutions to computing challenges). There's a whole world "in" there, it just takes a bit of devotion to explore it.

      There have not been "superior" alternatives to both. There have been attempts to try to because emacs and vi have steep learning curves. The alternatives have invariably fallen short, however, because while you can dumb down an interface, you lose that ability to effectively tap into that vast pool of solutions emacs and vi offer. You also loose the efficiency gain from their ui philosophy, which may have originated in the 70's low-bandwidth terminal mentality, but guess what, it's still just text on the screen and those old mentalities still have more relevance than you may understand.

      The alternatives also all tend to fail to capture the full scope of the capabilities that emacs and vi offer. Someone further up the thread called them 'esoteric'. If your job is to manipulate text all day long, those 'esoteric' factors can have a tremendous impact on your effectiveness.

      Muscle memory is, indeed part of it, but not the full story. Its about effective use of my time. It's not that people that use emacs or vi are "thinking to hard", its that people who aren't are working too hard and maybe haven't though enough. While you're scratching your head and waving your mouse pointer around trying to find the right menu to do open to reveal some set of options from which you have to choose which one might or might not fully do the text manipulation task you need it to do, I've already done exactly what I wanted to do with a few keystrokes. The next time it needs to be done, you'll still be wandering through your menus, and it will still just be a few keystroke for me (possibly fewer if I've made a macro). Its about investing the time to learn from the folks that already figured it out, and having a system that makes future repetition of that process as streamlined as possible.

      Oh, and universality... you may think Unix is niche, but there sure seems to be a lot of it around. It's pretty hard to find one that doesn't have vi, emacs, or both on it. Macs are also niche, I guess, but there again you'll find vi and emacs just a terminal prompt away. Maybe your world is Windows-centric. I'm sorry, but even there you can easily download either. The investment made in learning the capabilities of either are useable on any system you might encounter. There are few (if any) alternatives that can make the same claim and offer the same features.

    4. Re:Well, that's cool and all, but.... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      > Emacs and its Lisp extensions are great, unbelievable it was made more than 30 years ago with no successful "competitor"

      There's a reason for that. When your user base is a tiny, although fanatic, fraction of the editing public, there isn't really room for a lot of different products.

      As an admin in the early days I had to support Emacs and Jove (because one version of Emacs was apparently not enough...) because three of our programmers used it. The rest of us used VI, not because VI was "the best", but because VI was adequate and because in a heterogeneous environment if it was Unix, it had VI. It's nice not having to carry around your own private operating system just to edit documents.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  19. $1000 for a hammer, $200 dollars for a toilet seat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where do you think your tax dollars go? To stimulate the economy of course!

  20. mcedit or bust by Dwedit · · Score: 1

    The only Linux terminal-mode text editor I can stand using is Midnight Commander.

    1. Re:mcedit or bust by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      So maybe you need a midnight commander implementation in Emacs?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    2. Re:mcedit or bust by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 1

      It's already been done, several times in fact .

    3. Re:mcedit or bust by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      The only Linux terminal-mode text editor I can stand using is Midnight Commander.

      You are a sick person. MC should be nuked from orbit.

  21. That's it!! by ArsonSmith · · Score: 3

    I'm going back to only supporting closed source software.

    --
    Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    1. Re:That's it!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      makes sense

    2. Re:That's it!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft Office for vt100 ?

  22. So, is this the end of the vi/emacs flamewar? by Lendrick · · Score: 1

    ...or is it more like mixing Star Wars and Star Trek?

    1. Re:So, is this the end of the vi/emacs flamewar? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Emacs and Vi are different - actually everything that can be done in Vi can be done (or implemented via the creation of a lisp function) in Emacs. The thing is, Vi loads quickly, and its search/replace, line number based commands and (relatively new) syntax highlighting makes it the preferred choice while working in a terminal for rather quick and small changes. While Emacs is more of an application that remains opened from start to end of a user session, loaded with a number of files, directories, lisp functions (thanks to .emacs), libraries (site-lisp etc...), and even sql / shell sessions.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:So, is this the end of the vi/emacs flamewar? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now that J. J. Abrams is associated with Star Wars it's a definite possibility!

