[COFF] editor wars

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2025 at 09:59:54AM -0400, Chet Ramey via COFF wrote:
> On 7/20/25 9:52 AM, Will Senn wrote:
> 
> >As a vi guy, I cannot even understand emac's appeal. I've tried countless
> >times, even going emacs only for a while... when I went back to vi, it was
> >like old shoes, very comfortable.
> 
> Because familiarity is very powerful. Lots of people mistake it for
> intuitiveness.

So many smart people I know love emacs.  I forced myself to live in it
for a year, not the emacs vi mode stuff, just straigth emacs.

I never got to the point that I liked it.  I think it's the lisp aspect,
if you don't love lisp, I don't think you'll love emacs.

vi just works for me.  And when I tried to get my kid to try emacs,
his comment was "I've watched you in vi, it's magic, I want that".
I do some simple stuff, here are the maps I use a lot:

    #             :.,$
    ,             !}fmt<CR>
    @             :1,.

So I can be on a paragraph and hit "," and it is reformatted to fit
in 80 columns.  I can be anywhere and do "#d" and that deletes to the
bottom, same thing "@d" and that deletes to the top.  Apparently that is
"magic" :-)