VI vs. EMACS: The Thread

[blackbelt_jones]

Say, how about a thread on the theme of VI vs. EMACS?

Unlike the last forty thousand threads on "what's the best distro for a newbie?", such a discussion may actually help clarify some issues for people, instead of just confusing them further.

To be honest, for most of what I've been needing a text editor for, I've been pretty content with gedit, which is a pretty simple x-based text editor that any users of notepad can understand and appreciate.

But that's going to change, as I learn more about programming-- and I do want to learn one of the more advanced text-based editors, partly because I am spending more and more time with the plain terminal. And I do like to use those macros from time to time.

Up to now, I've been using emacs occasionally, partly cause I'm a big Stallman fan, partly because its obviously the more intuitive interface for a beginner. Whenever I am forced to use vi (e.g., when using visudo for a non-debian distro) the first thought that comes to mind is; What the %$#@ do I do NOW?

Now, the cool thing about emacs is supposed to be that you can do everything from the emacs interface-- which is impressive, but isn't that what we already have everything for? Emacs is big, emacs is powerful, but even though it's more immediately accessible, emacs is also incomprehnsible. My big fat emacs manual tells me that my big fat emacs manual does cover everything that is possible in the big fat world of emacs.

And what about text editing? It occurs to me that, even though vi (or vim) takes some figuring out, it may be more concentrated on what a text editor is supposed to do, and therefore I can learn how to use it to edit text, and then continue to study emacs for the rest of my life.

My question for vi-lovers out there is this: how is the vi interface empowering? Why is what is painful to me about vi actually a good thing if I only understood it, and would do the work of learning it. When people complain to me about the command line, I have an answer (which they usually don't wnat to hear). That's what I'd like to know about vi. Does that make sense?

[Calipso]

Im afraid I don't know much about emacs. Vi tends to be good enough for any text editing I need to do in a terminal.

That being said, the reason its good to know vi is that its pretty much guaranteed to be installed on any distro. Actually, I think its a pretty good change its going to be installed on any Unix variant.

Reason why its good to learn vi commands is that once you know them, it makes editing really efficient/fast. You can do everything without moving your hands off the keyboard. Actually, if you're really good, you don't even have to move your hands away from the starting position. Your fingers will have everything withing reach.

Vi is definitely scary to a beginner though. I remember that the first time I had to edit a file in Linux I ended up using VI. To this day I'm surprised that it didn't scare me away from Linux.

[infiniphunk]

I find both vi and vim invaluable at editing critical files. gotta love [SHIFT] ZZ

[saikee]

I belong Calipso group and never touch emacs.

vi gets me through most of the time but there are a few odd distros that do not have it. Don't think I get very far with emacs.

[bwkaz]

So I was trying to find out what ZZ does (from experimentation, it appeared to exit, but I didn't know whether it saved, always saved, or just exited), and I was reading through the command index inside vim's help.

And I found this command:

g?g?

, which ... well, it may be a good idea to just read the help yourself. Or try it. It changes the current line of text, but doesn't destroy the file. (And to get the current line back, you can either do it again, or undo.) The first question I thought of was "why is this in vim at all?". I still haven't come up with a satisfactory answer...

[knute]

I guess that when I first started using vim, even though at first it was a little frusterating because it took some time to get used to having a command mode and an input mode, it just made a wierd kind of sense.

I could never wrap my brain around emacs, nor could I ever keep in mind the cryptic keystrokes necessary to even save a file, while ":w" in vim writes the file to disk. :)

[phlipant]

So I was trying to find out what ZZ does (from experimentation, it appeared to exit, but I didn't know whether it saved, always saved, or just exited),


You must be a newbie to vi. Everyone knows that, ZZ does a :wq :D

[Calipso]

You must be a newbie to vi. Everyone knows that, ZZ does a :wq

HA, I just learned something new.


speaking of vi. Anyone else find themselves tapping the ESC key while in different editors? and sometimes typing :w when you want to save?

I catch myself doing that when I use editors like gedit. :o

[E1PHOTON]

Ha! I do that all the time. Do any of you try to copy/paste with highlight and middle click on Windows? I do that oh so often.

[retsaw]

You must be a newbie to vi. Everyone knows that, ZZ does a :wq :DI didn't know that either. And it isn't exactly the same as :wq. For example, if you start vi with a non-existing file and then do a :wq straight away, :wq will create an empty file, where ZZ won't. I'd guess ZZ only saves the file when there are changes, where :wq will always save the file if there are changes or not.

I used to use Emacs when I started out using Linux, but Emacs isn't always installed, but I eventually switched to Vi, I think it was something to do with vi being pretty much guaranteed to be installed on most live cds I happened to use where Emacs wasn't, so being lazy I just got used to using Vi, and it is a lot quicker to type vi than it is to type emacs. I'm sure I'll get round to learning more than just the basics for Vi one of these days.

[Calipso]

Do any of you try to copy/paste with highlight and middle click on Windows?

All the time! it gets very frustrating.

[bwkaz]

You must be a newbie to vi. Everyone knows that, ZZ does a :wq :D :p

(My defense is that I'd always used :wq, and I'd never seen ZZ.)

[blackbelt_jones]

Wow, a lot of VI fans in here!:)

I can't imagine how someone can figure out vi and not be able to figure out emacs, but maybe it's that emacs doesn't really need to be figured out. That's not to say that it isn't really really complicated. Let me show you what I mean.

The way to save your file with emacs is Ctrl +X, followed by Ctrl + S.
You close by hitting Ctrl + X followed by Ctrl + C.

