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There is a lisp written in VimL[1], so it's theoretically possible. Practical, probably not. But possible. The long-running "emacs is a great OS without a text

There is a lisp written in VimL[1], so it's theoretically possible. Practical, probably not. But possible. The long-running "emacs is a great OS without a text editor" jab is partly true; Emacs is best described as a Lisp environment that happens to be built around a text editor. [1] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1986 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1986

rcfox 15y ago
Emacs isn't 100% Lisp, there's also C code at the lower levels.
davidw 15y ago
I think that doing a usability study on both of them would reveal that the usability people would run shrieking from the building once the basics were explained to them. On one hand, you peck at the esc button like a hungry chicken to do anything useful, with the other, your hands play twister on the keyboard "pinky.... CTRL... thumb... ALT... index finger... S". That said, I've never been even remotely tempted to move to anything besides Emacs, and at this point, it's ingrained in my fingers, so non-Emacs things really piss me off.
- rcfox 15y ago
  > so non-Emacs things really piss me off I'm just glad that C-x doesn't quit most applications while I'm trying to save.
  - prakashk 15y ago
    As someone who accidentally closed many, many firefox tabs by pressing C-w, especially when I am writing in a textbox which is even more annoying, I can't imagine the havoc it would wreak if C-x were to quit apps. I know there are alternatives like It's All Text extension [1] which lets me hook emacs into Firefox, but it's not been updated for recent versions of Firefox. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/its-all-text/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/its-all-text/
  - phzbOx 15y ago
    (I'm somewhat replying to the next message but HN didn't let me reply to it) There's conkeror that use the same renderer engine of Firefox but with emacs mentality of keybindings and customisability. Also, I've read that some people like to rebind their ctrl+W to something else so they don't have the habit to close their windows in other os/apps. IIRC, C-w is kill-region? Personally, as stated earlier, I use evil so I don't have that problem (I press d to delete the selected region).
- huahaiy 15y ago
  That usability study has already been done in 1980s and published in CHI, the conclusion is that vi is a better text editor than emacs.

rcfox 15y ago

Emacs isn't 100% Lisp, there's also C code at the lower levels.

davidw 15y ago

I think that doing a usability study on both of them would reveal that the usability people would run shrieking from the building once the basics were explained to them. On one hand, you peck at the esc button like a hungry chicken to do anything useful, with the other, your hands play twister on the keyboard "pinky.... CTRL... thumb... ALT... index finger... S". That said, I've never been even remotely tempted to move to anything besides Emacs, and at this point, it's ingrained in my fingers, so non-Emacs things really piss me off.

rcfox 15y ago
> so non-Emacs things really piss me off I'm just glad that C-x doesn't quit most applications while I'm trying to save.
- prakashk 15y ago
  As someone who accidentally closed many, many firefox tabs by pressing C-w, especially when I am writing in a textbox which is even more annoying, I can't imagine the havoc it would wreak if C-x were to quit apps. I know there are alternatives like It's All Text extension [1] which lets me hook emacs into Firefox, but it's not been updated for recent versions of Firefox. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/its-all-text/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/its-all-text/
- phzbOx 15y ago
  (I'm somewhat replying to the next message but HN didn't let me reply to it) There's conkeror that use the same renderer engine of Firefox but with emacs mentality of keybindings and customisability. Also, I've read that some people like to rebind their ctrl+W to something else so they don't have the habit to close their windows in other os/apps. IIRC, C-w is kill-region? Personally, as stated earlier, I use evil so I don't have that problem (I press d to delete the selected region).
huahaiy 15y ago
That usability study has already been done in 1980s and published in CHI, the conclusion is that vi is a better text editor than emacs.