{"id":7261,"date":"2018-06-08T11:22:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T15:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=7261"},"modified":"2018-06-08T11:22:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T15:22:42","slug":"emacs-for-vim-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=7261","title":{"rendered":"Emacs for Vim Users"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’ve said before, engineers may switch between Emacs and Vim but they seldom switch from Emacs or Vim to another editor<\/a>. Sure, you see folks try out the newest shiny thing\u2014VS Code<\/a> is the latest example\u2014but somehow they always come home like the prodigal son repenting their errors. I don’t know of an easy way to move from Emacs to Vim but Evil mode<\/a>, Spacemacs<\/a>, and Doom<\/a> make moving in the other direction pretty easy. <\/p>\n

Mark Dawson from the Swansea Academy of Advanced Computing<\/a> has a nice video<\/a> that documents his transition from Vim to Emacs via Spacemacs. Like me, he was a long time Vim user and had a large investment in the muscle memory and techniques of a Vim user. By using Spacemacs, his investment in Vim is largely preserved while gaining the advantages of Emacs at the same time. <\/p>\n

Dawson’s account is a balanced one. He notes the pros and cons of both Vim and Emacs and shows how the Vim user can almost transparently move to Emacs. Dawson cites things like extensibility to justify his switch but I think it mainly depends on what you want. If you want an editor that prioritizes text editing in the fastest, most efficient way possible and leaves unrelated tasks to other applications, then Vim is probably your best bet. If you want an almost infinitely malleable environment that integrates editing with other functions\u2014a light-weight Lisp Machine as I like to think of it\u2014then Emacs is for you. <\/p>\n

If you’re currently a Vim user and think you’d like the environment that Emacs offers but are loath to abandon your investment in Vim, Dawson’s video shows you a way forward. Take a look at his video. It’s an informal presentation to his colleagues and may help you decide whether or not you want to switch. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I’ve said before, engineers may switch between Emacs and Vim but they seldom switch from Emacs or Vim to another editor. Sure, you see folks try out the newest shiny thing\u2014VS Code is the latest example\u2014but somehow they always … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-7261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-emacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7262,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261\/revisions\/7262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}