4 ms·

> I'd say emacs has a minor edge in that tab is a command to indent to the correct level, not to insert characters. I've had this in basic code editors for...

> I'd say emacs has a minor edge in that tab is a command to indent to the correct level, not to insert characters. I've had this in basic code editors for... 10 years or so? It's hardly an emacs thing.

Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
To be fair, this applies to vi/vim as well. I hear it all the time. People saying things like "I use vi/vim instead of an IDE because I can do X" where X is a feature that every IDE worth using has had for 10 years. I've literally had someone say that they use vi/vim because it does syntax highlighting. What were they using before? Notepad? gedit? Even gedit has syntax highlighting. "Oh, I use this magical vim plugin that lets me hit this magical key combination and all my code gets automatically formatted." Yeah, but Visual Studio, PyCharm, Eclipse, and basically any other IDE do that out of the box. No plugins necessary. I don't think I've ever seen someone describe a feature that vi/vim/emacs has that an IDE doesn't (EDIT: Other than the fact that every *nix system is going to have vi, but that's just an argument for knowing how to use it, not one for preferring it over an IDE if one is available). It's like iPhone versus Android about five years ago, where the iPhone fanboys/girls would praise Apple for their innovation for implementing features Android had over a year prior.
- teddyh 9y ago
  > I don't think I've ever seen someone describe a feature that vi/vim/emacs has that an IDE doesn't Emacs can seamlessly access files over ssh, ftp and/or sudo. Emacs lets me add custom hook commands to run before a file is saved (to check a file’s syntax using an external command), and after it’s saved (to signal reloading of the file to the relevant process). Emacs also includes my mail reader, my diary, my organizer, a spreadsheet, an stack-based algebraic calculator, etc. but those may be unfair comparisons. :) Note: All of the above are part of the built-in functionality of Emacs. Third-party extensions can of course do anything.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    There's an argument that Emacs is a collection of extensions to lisp that happens to include a text editor
- mikebenfield 9y ago
  > I don't think I've ever seen someone describe a feature that vi/vim/emacs has that an IDE doesn't Maybe this has changed in recent years, but in the past whenever I tried IDEs I would be amazed that they didn't have keyboard macros.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Most have support but it's usually supported via plugin API (trivial in most cases)
- jcranberry 9y ago
  I find vims block highlighting (ctrl+v) very useful, never noticed it being part of an IDE. That being said I don't think it's that big a deal but I've seen some fucking vim wizards churn out code faster than what's reasonable for human beings
  - hayden592 9y ago
    The Jetbrains suite and Sublime text have this feature. Hold Alt while selecting with the mouse.
  - Sean1708 9y ago
    > I find vims block highlighting (ctrl+v) very useful, never noticed it being part of an IDE. As far as I'm aware multicursors are a superset of block editing (i.e. multicursors can emulate block editing but the reverse is not true), so many (most?) modern IDEs can at least emulate block editing.
- caseymarquis 9y ago
  Modal editing? Of course, that's what vim plugins are for. Only Pycharm has it out of the box (as a setting) of the above mentioned IDEs.
dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
Really? Do you have an example? I've never run into this before. Not that it's hard, it's just that other editors haven't done it (that I've seen).

Sohcahtoa82 9y ago

To be fair, this applies to vi/vim as well. I hear it all the time. People saying things like "I use vi/vim instead of an IDE because I can do X" where X is a feature that every IDE worth using has had for 10 years. I've literally had someone say that they use vi/vim because it does syntax highlighting. What were they using before? Notepad? gedit? Even gedit has syntax highlighting. "Oh, I use this magical vim plugin that lets me hit this magical key combination and all my code gets automatically formatted." Yeah, but Visual Studio, PyCharm, Eclipse, and basically any other IDE do that out of the box. No plugins necessary. I don't think I've ever seen someone describe a feature that vi/vim/emacs has that an IDE doesn't (EDIT: Other than the fact that every *nix system is going to have vi, but that's just an argument for knowing how to use it, not one for preferring it over an IDE if one is available). It's like iPhone versus Android about five years ago, where the iPhone fanboys/girls would praise Apple for their innovation for implementing features Android had over a year prior.

teddyh 9y ago
> I don't think I've ever seen someone describe a feature that vi/vim/emacs has that an IDE doesn't Emacs can seamlessly access files over ssh, ftp and/or sudo. Emacs lets me add custom hook commands to run before a file is saved (to check a file’s syntax using an external command), and after it’s saved (to signal reloading of the file to the relevant process). Emacs also includes my mail reader, my diary, my organizer, a spreadsheet, an stack-based algebraic calculator, etc. but those may be unfair comparisons. :) Note: All of the above are part of the built-in functionality of Emacs. Third-party extensions can of course do anything.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  There's an argument that Emacs is a collection of extensions to lisp that happens to include a text editor
mikebenfield 9y ago
> I don't think I've ever seen someone describe a feature that vi/vim/emacs has that an IDE doesn't Maybe this has changed in recent years, but in the past whenever I tried IDEs I would be amazed that they didn't have keyboard macros.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  Most have support but it's usually supported via plugin API (trivial in most cases)
jcranberry 9y ago
I find vims block highlighting (ctrl+v) very useful, never noticed it being part of an IDE. That being said I don't think it's that big a deal but I've seen some fucking vim wizards churn out code faster than what's reasonable for human beings
- hayden592 9y ago
  The Jetbrains suite and Sublime text have this feature. Hold Alt while selecting with the mouse.
- Sean1708 9y ago
  > I find vims block highlighting (ctrl+v) very useful, never noticed it being part of an IDE. As far as I'm aware multicursors are a superset of block editing (i.e. multicursors can emulate block editing but the reverse is not true), so many (most?) modern IDEs can at least emulate block editing.
caseymarquis 9y ago
Modal editing? Of course, that's what vim plugins are for. Only Pycharm has it out of the box (as a setting) of the above mentioned IDEs.

dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago

Really? Do you have an example? I've never run into this before. Not that it's hard, it's just that other editors haven't done it (that I've seen).