    3. Re:So, is this the end of the vi/emacs flamewar? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, God no; this is the start of the revolution!

      Now if you excuse me, I have to go check eBay for Guy Fawkes masks. If I hurry now, I can probably beat the rush.

    4. Re:So, is this the end of the vi/emacs flamewar? by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

      ...or is it more like mixing Star Wars and Star Trek?

      Now that J. J. Abrams is associated with Star Wars it's a definite possibility!

      Too Late. Perhaps you missed the part in the last Star Trek where the Romulans used their Death Star to blow up one planet then were halted by a rag tag group of protagonists as they attempted to blow up another planet. Oh, sure, they called their "death star" a "mining ship", but a rose by any other name...

      Since he did so well on that mock-Star Wars movie, and shows no restraint for crapping all over the fundamental universal principals if the story is written into a corner (trans-warp beaming, Spock on Pon Far 24/7, multiple time travelers), it's no wonder he's been given reign over a real Death Star. No one ever said the Death Star wasn't powered by "red matter" -- which is the purest known form of the MacGuffin element.

      I put it to you that you've already seen the Star Wars / Star Trek cross over.

  23. Darn. by drolli · · Score: 1

    That was the feature i was waiting for since 1994, and due to which i switched away from emacs 5 years ago.

  24. Yo dog.... by mpfife · · Score: 1

    I heard you liked an editor in your editor, so we put and editor in your editor so you can edit while you edit!

    While funny for slashdot - it's basically like watching people arrange deckchairs on the Titanic. These are tools - tools to get your job done. Use the best tool and stop circle-j-ing about this over that/etc. I use both whenever it suits me; but don't do any serious development in either anymore. There's so, so, so much better tools out there than these tired old things.

  25. VIM can be run in emacs without the extension by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 1

    By the way, not to belittle the project in any way, but you can already run vim inside of EMACS by the following:

    M - x (return) term (choose shell) ; vim

    You get the whole vim in an emacs term buffer. What you don't get is any real integration (you are stuck in vim, but your mouse can get you to another buffer if you need to). Evil is much better in that you are still in emacs while you use vim shortcuts and commands and you can get into emacs easier for slime and the rest.

    You can even launch screen inside a term buffer - very handy for a quick ssh to a development machine (screen -R). You can even launch emacs on the other machine inside the term buffer for recursive madness.

    EMACS is just awesome. And now thanks to Evil it also has an awesome editor.

    1. Re:VIM can be run in emacs without the extension by phayes · · Score: 1

      Access to emacs-lisp & emacs macros are the reasons why hardcore VIM users are interested in an emacs VIM mode. You get the latter by running vim inside emacs term, but not the former.

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  26. can someone explain this holy war? by equex · · Score: 1

    nothing is like a good holy war, and thats pretty much why i've been following the vi/emacs threads for years without actually trying any of them for more than 2 seconds. the doctors said i stabbed myself with my bare hands in both cases. so what is the difference between these editors anyway ? except for having weird key combos?

    --
    Can I light a sig ?
    1. Re:can someone explain this holy war? by ImdatS · · Score: 1

      You, Sir, are starting a new Holy War! It might be the War to End All Wars, but, nevertheless, it is a new Holy War...

    2. Re:can someone explain this holy war? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a holy war because there are two factions that are never (never!) going to be convinced of any merit the other faction claims. On one side there are the vi users: minimalist, pragmatic, if-it-doesn't-have-it-you-don't-need-it people. The other side is the complete opposite: all-encompassing, sure-we-can-write-an-extension-for-that lisp fanatics. Neither side consedes any points to the other. The more you try to reason with them, the more they get entrenched in their own little world.

      This has been going on for decades now. Safe to say there is no middle ground anymore, you are a vi person or an emacs user. There is no compromise. Except maybe those lost souls that grew up using Windows, but those are beyond redemption anyway.

