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> The holy war between vim and emacs is like a bunch of machinists arguing over whether they prefer a lathe, or an entire machine shop that also includes a lath

by nocman 2y ago

> The holy war between vim and emacs is like a bunch of machinists arguing over whether they prefer a lathe, or an entire machine shop that also includes a lathe if you want it. IMHO not really a fair comparison. There are signifcant differences in the feel and the workflow between using vim and using emacs in evil mode. Other people have preferences that differ from yours. I have many years experience using both vim and emacs (in evil-mode), and I see both sides. Don't get me wrong, emacs in evil mode is great, and I would not want to be without it, but it does not 100% reproduce the workflow of logging in to a terminal and editing text there in vim. The differences are significant. I'm not saying the experience in emacs is bad, it's just different. If you already have, say, 10 years of muscle memory built up from using vim in a terminal, it will take a fair amount of adjustment to move to an emacs/evil-mode way of doing things. I personally see no reason that I have to pick one or the other, and at present I spend a lot of time in both editors. I realize that would drive some people crazy, but I'm OK with my preferences being a little unusual.

emptysongglass 2y ago
As someone who uses both, no, the differences are almost entirely cosmetic. The holy war is dumb and over. The jokes are stupid. Whenever anyone tries to bring it up, just tell them to knock it off.
- nocman 2y ago
  I heartily disagree. The differences are almost entirely non-cosmetic, IMHO. I am fine with the "holy war" talk as long as it is just good-natured tongue-in-cheek fun (which it often is, in my experience). Often the stupidity of the jokes is purposeful, and is intended to be programmers poking fun at themselves almost as much as they are poking fun of their peers. However, if someone, in all seriousness, says "you are just stupid or unskilled if you use X" (where 'X' is whichever editor you choose to use), well I'll just tune that out at the first opportunity.

by nocman 2y ago

emptysongglass 2y ago

As someone who uses both, no, the differences are almost entirely cosmetic. The holy war is dumb and over. The jokes are stupid. Whenever anyone tries to bring it up, just tell them to knock it off.

nocman 2y ago
I heartily disagree. The differences are almost entirely non-cosmetic, IMHO. I am fine with the "holy war" talk as long as it is just good-natured tongue-in-cheek fun (which it often is, in my experience). Often the stupidity of the jokes is purposeful, and is intended to be programmers poking fun at themselves almost as much as they are poking fun of their peers. However, if someone, in all seriousness, says "you are just stupid or unskilled if you use X" (where 'X' is whichever editor you choose to use), well I'll just tune that out at the first opportunity.