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Does anyone here switched from Emacs to Vim? Comments?

by kia 16y ago

fingerprinter 16y ago
I had a progression like this: Emacs -> Vi(m) -> Emacs When I started programming in college it was Lisp and C and I got a co-op working for a big defense contractor doing C and everyone there used Emacs so I used Emacs. I remember being very good at it at the time. Then I started to do quite a bit of sys admin work along with Perl and web scripting during the dotcom days and switched to Vi as I found it much quicker to use when doing sys admin tasks and Perl was quite simple as well. Then I started to do enterprise Java development. I call these my 'dark years'. Eclipse, IntelliJ and others but with Vi keybindings if I could find plugins for them (search and replace in Vi is great...love just hitting the '/' and beginning to type.) Then I started to do some Erlang and Clojure and I Vi wasn't cutting it anymore. So I started to use Emacs again (this is about 12 years later at this point, btw) and realized I didn't remember anything. So I grabbed Emacs Start Kit on github, forked it and started to hack up an environment I felt comfortable in. Slowly It has been coming back to me, but in the time since I was out of Emacs there have been some good advancements. At this point, I think I have the best of both worlds in that I know Vi(m) pretty well, have a really good .vimrc that I like and I also have an ability to use Emacs for non-trivial tasks and feel I'll be able to really use it in about 3 more months of steady use. The weirdest thing is trying to hit escape (or 'jj' as I've remapped it) in Emacs... All in all, I think I will end up preferring Emacs for non-trivial tasks and still use Vim for basic text editing or sys admin tasks. I do like both for their various strong points, but at the same time I have to say that both are quite annoying in other ways. I just have to learn to love their strengths rather than hate their weaknesses.
- unoti 16y ago
  You raise an interesting point: what you're editing has a big impact on the effectiveness of the editor you're using. When I first learned vi, I kind of hated it because I was editing code on an ancient system that used a COBOL-like language, in which most things were in upper case. Because vi's commands are all case sensitive, combined with the fact that I used capslock a lot for coding, it was kind of a pain. Also this language did not use a c-like syntax with punctuation, it instead used a lot of english words. Later when I switched to editing C source code with vi, suddenly vi's quirks and methods of operation become far, far more productive than they were using vi.
cornedpig 16y ago
I have, XEmacs -> Vim. I had a very simple reason. I spend 4 hours a day in front of an editor, so I need something very powerful. I had standardized on XEmacs, but I had to stop when the pinky muscle strain got too bad (this was years after having remapped caps-lock to control). My hand would hurt when I got home. I usually program in C/C++, Perl, and some XML & text editing, so I wasn't using Emacs' dynamic or programmable features much. Vim is attractive because there's not really a need for modifier keys, just key sequences. Additionally, the great text navigation features are good when working with large existing codebases, it makes reading other people's code easier. I kept going back to Emacs for XML editing for a while, but the mental overhead of keeping track of two systems is a bit much, and I found Komodo Edit a nice replacement (that incidentally also has a Vi-mode). The only thing I really miss from Emacs is being able to "Ctrl-K" 3 times and pressing "Ctrl-Y" once to move 3 lines. With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump.
- verysimple 16y ago
  > The only thing I really miss from Emacs is being able to "Ctrl-K" 3 times and pressing "Ctrl-Y" once to move 3 lines. With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump. I suppose you are a recent Vimer. I'd suggest to once in a while peruse threads offering Vim tips, such as in Stackoverflow. You might find some true gems in there. As noted by auxbuss, [shift-v jjj x] solves your issue.
- auxbuss 16y ago
  "The only thing I really miss from Emacs is being able to "Ctrl-K" 3 times and pressing "Ctrl-Y" once to move 3 lines. With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump." V-jjj-x If I understand you correctly. I don't speak emacs.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- prog 16y ago
  > With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump. With Vim 7.3, a new option 'relativenumber' was introduced to help with this. From :h relativenumber Show the line number relative to the line with the cursor in front of each line. Relative line numbers help you use the |count| you can precede some vertical motion commands (e.g. j k + -) with, without having to calculate it yourself. Especially useful in combination with other commands (e.g. y d c < > gq gw =).