      So, in short: emacs users can bite my ass, vi for president! ;-)

  27. converted an EDT fan (back in the day ...) by dltaylor · · Score: 1

    Running VMS 3.7 or 3.8, IIIRC. He really liked the vt200 keypad integration of EDT. Was a bit envious of the multiple buffers we had though, and then I wrote an elisp program to convert assembly language listing back to source so we could produce product-specific documentation for the regulators; that was too much. He switched to emacs+edt mode.

    My favorite emacs story though is still the guy I worked with who used it as his login shell on BSD.

  28. Re:nedit over x11 forwarding beats emacs/vim handi by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You are aware that Emacs has a GUI?

    You are aware that vim also has a GUI?

    Now, please tell me what nedit can do that neither Emacs nor vim can do.

    Also, please tell me what you do if you remote login to another computer over a connection which is too slow to run a GUI and want to edit a file there.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  29. Voicemail that doesn't support rotary dial by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Every time you post 875, someone's going to have to post 1072.

    1. Re:Voicemail that doesn't support rotary dial by Yobgod+Ababua · · Score: 1

      Hah!

      This is why my EE Senior project (long, long ago) was an inline box that would translate rotary pulses to DTMF so that you could use your cool old phones with modern systems. The trick was in the loop isolation, so voice could get passed through but not the dial breaks which modern systems interpreted as hanging up.

      If I was doing it today, I'd make a rotary phone to VoiP converter instead. Actually an easier project, all things considered...

      Of course, while this was long ago, it wasn't the 70s, so they still wouldn't have my device available.

    2. Re:Voicemail that doesn't support rotary dial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any chance that ended up in the zaptel cards? They do that for you, nice little bits of hardware let me call up to get my credit card balance... with a rotary phone.

      Took a long time to get the whole credit card number in, LOL. And without the hash or star keys I had to still pick up one of those old school tone dialers. But still fun.

    3. Re:Voicemail that doesn't support rotary dial by Yobgod+Ababua · · Score: 1

      There is pretty much zero chance than my college project ended up in any consumer device, unless my advisor was seriously more evil and manipulative than I have been led to believe. I went into systems admin and most of the "hard" EE is a pleasant memory.

  30. Pick one or the other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did they ever fix that "vi in read-only mode still stuffs erroneous lock files in palace" bug? That actually got me fired: my boss would have files open with vi in read-only mode, insisting that was just *fine* to do, I'd edit and record changes with Emacs, and then when he quitt his vi it would *OVERWRITE MY CHANGES*, then it would get committed to source control. Took me 2 months to figure out that that cling-on (in the sense of something that hangs around uranus) was overwriting and screwing up my work by leaving critical files open with vi all the time on scattered machines and randomly reverting my changes, and he already had my walking papers signed by that time.

    1. Re:Pick one or the other by dfghjk · · Score: 1

      If it took you 2 months to figure that out you should have been fired.

  31. The next step forward by ciaran.mchale · · Score: 1

    It is an important stepping stone to have the "viie" (Vim Implemented in Emacs) editor. The next step is to implement Emacs using vim's built-in scripting language, thus giving us the "eiiv" editor. Then it should be a trivial final step to get the "eiiviie" (Emacs Implement In Vim Implemented In Emacs) editor. This tool will serve two important purposes:

    1. It can be used to teach the concept of recursion (and mulual recursion) in Computing 101 courses at university.

    2. It will give Linux an opportunity to play catch-up with Microsoft bloatware.

  32. The emacs vs. vi war is finally over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The enemy has lost because we have become him.

  33. What you really want for emacs scripting... by jabberw0k · · Score: 1

    is TECO mode! 0LT$$

  34. Wretched Emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You already have kitchen sink functionality, do you really need ?
    It would be a testament to how nimble and elegant vi is, if Emacs didn't already come standard with video games.

  35. Original vi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    For those of you old enough to remember the original vi, with a very limited set of commands and no support for the cursor keys:

    Once we were trying to explain to an MS-DOS Wordstar user how the VI editor works. Here's what we come up with:

    Vi is an editor with two distinguished modes:

    In Edit mode you have all the capabilities of grandma's typewriter right under your finger tips! You can make the very same mistakes as you did with granny's typewriter and your possibilities to correct them are about the same.

