Just a quick note to share something that I’m just learning after more than 15 years of using Emacs. I am, of course, aware that Viper and Evil are modes that emulate the Vi family of editors. It’s a way of letting immigrants from Vi/Vim retain their muscle memory while enjoying the superior working environment of Emacs.
I had always assumed that Viper is an older emulation that has since been replaced by Evil. That’s sort of correct but not quite precise. Over at the Emacs subreddit, CorysInTheHouse69 asks why, given that Viper is builtin, people prefer Evil over Viper. The answers surprised me.
It turns out that they actually have different aims. Viper is a Vi emulation while Evil is a Vim emulation. Unless you’re the type of person who prefers the original Vi to the “new-fangled” Vim and its siblings—and there are such folks—you probably want Evil, which offers a very faithful Vim emulation.
As a side note, several of the respondents note that the distinction between built in and third party packages is more political than practical these days. As I wrote the other day, Emacs makes no distinction between code that is built into Emacs and that which is added on. It can not, in fact, tell the difference. It is, as they say, turtles Elisp all the way down.
Regardless, if you, too, were ignorant about the different purposes of Viper and Evil, now you know.