Does anyone here switched from Emacs to Vim? Comments?

by kia 16y ago

Does anyone here switched from Emacs to Vim? Comments?

I had a progression like this: Emacs -> Vi(m) -> Emacs When I started programming in college it was Lisp and C and I got a co-op working for a big defense contractor doing C and everyone there used Emacs so I used Emacs. I remember being very good at it at the time. Then I started to do quite a bit of sys admin work along with Perl and web scripting during the dotcom days and switched to Vi as I found it much quicker to use when doing sys admin tasks and Perl was quite simple as well. Then I started to do enterprise Java development. I call these my 'dark years'. Eclipse, IntelliJ and others but with Vi keybindings if I could find plugins for them (search and replace in Vi is great...love just hitting the '/' and beginning to type.) Then I started to do some Erlang and Clojure and I Vi wasn't cutting it anymore. So I started to use Emacs again (this is about 12 years later at this point, btw) and realized I didn't remember anything. So I grabbed Emacs Start Kit on github, forked it and started to hack up an environment I felt comfortable in. Slowly It has been coming back to me, but in the time since I was out of Emacs there have been some good advancements. At this point, I think I have the best of both worlds in that I know Vi(m) pretty well, have a really good .vimrc that I like and I also have an ability to use Emacs for non-trivial tasks and feel I'll be able to really use it in about 3 more months of steady use. The weirdest thing is trying to hit escape (or 'jj' as I've remapped it) in Emacs... All in all, I think I will end up preferring Emacs for non-trivial tasks and still use Vim for basic text editing or sys admin tasks. I do like both for their various strong points, but at the same time I have to say that both are quite annoying in other ways. I just have to learn to love their strengths rather than hate their weaknesses.

unoti 16y ago
You raise an interesting point: what you're editing has a big impact on the effectiveness of the editor you're using. When I first learned vi, I kind of hated it because I was editing code on an ancient system that used a COBOL-like language, in which most things were in upper case. Because vi's commands are all case sensitive, combined with the fact that I used capslock a lot for coding, it was kind of a pain. Also this language did not use a c-like syntax with punctuation, it instead used a lot of english words. Later when I switched to editing C source code with vi, suddenly vi's quirks and methods of operation become far, far more productive than they were using vi.

cornedpig 16y ago

I have, XEmacs -> Vim. I had a very simple reason. I spend 4 hours a day in front of an editor, so I need something very powerful. I had standardized on XEmacs, but I had to stop when the pinky muscle strain got too bad (this was years after having remapped caps-lock to control). My hand would hurt when I got home. I usually program in C/C++, Perl, and some XML & text editing, so I wasn't using Emacs' dynamic or programmable features much. Vim is attractive because there's not really a need for modifier keys, just key sequences. Additionally, the great text navigation features are good when working with large existing codebases, it makes reading other people's code easier. I kept going back to Emacs for XML editing for a while, but the mental overhead of keeping track of two systems is a bit much, and I found Komodo Edit a nice replacement (that incidentally also has a Vi-mode). The only thing I really miss from Emacs is being able to "Ctrl-K" 3 times and pressing "Ctrl-Y" once to move 3 lines. With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump.

verysimple 16y ago
> The only thing I really miss from Emacs is being able to "Ctrl-K" 3 times and pressing "Ctrl-Y" once to move 3 lines. With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump. I suppose you are a recent Vimer. I'd suggest to once in a while peruse threads offering Vim tips, such as in Stackoverflow. You might find some true gems in there. As noted by auxbuss, [shift-v jjj x] solves your issue.
auxbuss 16y ago
"The only thing I really miss from Emacs is being able to "Ctrl-K" 3 times and pressing "Ctrl-Y" once to move 3 lines. With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump." V-jjj-x If I understand you correctly. I don't speak emacs.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
prog 16y ago
> With Vim you have to count the number of lines ahead of the operation, which is a real speedbump. With Vim 7.3, a new option 'relativenumber' was introduced to help with this. From :h relativenumber Show the line number relative to the line with the cursor in front of each line. Relative line numbers help you use the |count| you can precede some vertical motion commands (e.g. j k + -) with, without having to calculate it yourself. Especially useful in combination with other commands (e.g. y d c < > gq gw =).