I use nano and have found it to be superior to vi/vim in a few respects. It comes in handy, like when Debian encouraged me to create my own xorg.conf... good times, good times...

To be fair I haven't used vi/vim to any great extent. I should give it a spin now that it has won the poll. I've just grown used to nano I guess.

Wouldn't take much effort w/ the 5 things it knows to do ;D


I'm curious, though, how can you find one thing superior if you
know next to nothing about the other? "My pushbike is much better
than the Testarossa over there ... I never actually drove it,
but I'm comfortable with my pushbike!"


Cheers,
Tink

Hey. I'm a little insulted that you accuse me of having no idea of how to use vim. You're entire argument is non sequitur. Preferring gedit over vim does not equate to not knowing how to use vim at all. I agree; any Linux user worth their salt should know how to use vim in case something breaks, but for everyday programming, when the graphical interface is up and running, there is nothing wrong with using gedit. As I said, there is nothing shameful about using a graphical editor.

I can't remember the exact wording and, of course, can't find it anywhere but it seems like it was some newsgroup (probably comp.editors, but could have been anywhere) where someone said "I wouldn't trust an editor that wears its manual in a status bar to be able to do what I need" or something to that effect.

I agree. I'm a console vim user and shudder at the thought of most other editors, especially relatively weak GUI editors that have no command line or any consciousness of an ed/sed/grep heritage but that doesn't mean anything beyond the fact itself. I like and use vim. Others like and use others. Its kind of wrong for vi* users to be bashing stuff like gedit. We need to save our energy and direct it where it belongs: bashing emacs!

Seriously, though - vim (and emacs and others) can have a hell of a learning curve and not everybody needs a powerful text editor and is willing to pay the (time/effort) cost. If you have light editing needs, then a light editor suits and that's efficient and productive. Nothing to be ashamed of at all.

However, if a person does spend a lot of time editing text, then they owe it to themselves to invest in a powerful text editor. I think a lot of people who slam light editors feel this (which is right as far as it goes) and just forget that not everyone has the same priorities.

Maybe it's better because I know how to use it?

I suppose I'm obligated to try vi/m now.

That's really funny. No *nix user worth their salt would be caught dead on Ubuntu, the training wheel Linux...

Seriously, I first used vi back in early 80's - I'll wager before many here were even born. It was great, especially compared to the common alternative of the day, the IBM Selectric. During the ensuing years I used vi a lot. Never liked vim. Of course, I was often on real unix boxes, and it's only been since the wide uptake of Linux that vim has become widespread component of default install.

Also never really got into emacs. Sure,used it a time of three to see what it was all about, but that's it. Until more recent years. Yes, emacs has a steep learning curve, and I'm still a babe in the woods with it comparatively, but it's way, way more of a power user editor than vi/vim. Did you catch that? I've been using vi for over 30 years. And have switched to emacs as my editor of choice. Something to think about...

Funny ... when I started using Linux I started w/ emacs, because that's
what the Linux users around me were using. Today I can barely remember
the most basic stuff in emacs, and use it as a clipboard history for
X ;} if anything. Most actual editing happens in vim.


Cheers,
Tink

I nevers used emacs my whole life, only vi/vim. How is emacs anyway? I'm bound to try it soon....

I can't believe pico/nano still has a following. Die-hard will use emacs or vim (if they're really die-hard), and newbies will use a graphical editor, while those who want color coding and tabbing for programming will use kate or gedit. Where does that leave nano? Who would want something that looks like it came out of MS-DOS? Maybe legacy DOS users?

Jeremy,

I always like the Members' Choice Awards for the interesting discussion it generates. By discussion I mean preference wars: vim vs. emacs, Ubuntu vs. Slackware, Star Wars vs. Star Trek, etc... May I suggest a forum just for preference wars, so we can keep the support questions separate from the heated discussions about why my apple is better than your orange, and give us a special forum to go to just when we want to have a little fun... or vent...

Thanks.

If people want to use a DOS editor then they want mcedit. Or ed, though ed is infinitely superior to edlin - such that it pains me put them in the same sentence.

My guess is that people who use nano (etc.) want a quickly learned editor that works without X to do very basic editing. Kate (etc.) doesn't work without X and vim (etc.) isn't quickly learned.

(Actually, it doesn't take long to learn to use vim for very basic editing but would probably not seem very comfortable to some people for that purpose.)

It's C-great to some M-people but not to some C-M-S-others. If you have M-nine fingers on each C-hand that are each six C-M-Whee-Anykey-inches apart, you should be fine. Or if you want hand sprains or RSI and need to talk to your text editor about it while checking your mail.

(Emacs people, I kid. )

Minor edits without X.

Vi sucks...once I create a file, I can never remember how to save it.

:!q

I like using ZZ

For anyone wanting to learn vim, I REALLY recommend this:

http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.gif


I printed it out and tacked it up on the wall of my cubicle.

Tried for a while to get really good at vim, and then I had a project I had to work on with someone else for school and he says, "Why don't you just use gedit", so I gave it a try, and I'm like, "Why was I being stupid all this time? This is so much easier (especially the multitabbing)."

Yes, it may make you feel more hardcore to use vim, but I will repeat myself again, "There is nothing shameful about using a graphical editor". I still know how to use vim pretty well, and frankly, I don't find the delete previous 15 characters very useful. I can hear delete entire line, but I just don't see it paying off productivity-wise.