[ale] vi is the winner

[JK]

Mike Harrison wrote:

> I -can- use vi, but I gave up a moded editor in the 80's. 

Emacs used to be by far my preferred editor.  I'd used it
for years, knew how to customize it, and even wrote a
bunch of elisp code, including a major mode. Generally I
was very happy and productive.  Then on a whim one day i
decided to learn vi when building a new machine; so i installed
only vim and used it exclusively for several months. My
productivity dropped dramatically for a couple of weeks, but
eventually i was approximately as competent at editing with
vim as with emacs.  I even wrote some functions in the vim
scripting language.  And i produced some rudimetary instructions
for emacs users who want to learn vi (a tutorial niche that
seems pretty vacant on the 'net):

   http://www.kneuro.net/vi-for-emacs/

I now feel i've gone beyond the whole religious editor war.
I usually keep an XEmacs running on my desktop, especially
when writing Lisp code; but for some tasks i'll run vim
in a console.  And i no longer panic as i once did when
confronted with a machine possessing only vi.

By the same token, i'll write code in whatever language
is available, on whatever platform happens to be handy.

-- JK, would rather fight about politics than editors

-- 
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be
dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens