Slashdot Mirror
Vim Beats Emacs in 'Linux Journal' Reader Survey (linuxjournal.com)
The newly-relaunched Linux Journal is conducting its annual "Reader's Choice Awards," and this month announced the winners for Best Text Editor, Best Laptop, and Best Domain Registrar. Vim was chosen as the best editor by 35% of respondents, handily beating GNU Emacs (19%) Sublime Text (10%) and Atom (8%).
Readers' Choice winner Vim is an extremely powerful editor with a user interface based on Bill Joy's 40-plus-year-old vi, but with many improved-upon features including extensive customization with key mappings and plugins. Linux Journal reader David Harrison points out another great thing about Vim "is that it's basically everywhere. It's available on every major platform."
For best laptop their readers picked Lenovo (32%), followed by Dell (25%) and System76 (11%). The ThinkPad began life at IBM, but in 2005, it was purchased by Lenovo along with the rest of IBM's PC business. Lenovo evolved the line, and today the company is well known as a geek favorite. Lenovo's ThinkPads are quiet, fast and arguably have one of the best keyboards (fighting words!). Linux Journal readers say Lenovo's Linux support is excellent, leaving many to ponder why the company doesn't ship laptops with Linux installed.
In February readers also voted on the best web browser, choosing Firefox (57%) over Chrome (17%) and Chromium (7%). And they also voted on the best Linux distribution, ultimately selecting Debian (33%), open SUSE (12%), and Fedora (11%).
For best laptop their readers picked Lenovo (32%), followed by Dell (25%) and System76 (11%). The ThinkPad began life at IBM, but in 2005, it was purchased by Lenovo along with the rest of IBM's PC business. Lenovo evolved the line, and today the company is well known as a geek favorite. Lenovo's ThinkPads are quiet, fast and arguably have one of the best keyboards (fighting words!). Linux Journal readers say Lenovo's Linux support is excellent, leaving many to ponder why the company doesn't ship laptops with Linux installed.
In February readers also voted on the best web browser, choosing Firefox (57%) over Chrome (17%) and Chromium (7%). And they also voted on the best Linux distribution, ultimately selecting Debian (33%), open SUSE (12%), and Fedora (11%).
It's popcorn time!
vim is great because it's on all platforms is like saying anal sex is great because it works on all genders.
Bob and Alice, where are you now?
It's a better editor.
Regarding the message "Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator." you get when you post a comment sometimes. I wonder if this message has EVER been an accurate description of what's happened, rather than someone who can type, typing a short message then pressing send.
Most of the Emacs users are still waiting for it to load so they can cast their vote.
alt.vim.die.die.die
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
How to enable color highlighting of source code in Vim OSX bash session?
Emacs works fine.
Hight Sierra 10.13.13
I guess that's settled.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Nuff said.
Sig ?
Blasphemy. It emulates they keyboard commands from WordStar which the Borland tools also emulated. It's the choice of many old-school programmers.
Around 1990 or so I started a new job where everyone used Emacs. So I thought I'd give it a shot. I had 2 major problems:
.emacsrc (or whatever it was called). Yeah, these folks had a huge config file that changed pretty much all the commands in some way or other, and they'd forgotten to mention it to me.
It was easy enough to fire up the help system. I couldn't figure out how to exit the help system to get back to my work without killing emacs and restarting.
A lot of the commands didn't work the way the manual said they would. About 6 months after going back to Vi a co-worker said "oh, you never got our
Every version is subtly different, and just because you can use the modern version doesn't mean you know the subset of common features that work everywhere.
Like how many people remember that old versions of vi didn't support arrow keys at all, and you had to use the jkim(hg?) keys to move the cursor left right up down?
While it is true some variant of these are available everywhere, just like pico/nano, they can't be relied on to be an iteration of the application you know how to use. Or like jed where the newer version has a traditional style toolbar along the top, instead of the two row bottom one they had throughout the 90s and early 00s, using F10 instead of alt to enter (either of which may need to be used with the toolbar iterations depending on which key passes through your connect chain unmodified.)
Most emacs users just ignore surveys.
Because I usually use "Joe", because of the WordStar compatibility, as I learned coding with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. I used Emacs for a while until the devel team there made some really stupid decisions, then I went back to Joe. So far it has compiled anywhere I tried and usually just works.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
VI's interface design was crafted to overcome the lack of a mouse and arrow keys on most computers back in the 1970s and 1980s. It's totally unnecessary today, and having to artificially switch between edit mode and cursor movement mode needlessly slows you down.
Emacs is way too reliant on the ctrl key. In grad school where we were encouraged to use emacs, I developed RSI in my left hand (pinky) from having to hold down ctrl so often when typing. Eventually I developed a habit of jamming it down with the side of my palm, but it's far from ideal. Alt is a better modifier key for repeated use IMHO, as your thumb on the space bar already sits next to it and you only have to curl the thumb a little to press it. I suspect the choice of ctrl as the modifier dates back to the 1970s when ctrl was typically positioned where caps lock is today.
These are the sorts of long-embedded user interface design choices I wish designers would challenge. Not useless and harmful stuff like flat UIs which slow you down and replacing informative text menus with a generic hamburger icon which simply adds an extra click to every menu navigation operation.
I've been using VIM for 20 years.
I swear one of these days I'll figure out how to quit the damn thing!
The top vote getters for text editor are vim and emacs? That right there tells you why linux will never succeed on the desktop.
Linux Journal reader David Harrison points out another great thing about Vim "is that it's basically everywhere. It's available on every major platform."
So is Emacs ding-dong.
