Name: Anonymous 2008-02-06 22:11
Sup /prog/, I know this is a holy war and all but I've used a LOT of text editors in my time and I'd like to present my piece and get some constructive feedback. Before I say anything, I need to state my disability. Because of a birth defect, my right hand is virtually useless on a keyboard except for one finger. So, around when I began learning to use a computer (age 11, am 22 now), I learned to type using only two fingers. You know, the really uneducated-looking-way of typing, right? Well, I'm not bad at it, really (80-120 wpm), but keep that in mind when noting my criticisms of Vi and Emacs.
In order, I learned the following editors:
edit - The original MSDOS editor. Nothing special, was neat for working with QBASIC back in the day
Notepad - Quick, minimal, but I didn't like the font back on Win95, so I stuck with Wordpad using Courier New 10
Notepad++ - Probably the best minimalist windows editor you can get, aside from just sshing into a linux box to use it's editors.
Pico/Nano - My first linux editors. While my teacher was spouting the goodness that is Vi, I was doing shit faster than everyone learning the command mode/insert mode differences. While I no longer use nano, I recognize it as a powerful, fast editor.
Vi - Now, I should've learned this when I first got on linux, but forgive me for being obstinate but a lot of the commands and control mechanisms are gearing towards people who type properly. I'm starting to speed up a bit when using it, but I'm still not as fast as on nano.
Emacs - Now this is where shit slows down. How the fuck does anyone get anything done using this thing? Control-V to go down a page?? Meta??? FUCK THIS SHIT
But seriously, why would anyone prefer Emacs over Vi or Nano? I can't even use Emacs from a shell, it pulls up a friggin GUI.
In order, I learned the following editors:
edit - The original MSDOS editor. Nothing special, was neat for working with QBASIC back in the day
Notepad - Quick, minimal, but I didn't like the font back on Win95, so I stuck with Wordpad using Courier New 10
Notepad++ - Probably the best minimalist windows editor you can get, aside from just sshing into a linux box to use it's editors.
Pico/Nano - My first linux editors. While my teacher was spouting the goodness that is Vi, I was doing shit faster than everyone learning the command mode/insert mode differences. While I no longer use nano, I recognize it as a powerful, fast editor.
Vi - Now, I should've learned this when I first got on linux, but forgive me for being obstinate but a lot of the commands and control mechanisms are gearing towards people who type properly. I'm starting to speed up a bit when using it, but I'm still not as fast as on nano.
Emacs - Now this is where shit slows down. How the fuck does anyone get anything done using this thing? Control-V to go down a page?? Meta??? FUCK THIS SHIT
But seriously, why would anyone prefer Emacs over Vi or Nano? I can't even use Emacs from a shell, it pulls up a friggin GUI.