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Unless you have a specific reason not to, you definitely should look at vi if you find Emacs' learning curve frustrating. Adhering to the Unix philosophy, vi le

Unless you have a specific reason not to, you definitely should look at vi if you find Emacs' learning curve frustrating. Adhering to the Unix philosophy, vi lets you combine simple commands to achieve more complex goals, which makes the learning curve way more pleasant. For example, if you know how to jump to the next occurence of character x (fx), you already know how to delete from cursor to character x (dfx). Vim is a very feature-rich editor, which can be distracting while learning the more basic steps. I started with nvi (the vi clone that ships with OpenBSD). Used copys of the 6th edition of O'Reilly's "Learning the vi Editor" (1998) are available practically for free. You don't have to read every single sentence ("remember that you must press ENTER to tell Unix that you are finished issuing your command"), but I found the structure very sensible. If you don't think distraction is a problem for you, start with Vim and try the vimtutor.

rdtsc 12y ago
I tried and it didn't make sense to me. Having to switch modes is silly to me. > For example, if you know how to jump to the next occurence of character x (fx), you already know how to delete from cursor to character x (dfx). Yes but if I have to start typing I have to press some key to switch modes (i?). That is a no-go for me.
- srcreigh 12y ago
  Well, there's no perfect solution. Either it's a modal system like vi, or you have to use modifier keys whenever you want to do something that isn't enter text. That said, there are tricks to make modal editing less annoying. For example, mapping your CAPS LOCK key to ESC makes switching out of insert mode much easier. Some commands perform actions and then switch modes all at once for you. To extend the grandparent comment's example, you can use the substitute command, s, instead of the delete command, d, to perform the "delete and switch into insert mode" action with sfx (rather than dfx).
  - currysausage 12y ago
    Minor nitpick: c is delete and switch into insert mode, so it would be cfx.

rdtsc 12y ago

I tried and it didn't make sense to me. Having to switch modes is silly to me. > For example, if you know how to jump to the next occurence of character x (fx), you already know how to delete from cursor to character x (dfx). Yes but if I have to start typing I have to press some key to switch modes (i?). That is a no-go for me.

srcreigh 12y ago
Well, there's no perfect solution. Either it's a modal system like vi, or you have to use modifier keys whenever you want to do something that isn't enter text. That said, there are tricks to make modal editing less annoying. For example, mapping your CAPS LOCK key to ESC makes switching out of insert mode much easier. Some commands perform actions and then switch modes all at once for you. To extend the grandparent comment's example, you can use the substitute command, s, instead of the delete command, d, to perform the "delete and switch into insert mode" action with sfx (rather than dfx).
- currysausage 12y ago
  Minor nitpick: c is delete and switch into insert mode, so it would be cfx.