    That's why Vi was provided with a second mode, namely the Beep mode. On a vt100 terminal or compatible you can get into Beep mode by pressing an arrow or escape function key. In this powerful Beep mode even the more innocuous keystroke will promptly produce a Beep sound. As an example, arrows, return, blank spaces and most capital letters will produce beeps in the most arbitrary places of the screen. Just think about the whole world of possibilities that this mode gives to you:

    --Compose a monotonic symphony or rap while editing your thesis!

    --Send messages in Morse code to the secretary next door!

    --Keep yourself awake with the clear sound of the Beep tone!

    The variations are endless.

    1. Re:Original vi by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1
      You were modded "Funny" but your post was pretty accurate - though the two modes are Edit and Command. People either don't know or don't remember that "vi" was originally a visual extension of "ex". From Wikipedia:

      The original code for vi was written by Bill Joy in 1976, as the visual mode for a line editor called ex that Joy had written with Chuck Haley.

      If I remember correctly, Bill Joy basically wrote Vi over a weekend.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    2. Re:Original vi by kenh · · Score: 1

      I alwayt thought the point of vi was to train users to use the 'hjkl' cursor keys for when they were playing robots.

      --
      Ken
    3. Re:Original vi by slimjim8094 · · Score: 1

      That's not fair! The Beep mode doesn't just beep, it also deletes lines of your file at random. Trying to figure out how to get them back, or at least get out without doing more damage, simply deletes more lines.

      One of my very first experiences with Linux was when I was about 13, back in about 2002. I was told by a forum to use vi to edit a config file. This traumatized me so much I spent the next 6 years using nano before learning emacs.

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
  36. What about.. by miknix · · Score: 1

    the emacs guys implement a emacs compatibility layer for supporting emacs mode on emacs? That way I can edit on emacs inside emacs on emacs on .. [aborted: out of stack neurons]

    1. Re:What about.. by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      That way I can edit on emacs inside emacs on emacs on .. [aborted: out of stack neurons]

      And that is why we use tail recursion in THIS house.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  37. Sounds like a really good use of dev time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is why I switched to OS X. Got sick of seeing developers waste their time on dumbass shit like adding a text editor to a text editor.

  38. You're Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But, it seems such a waste to put this type of effort into something so uneeded when there are so many needed things that could use the effort.

    Most FOSS is severely lacking in features and or quality. To the point that after using Linux solely for the past 14 years, I seriously considering a switch to Windows or, secondarily, Mac.

    But wait! Now there's Vi in Emacs! It's asinine.

    1. Re:You're Right by TheCycoONE · · Score: 1

      Then pay someone to fix your problems. When I'm not at work, I'll write whatever code I want no matter how useless the rest of the world thinks it is; and it's certainly no more a waste than watching TV or getting drunk at tropical destination X.

  39. WordStar by gbr · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows that Wordstar was the 'one true editor'.

    1. Re:WordStar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, Brief from UnderWare.

    2. Re:WordStar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone knows that Wordstar was the 'one true editor'.

      Speak for yourself gbr. It's of course DisplayWrite.

    3. Re:WordStar by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      And Emacs has had wordstar mode for decades.

  40. The Straightline Project by griffjon · · Score: 1

    Clearly, the thing lacking here is for both vim-in-emacs and emacs-in-vim to be so feature complete that you can nest them until you exhaust available memory. I propose that we codename the project to create this "straightline" , as it shall generate infinite jokes on /.

    --
    Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
  41. Modal editors. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why would you take a great non-modal editor and turn it into a horrible modal editor?

    What on earth is the point of that?

    Modal editors. Just say no.

  42. End of the World by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cat and ddb living together etc, etc.

  43. Oh I see by SchMoops · · Score: 1

    Ah, now I understand. "Evil" is the NAME of the editor. I thought that the Vim implementation in Emacs was both evil, and almost full.

