5 ms·

Together, vim and vi have over four times as many invocations as emacs. I like to think it's beacuse vim is more popular, but it might also mean that vim users

Together, vim and vi have over four times as many invocations as emacs. I like to think it's beacuse vim is more popular, but it might also mean that vim users are more likely to pop in and out of vim while emacs users run emacs once and then never go back to bash-land.

ripter 14y ago
"vim users are more likely to pop in and out of vim" I suspect this is the case. I leave my emacs running for the entire work week. When I need to make a quick change and go back to the terminal I pop open vim.
- to3m 14y ago
  This is what I do, too. I also load emacs by clicking an icon - I doubt I've run it from the terminal more than a handful of times. (I've never figured out how to make terminal emacs work properly anyway - half the keybindings don't work, and it's a different half in each terminal program.)
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    Ditto here. I've given up editing files remotely, except for trivial changes via vi/vim.
thirsteh 14y ago
It might also mean that vim users are more likely to check their ~/.* files into a public Git repository. You really can't do that much with the information that vim was invoked more.
- merlincorey 14y ago
  In addition to the fact that emacs is usually invoked once, and then operated from within, I think history deduplication could play a role as well. Essentially, the data is not so cut and dried.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  I'm a near-rabid Vim user, but I also came here to point that out. You can't draw conclusions about what people in general do from a sample of people who check in their history files.
  - chacha102 14y ago
    The sample size of this experiment is also not very large. If you look at the axis on the graphs, we're not talking in numbers that would let you to create solid generalizations.
est 14y ago
No, it's just vi/vim is pre-installed. Just like notepad. You can't easily install emacs on a server or something.
- aardvark179 14y ago
  We don't need to, ssh and tramp mean you can just edit the files in your local emacs.
- spudlyo 14y ago
  yum install emacs-nox I worked for over 5 years as remote DBA/sysadmin and I must have installed emacs on hundreds of customer boxen. It never once was an issue.
  - est 14y ago
    Not everyone can root. By the time you solved all dependency with yum I finished editing the file with vi already.
recoil 14y ago
Going back as long as I can remember (slashdot in the late 90s), all the completely unscientific web polls I've seen [1][2][3] favour vi(m) by at least 2 to 1. (FWIW, I am an emacs user). [1] From HN about a year ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717754 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717754 [2] Another random poll I found searching HN - http://gopollgo.com/which-editor-do-you-prefer-emacs-or-vi http://gopollgo.com/which-editor-do-you-prefer-emacs-or-vi [3] Slashdot poll from 2009, the earliest/only one I can actually find right now - http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1717&aid=-1 http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1717&aid=-1
naner 14y ago
I don't launch Emacs from the shell. If I need to do something quick in the shell I use zile (simple console text editor with emacs keybindings). I also don't close Emacs often so I don't need to invoke it frequently...
- Myrmornis 14y ago
  You might like using the emacs server. (require 'server) (server-start) Then some shell aliases for instantaneous emacs from the shell: alias e="emacsclient --no-wait" Now $ e myfile.c in the shell will open the file instantaneously in the running emacs and the OS will switch window focus to emacs. I use this a lot; magit-status on the current repo: $ cat ~/bin/egit emacsclient --no-wait \ --eval "(magit-status \"$PWD\")" \ --eval "(progn (select-frame-set-input-focus (selected-frame)) (delete-other-windows))"
  - naner 14y ago
    Yes, I've used it before. It isn't really necessary for my uses. Also it's easier to sudo zile than go through Tramp for editing system files.
    - Myrmornis 14y ago
      Agree about tramp not being the solution. How is zile an improvement over emacs -nw -q ?
      - naner 14y ago
        Fewer characters? :) I dunno. I've done that in the past (actually using a separate init), too. Zile just seems simpler and it works fine for me. There's a billion ways to do things, it is hard to justify idiosyncrasies. I think what started it was that I drastically simplified my emacs init file (used to be several files, very smart and thought-out but massive and filled with rarely-used stuff) and I found myself always popping into nano for quick edits to system files. Well this quickly got annoying as there were conflicting key bindings with emacs and my muscle-memory was causing frequent errors. So I googled an emacs-flavored nano and settled on the first one I tried. Then I aliased nano to 'echo "USE ZILE"' until that became second nature, too.
brodney 14y ago
The graph shows the percentage of history files the command appears in, not the total frequency the word appears in the histories.

