I have a very simple question about these two editors. I know that this might start a religous war, but I hope it will not. I just want to know the features of the two. What I know about them is that both of them are editors, and I don't really know what an editor does. Emacs has a lot of functionality. It can send email, surf the web etc etc. and I wonder if vi can also do this. Well, the real question is that which one is better in terms of features? As of now I sort of prefer Emacs over Vi because it has a lot to offer instead of just being a simple editor, but if Emacs is really that great and functional, then why are there too many Vi users?

Why not just the one that best meets your needs? Choosing option A rather than B because "A has more features" only makes sense if those features are things that you actually use. Overall, just use the tool that you think best suits the job at hand.....

I started out with vi and it's the one I tend to stick by. Tried learning emacs but tbh couldn't get my head round all the ctrl shortcuts. Vi just seems more straight forward as an editor and I don't need much more functions than editing.

That's my experience anyway.

I agree with dive, the ctrl commands can get very confusing in emacs. That was the reason I stuck with vi. Vi is a lot more powerful than it might at first seem.

As far as the extra features are concearned, you have to ask yourself if they are worth it for you. I think there are programs better better suited to email and browsing even in a terminal.

Either way these are both powerful editors, I don't think there is a "right or wrong" choice.

Editors are not a glorified version of the Windows note pad. Here are some of the features:

• syntax hilighting
• powerful search/replace capability using regular expressions (very powerful wildcards)
• you can "read" a commands output right into a file
• folding (collapse a range of text into one line)

jer

On the other hand, emacs does give you a pseudo window on a VT terminal emulator (like Linux's tty) so you can "kind of" use a window from a terminal. This can be very nice when, for example, your X system is broken for some reason. Or if you're one of those people who insist that "real geeks don't do windows," but you still want to, for example, display different parts of a piece of code on your screen at the same time.

I first started using emacs on Multics systems in the 60's, but, actually, I moved on to "better" editors when Windows 3.1 became available in the 70's. On Linux I tend to use the xemacs implimentaion of emacs because I, too, find it hard to remember all those mutiple control sequences. (That dispite, almost half a century ago, learning LISP just so I could write emacs extensions.)

So vi is much easier than emacs? I don't really care if emacs can browse the web and send mail and whatnot because I like firefox for the job. But I find emacs really interesting. I have heard somoene say that emacs is "A way of living".

I found vi easier, but I had also used modal editors before. Some people don't like having to switch modes to do stuff.

Emacs, the programming laguage Lisp, and AI have a close relationship; this could be one of the influences for it being a way of life. An editor is a way of getting things done, a "way of work".

I chose vi a long time ago, it influences how I get things done. I still like to learn, and emacs is prevelent in the GNU environment (for example, it is the editor that is emulated by default in readline -- the program that interprets key presses at the command line).

Complicated ctrl sequences are also unavoidable, I use screen to provide mutiple sessions in one terminal window. It really depends on how long it takes to digest all of the stuff and keep up with the current innovations. I've been using Linux for over five years, some days I still feel like a total newb. I still rely on Windows to get some stuff done. But it's great learning.

jer

I see. The only editor that I use is Crimson Editor, a very compact and simple editor. I use it to do my java programming. It is a very simple and lightweight editor. Sometimes I open stuff with it to see its code lol. Other than that, I do not know any other editor.

MrVahn

Crimson Editor looks like a decent editor, I'll try to remember to check it out the next time I boot up in Windows.

jer

Yes it is quite decent but some ppl say that it is useless in large projects. I do not do large projects yet so I'll stick to it as a learning tool