  44. Are they still working on this? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    Geeze, I remember back in the... probably eighties... an VI emulator in Emacs. The Emacs squids (all two of them) were selling it hard as superior to native VI in every way. So I tried it... and it was pants. In order to use it effectively, you had to be skilled in both Emacs *and* VI, which kind-of negates the purpose. I didn't use VI because I thought it was superior, I used it because it was ubiquitous. Having to learn Emacs so that I can use a VI emulator is insanity.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  45. Re: Emacs key bindings by rnturn · · Score: 1

    Maybe if the Ctrl key was back on the left side of the keyboard next to the `A` (as God intended it to be) you wouldn't have that problem.

    I knew Emacs key bindings before I actually ever used Emacs so my fingers have adapted. My first PC (Columbia XT-clone) shipped with the Perfect programs (PerfectWriter, PerfectCalc, etc.) and they all used Emacs key bindings. A few years later when I worked with a Tektronics 8086-based workstation that had Emacs, I was all set and have never looked back.

    My beef with `vi' is that there are so many implementations of it. On some flavors of UNIX, `vi' allows the cursor keys to be used for moving around in the text while you are in input mode while on others you need to drop out of input mode to move to another line. (I can't count how many times I've farked up a file because of that difference and had to bail out with `q!' to ensure I didn't leave any bizarre characters in the file.) At least `ed' is consistent across different vendors' UNIXes and if I find that Emacs is not available, I can always depend on good 'ol `ed', stone axe that it is, especially in single user mode when `vi' might not be available. Back in my DOS days, the `ed' ripoff 'edlin' was a must on any emergency tools floppy -- it didn't require much space on your 360KB diskette -- so when I migrated over to UNIX, I was at right at home.

    --
    CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
  46. Hey Thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then pay someone to fix your problems. When I'm not at work, I'll write whatever code I want no matter how useless the rest of the world thinks it is; and it's certainly no more a waste than watching TV or getting drunk at tropical destination X.

    Hey, thanks! Like I stated in my previous post, I'm on the verge of doing exactly that, paying Apple or Microsoft for doing a better/proper job. Oh, I know that you really meant that I should pay the legions of FOSS developers, to never quite finish or get it right. But, the work's already been done and its high quality or more complete feature set is there to see, with a volume type price on it to boot.

    So, go ahead and code what you want to code. Go ahead and recursively re-implement an inadequate editor inside of an inadequate editor(they're both pretty unusable when compared to today's mainstream GUI editors) if that's what you like. But, don't ask others to use your stuff. Don't even insinuate that you stuff is superior to anything else. Don't whine that you are the only one using your stuff and that you really need help from users and developers to make it better. Don't even open your mouth because I won't hear you. I won't care about you or your code. I'll be gone using what the rest of the world is using and doing just fine.

    In fairness to you though, your comparison to watching TV is a good one. Re-implemnting vi inside of Emacs is indeed remarkably similar to the intelligence level of the alpha wave state of a drooling TV watcher.

  47. Re: Emacs key bindings by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Maybe if the Ctrl key was back on the left side of the keyboard next to the `A` (as God intended it to be) you wouldn't have that problem.

    Ah the old PC vs. Sun keyboard challenge. I still have to deal with both every day.

    The other nice thing about leaving the standard Emacs key bindings in place is they are generally the default bindings for the Emacs modes in other applications, like Tcsh, Bash, Ksh, readline(), etc...

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  48. You are confused by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Since vim isn't extensible, having a phone is unlikely. In emacs I would almost believe it to be possible.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:You are confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's lisp, of course it's possible.

    2. Re:You are confused by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      Oh really? :)

      VIM has it's own scripting language. If UI can be represented as a text, it can be coded in VIM.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  49. Everything by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I'm curious: what emacs feature does not have a vim equiv (either built-in, or via a plugin)?

    Basically the fact that you can alter any aspect of how the editor (or modes) work while in the editor.

    Every Emacs command is like a vim plugin that you can modify on the fly.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Everything by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      Every Emacs command is like a vim plugin that you can modify on the fly.

      You do realize that VIM plug-ins are plain programs written in the VIM Script language?

      One can customize a lot in the VIM without ever leaving the text editor. And even write simple programs, right on the ':' prompt.

