2 ms·
There's a fundamental difference between vi and emacs as far as keybindings go. New Tricks for an Old Terminal Driver, Eric Fischer, Usenix '99, https://www.us
by bediger4000 4y ago
There's a fundamental difference between vi and emacs as far as keybindings go.
New Tricks for an Old Terminal Driver, Eric Fischer, Usenix '99, https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix99/full_papers/Fischer/fischer.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix99/full_papers/Fis...
In the "User interface" section, Fischer mentions that an Emacs mode is "much easier" to write than a vi mode, but really doesn't give reasons.
- gumby 4y agoEmacs is modeless and none of its commands are printing characters so you can just have a buffer and as a command keystroke arrives, just handle it immediately. (Emacs does have a thing called “modes” but they are unrelated to the use of the term in UI discussions).
- bediger4000 4y agoIf that were the problem, I'm sure Fischer would have written that, as it would have been shorter than what he did write.
- gumby 4y agoI think that is what he said, but about the hard part with vi as opposed to my comment about why emacs would be easier: "...vi’s compound command structure and the awkward access to data in BSD queues..." in other words vi's commands are printing characters, and you have to consume a few before you know what to do, rather than direct, modeless execution, which is painful due to lookahead issues in the input buffer. Then the rest are examples. At least that's how it reads to me. The link you posted didn't work for me but this did: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/usenix99/full_papers/fischer/fischer.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin...