Here’s a simple ViGolf challenge that has a simple solution in Emacs. Given
(a) (abc) (abcd) (123456)
turn it into
___ _____ ______ ________
That is, replace everything in the sexpr with an underscore. This is really easy with Emacs using query-replace-regexp. Here’s a solution in only 8 keystrokes. The best Vim solution is 11, so Emacs definitely wins this one.
| 【Meta+Ctrl+%】 | Invoke query-replace-regexp |
\S- 【Return】 |
Replace non-spaces with |
_ 【Return】 |
Underscores |
! |
For the whole buffer |
On the other hand, my experience has been that every time I think I have the best possible solution, one of my way smarter readers shows me a much better way. If you can beat 8 keystrokes, leave a comment and tell us how a real master does it.