      VIM Script is no Lisp, but still feature-complete language with flow control, variables, lists/arrays, dictionaries and so on. And the command prompt in the VIM (':') uses the VIM Script, because it is compatible with the normal commands (editor/ex command == VIM Script statement).

      Again, VIM is not vi. When flaming about vi vs. Emacs, please keep that in mind.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  50. Nothing for years that doesn't have emacs... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I don't think I've ever seen a unix, linux or BSD system that didn't have some kind of vi on it. I've seen very many that don't have emacs.

    In the past, yes. For about the last decade? No. Every UNIX made for a long time now includes emacs unless the sysadmin chose to remove it.

    The last system I had to add emacs to was around 20 years ago, HPUX/MPE. That and two VAX systems. But luckily it was not too hard to compile emacs for either.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Nothing for years that doesn't have emacs... by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      I don't think I've ever seen a unix, linux or BSD system that didn't have some kind of vi on it. I've seen very many that don't have emacs.

      In the past, yes. For about the last decade? No. Every UNIX made for a long time now includes emacs unless the sysadmin chose to remove it.

      The last system I had to add emacs to was around 20 years ago, HPUX/MPE. That and two VAX systems. But luckily it was not too hard to compile emacs for either.

      That's not my experience. It's not installed in my new arch machine, my new debian machine, or my new mint machine. Vi is installed on all of these as standard. Sure I could install emacs very easily but you said it's there unless the sysadmin removed it, and I certainly never removed, or even looked for it, before today.

  51. No good genuinely-free text editors out there... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I cannot use this GPLv3 add-on to a GPLv3 editor.

    A few years ago I whined that there are no good text editors / IDE's out there with a genuine free software license - only ye olde nvi, mg (tiny emacs clone), and a few Windows/Mac-only and SlowScriptKiddyLanguage-based options... The situation remains unchanged today.

    My attempt to convince the vim lead developer to relicense (so that *BSD OS'es could include it in base) has led nowhere... I guess he thinks Evil Microsoft wants to "steal" vim code for Visual Studio 2015 ::rolleyes::...

    A zillion editors out there, and all of them bundled with unethical anti-market legal threats...

    Very depressing...

    --libman

  52. Plenty of choices for scripting by mangu · · Score: 1

    For scripting text editing, I have a full range of options. For simple tasks, I use bash + sed, for more complex tasks I use Perl, when I need to perform some very complex editing in a million lines of code, bison is the choice.

  53. Re: Emacs key bindings by donaldm · · Score: 1

    Even looking back on the 1980's and many different flavours of Unix and now Linux the basic "vi" commands have not changed. If you absolutely needed your keyboard cursor keys to move your screen cursor you still needed to have a decent termcap entry for your particular terminal type, however if you use "h" (left), "j" (down), "k (up)", "l" (right) it always works no matter what terminal you use. Of course knowing other keyboard presses for cursor movement such a "w" (word forward), "b" (word back) as well as "i" (insert) and "a" (append) have not changed since vi was first written. The basic keyboard commands in vi are surprisingly logical if you think about them that is why I never bothered mapping keystrokes to function keys. You can even use vi on a teletype connected to your computer in single line mode.

    In the DOS days I actually used "little vi" and that fitted on a 360kB floppy disk so I had no real need to run "ed" or "edlin" although I was still proficient in "ed" since when Unix was brought down to single user mode to fix any issues you may not have access to "vi" if you could not mount the /usr file-system.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  54. Re: Emacs key bindings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    :un is your friend

  55. Wouldn't running this cause your computer to explo by haaz · · Score: 1

    ...in a great fireball of self-wrought annihilation brought on by the inherent and overwhelming contradictions of running vim inside Emacs?

    --
    -- haaz.
  56. Yo dawg! by Fartacus · · Score: 1

    I heard you like to edit, so I put vim in your emacs so you can edit while you edit...

  57. Re: Emacs key bindings by mattack2 · · Score: 1

    Maybe if the Ctrl key was back on the left side of the keyboard next to the `A` (as God intended it to be) you wouldn't have that problem.

    It is on this keyboard I'm using on my Mac Pro (through an ADBUSB adapter).. and you can remap caps lock -> control on other computer/keyboard combinations.