Emacs and Vi(m)

Just in case you aren’t tired of the editor wars, Ron Wills has a short post that compares the two editors. There’s a lot of that going around, of course, but I like Wills’ post because his conclusions are neatly congruent with mine.

Two main points:

  • Many think of Emacs as being an editor with a Lisp extension language but Wills (and I) think that’s backwards. Emacs is actually a Lisp interpreter with a built-in editor as its font end.
  • Arguing about which editor is better is silly because they are two different types of applications with different intended uses. Vi is meant to be a lightweight editor that’s fast to load and easy to use. Emacs is, of course, also an editor but that’s only one of its faces. Emacs is a platform for performing just about any function you can perform on a computer. Which editor you think is best depends on what you’re looking for.

Wills and I agree on that last point. Use whichever editor best fits with your workflow. They’re both great editors. And who knows, maybe your needs will change and you’ll try the other. Lots of us have been down that path. In both directions.

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