ripter 14y ago

"vim users are more likely to pop in and out of vim" I suspect this is the case. I leave my emacs running for the entire work week. When I need to make a quick change and go back to the terminal I pop open vim.

to3m 14y ago
This is what I do, too. I also load emacs by clicking an icon - I doubt I've run it from the terminal more than a handful of times. (I've never figured out how to make terminal emacs work properly anyway - half the keybindings don't work, and it's a different half in each terminal program.)
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  Ditto here. I've given up editing files remotely, except for trivial changes via vi/vim.

thirsteh 14y ago

It might also mean that vim users are more likely to check their ~/.* files into a public Git repository. You really can't do that much with the information that vim was invoked more.

merlincorey 14y ago
In addition to the fact that emacs is usually invoked once, and then operated from within, I think history deduplication could play a role as well. Essentially, the data is not so cut and dried.
nathan_long 14y ago
I'm a near-rabid Vim user, but I also came here to point that out. You can't draw conclusions about what people in general do from a sample of people who check in their history files.
- chacha102 14y ago
  The sample size of this experiment is also not very large. If you look at the axis on the graphs, we're not talking in numbers that would let you to create solid generalizations.

est 14y ago

No, it's just vi/vim is pre-installed. Just like notepad. You can't easily install emacs on a server or something.

aardvark179 14y ago
We don't need to, ssh and tramp mean you can just edit the files in your local emacs.
spudlyo 14y ago
yum install emacs-nox I worked for over 5 years as remote DBA/sysadmin and I must have installed emacs on hundreds of customer boxen. It never once was an issue.
- est 14y ago
  Not everyone can root. By the time you solved all dependency with yum I finished editing the file with vi already.

recoil 14y ago

Going back as long as I can remember (slashdot in the late 90s), all the completely unscientific web polls I've seen [1][2][3] favour vi(m) by at least 2 to 1. (FWIW, I am an emacs user). [1] From HN about a year ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717754 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717754 [2] Another random poll I found searching HN - http://gopollgo.com/which-editor-do-you-prefer-emacs-or-vi http://gopollgo.com/which-editor-do-you-prefer-emacs-or-vi [3] Slashdot poll from 2009, the earliest/only one I can actually find right now - http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1717&aid=-1 http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1717&aid=-1

naner 14y ago

I don't launch Emacs from the shell. If I need to do something quick in the shell I use zile (simple console text editor with emacs keybindings). I also don't close Emacs often so I don't need to invoke it frequently...

Myrmornis 14y ago
You might like using the emacs server. (require 'server) (server-start) Then some shell aliases for instantaneous emacs from the shell: alias e="emacsclient --no-wait" Now $ e myfile.c in the shell will open the file instantaneously in the running emacs and the OS will switch window focus to emacs. I use this a lot; magit-status on the current repo: $ cat ~/bin/egit emacsclient --no-wait \ --eval "(magit-status \"$PWD\")" \ --eval "(progn (select-frame-set-input-focus (selected-frame)) (delete-other-windows))"
- naner 14y ago
  Yes, I've used it before. It isn't really necessary for my uses. Also it's easier to sudo zile than go through Tramp for editing system files.
  - Myrmornis 14y ago
    Agree about tramp not being the solution. How is zile an improvement over emacs -nw -q ?
    - naner 14y ago
      Fewer characters? :) I dunno. I've done that in the past (actually using a separate init), too. Zile just seems simpler and it works fine for me. There's a billion ways to do things, it is hard to justify idiosyncrasies. I think what started it was that I drastically simplified my emacs init file (used to be several files, very smart and thought-out but massive and filled with rarely-used stuff) and I found myself always popping into nano for quick edits to system files. Well this quickly got annoying as there were conflicting key bindings with emacs and my muscle-memory was causing frequent errors. So I googled an emacs-flavored nano and settled on the first one I tried. Then I aliased nano to 'echo "USE ZILE"' until that became second nature, too.

brodney 14y ago

The graph shows the percentage of history files the command appears in, not the total frequency the word appears in the histories.