My $0.02 - I'm a long-time Emacs and Vi user - since the mid 1980s. I use Vi /Vim for short/quick edits and Emacs for things I want more of an IDE. Vim is a fine, fairly simple, text editor and Emacs is, well, Emacs. Granted the learning curve for Emacs much higher to really take advantage of it, but it's well worth it over the long run. If I could only have one editor, it would be Emacs - no question.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
... that linux is dying. ;)
Anyone else here use Geany? With the plugin pack, it is my new favorite. Works the same way on Windows or Linux is another plus.
vim is great because it's on all platforms...
Oh come on. Vim is far more versatile than emacs. Have you ever seen anyone using emacs to clean their toilet?
You then can have them all at the same time. :D
All three companies Lenovo, Dell, and System76 ship systems that don't work properly under GNU/Linux. The idea that these are the best laptops for GNU/Linux is a fucking joke. Dell and Lenovo both ship systems with digital restrictions that prevent users from installing wifi cards that are actually properly supported under GNU/Linux. System76 routinely ships systems that have all sorts of problems from power management to graphics. The stupidity of Linux Journal readers blows my mind. There aren't many options- but these are NOT good choices. Neither are Apple's Macs or "Purism". I'd go with a 10 year old refurbished Mini Free laptop over any of these companies if nothing else at least these systems have properly supported components in them even if they have a higher failure rate due to age. ThinkPenguin might be another option for something newer. Can't really think of any other companies producing laptops that work well in GNU/Linux that I like.
So, those laptops that still, after three model years, don't have Linux driver for a fingerprint reader, those laptops that have a PCIe device whitelist, those laptops that actively prevent installation of a 3rd-party battery, those guys that basically destroyed all good that was in IBM ThinkPads, starting from the keyboard layout and display aspect ratio, have received "best laptop" from Linux Journal? How sweet.
Back in the 80s, I was exposed to emacs on Vaxen (Vaxes?) which were supposed to be pretty powerful mini-computers, and emacs would noticeably slow them down, whereas vi didn't. However, when I bought an Atari 520 ST, there was no good text editor I could find, until I came across microEmacs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroEMACS which I downloaded from Usenet (Ah Usenet in the 80s!) This thing was a very stripped down version of emacs that worked like a charm. Eventually, when computers got fast enough to run emacs I went back to using it now and then, partly because I already had the most commonly used keystrokes in my fingers' muscle memory. MicroEMACS was, and maybe still is, one nice bit of software.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
This kind of sums up the whole conversation...
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/r...
I ditched Sublime Text for Microsoft's Visual Studio Code because Sublime doesn't support Japanese IME under Linux. I use Vim as well for quick stuff.
Pft kids today ... get off my lawn you heathen. My gray neckbeard says vi and or emacs are the only editors
http://saveie6.com/
If you do app development and are not very old past aged 30 (sarcasm but semi serious in Silcon Valley) you may find Emacs is not so great with integrating and running tools for Android or web development.
If you are a system admin you probably use Vim and have no reason to change.
gcc and gdb too have both gotten a bad wrap after LLVM/Clang came out a few years ago to address issues of error reporting and integration with editors and ides. Other compilers with Atom.io and even Microsoft code with them offer a better development environment than Emacs today.
Really this debate is from the Reagan era as times are changing.
http://saveie6.com/
I like it that we beat SublimeText silly.
C'mon people! There are so many great editors out there today that are actually modern.
- Notepad++
- Sublime Text
- Visual Studio Code
- Visual Studio
These editors can do all the important stuff that vim and emacs could do, and you don't have to memorize a whole list of commands to use them!
Really guys??? Can we knock off the shit and accept an 'editor' does not need to be an IDE??? Literally 'nano' is about all you will ever have to do if you are doing proper devops, builds and tests.
Vim is really more a style of keybindings than strictly an editor at this point.
I worked with a temp/contractor who used Notepad for everything. He knew enough vi to be able to open it, cut/paste from Notepad, and save the file in *NIX.
vi, i, paste, esc, ZZ.
Contractors are good at sales, and that's about it!
Most people are beginners. When they are more serious and want to be a pro, they learn and use emacs for most of their stuff. I use both, however I use emacs a lot more. Only if I need to fix /etc/passwd or some other small config file where it's just a simple change. Otherwise why use vim? Use a real tool. Even works on the bash command line by default.
So, doesn't surprise me.
Saying that "no one gives a fuck that Windows dominates the desktop" is pretty funny. Since for years the Linux hordes said exactly that was their goal.
Once it became clear that Linux wasn't going to achieve desktop dominance, Linux devotees unclenched their anal sphincters and decided it wasn't the end of the world. However there are still plenty around here who will give unwanted, not asked for and inappropriate lectures on the merits of FOSS software. Often to innocent users who simply want to move something from A to B. The same goes in reverse for tirades about Microsoft.
So claiming credit for what "anyone gives a fuck about" is just retroactive goalpost movement.
30 years ago we had both vi and emacs. And I even started out as a rabid emacs users. But one simple thing changed that. I couldn't get emacs on any platform - the code wasn't portable enough to port to many of the Unix flavors I used for work, and I couldn't count on emacs being installed by default on any arbitrary vendor's platform. So I picked up vi and learned and threw out emacs. I still remember emacs commands but it's just water under the bridge now. There's no point to going back.
The other part of it are the interminable macros to install that assure that you will NEVER find two emacs installations that are the same which gets back to the universality of vi and knowing what you are getting and knowing you are getting it.
I strongly suspect the universal availability of vi or its clones is big part of the preference seen in this poll.