Over at the YouTube DistroTube Channel, Derek Taylor has an even handed video that explores the question Vim Versus Emacs. Which Is Better? Taylor is a n00b with both editors but has come to the same conclusion that I have: why would a serious developer not use one of these editors? The video is barely a week old as I write this so we can be sure that Taylor is aware of all the hot new coolness such as VS Code, Sublime Text, Atom, and the others but he still recommends the “ancient” Vi/Vim and Emacs editors.
Taylor starts off by making the same observation that I often have: comparing Vim and Emacs doesn’t make much sense because they are really different things. Vim is a fast, efficient editor that embraces the notion of doing one thing well. Emacs is more of a development environment that can do almost anything and ships with many built-in apps one of which is an editor.
Taylor is using the Doom distribution so he says actual editing between the two editors is virtually identical and not worth comparing. Rather, he looks at a range of other chores such as file handling, git, and invoking shells. He compares the ease of doing all these with the two editors. Oddly, he doesn’t mention the real Emacs killer app: Org Mode. Everyone here knows that I depend on Org mode and consider it one of the most important parts of Emacs but it’s not just me. Org mode is widely considered Emacs’ killer app and the gateway for many new Emacs users.
The video is 30 minutes, 37 seconds so you’ll need to schedule some time. If you’re interested in a relative new comer’s opinion on the great Editor War the video is definitely worth your time. Taylor is worth listening to because he doesn’t have any preconceived preferences and is not defending his own choices.