There may be some logic to this, some grand design. That's the part I haven't figured out, but it doesn't matter. Ctrl +x, Ctrl +S is easy to learn after you've used it a few times. You don't have to understand the big picture. So even if there's a huge vast mystery about emacs, and a grander design that (for all I know) may take years to understand, all you need to know is the command to do this particular thing.

On the other hand, vi has this "mode" thing that you need to understand before you can type a single character. For someone like me, who prefers to jump in without reading any instructions, and simply make his way, emacs seems a lot more accessable.

[bwkaz]

... but it doesn't matter. Ctrl +x, Ctrl +S is easy to learn after you've used it a few times. So are <esc>:wq<enter> and <esc>ZZ. :p

On the other hand, vi has this "mode" thing that you need to understand before you can type a single character. OK, so hit either "i" or your insert key. ;)

(Besides, if vi didn't have two modes, then you'd have to keep hitting five different modifier keys to actually accomplish anything. "ctrl+meta+hyper+f", or whatever. Jeez; I don't have that many hands. :p)

[blackbelt_jones]

blackbelt_jones

Give this a try, it's a demo (http://mirror1.linuxcbt.com/demos/classic_edition/LinuxCBT_Classic_vi.html) but it will give some vi basics.

Thanks, especially for the site itself, but is vi so very necessary any more? The narrator talks about vi being the only way you can fix your system in a possible disaster... but I have a knoppix disk.

Really, the only time where I've ever really needed vi, and no other editor, is when using visudo to edit the sudoers file. Fortunately, I seem to have found a way around this. It seems pretty stupid that I should have to master vi just to edit maybe three lines of text in /etc/sudoers.


I edited the sudoers file with emacs as root, but I kept all the changes commented. Then i opened visudo, used the delete key to remove the comments (the only key that seems to work in the vi command mode), hit ZZ, and I was good to go!

The way it seems to work is, because of security concerns, you supposedly need to edit the /etc/sudoers file with visudo in order for the edited file to be effective. However, it appears that you don't need to do ALL the editing in visudo, just the last part of the editing. It looks like I can do the editing as root with any editor, without visudo, and then simply by opening the file and then resaving it with visudo, visudo gives the file its "blessing". The file becomes "legal", and the changes take effect. So, environment variable or not, I can use whatever editor I please, as long as I use visudo afterward.

At least, it seems to have worked this way once-- with my current installation of Vector, when I edited the sudoers file yesterday. I now have full root access without a password for my normal user account , using sudo.

If the security "key" to visudo is access to the visudo program itself as root, and such access is necessary to convey the "blessing" of visudo to the edited sudoers file, I don't see that this hack in any way compromises the security that visudo is supposed to represent.

If I'm wrong about ANY of this, somebody please tell me.


Which is not to sat vi isn't great. People who use it like it, and those are the people whose opinions matter. ANd I intend to spend some time with this tutorial you've gin\ven me, and see if I can get a a handle on vi. But I think this notion that it is essential for an emergency have become obsolete with the advent of the live cd.

[saikee]

But I think this notion that it is essential for an emergency have become obsolete with the advent of the live cd.

Not so fast yet, if your Live CD fails to match the video and you are dropped into the terminal then the chances are "vi" is often what you are left with.

[mrrangerman43]

The authors point is just what saikee has said, there are, and will be times when vi will be the only thing a person can use. I know I have already had it happen to me, it wasn't a big deal but I sure felt like a fish out of water. I'm finding as I learn more about pc's how much faster working without a mouse is.

[Calipso]

Plus, you never know when you might have to edit files on a remote machine to which you only have an ssh connection and it doesn't have X installed.

[blackbelt_jones]

Not so fast yet, if your Live CD fails to match the video and you are dropped into the terminal then the chances are "vi" is often what you are left with.

Well, I don't know what that means. Do you mean if your live CD doesn't work with your video card with x?

To be honest, at my current level of expertise, I'm probably going to be reinstalling my / partition long before things have devolved to the point of single user mode... I've never been in a situation that I knew how to fix with a text editor. I can't understand why a live CD couldn't work, but I was already over my head in this discussion a while ago.

[knute]

hehehe... There are TONS of issues that can be fixed with a text editor.
Matter of fact, I feel blinded when I have to use a gui to get to some setting somewhere.
Any issue that you come up against that you have a gui that you can use to fix it, also has a setting in a text file that can be changed by hand. :)

I'm not pounding gui's mind you, as I've used my fair share to fix things quick as well. Though, after I find out what text file that I need to go into, i go into the text file, simply because if things get BROKE, that gui may not be available for my use. (but that's personal preference). :)

[ladoga]

I can't understand why a live CD couldn't work, but I was already over my head in this discussion a while ago.

If the computer in question doesn't have CD drive. If you don't have a working net connection and no live CD handy. If you log in to remote machine using SSH.
And so forth.

[deathadder]

I had a nightmare of a time getting use to VI/VIM when I first started using it, but now I find myself using Notepad or something else in Windows and trying to :wq, just in case people didn't know, :x saves and exits if there is a file/filename.

If you can learn to use both editors well then your set. :) I haven't used Emacs in a while, because I feel like VI/VIM is just more suited to editing files quickly, not as much bloat. But that's just me. :)

Now only if I knew it better! Maybe I'll just get myself on of these to help me out...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/mugs/7bbe/

[wheelnut]

When I set out in the land of unix, I was told (at the time), that the only editor that you could guarantee would be on any unix would be vi... so I kinda stuck with it. I would not say that I am particularly good with it, I simply have gotten used to it, so such an extent that when I use a word processor, whether it be under linux or windows, I find myself trying to search by pressing / and trying to save by typing :wq
I do not know whether emacs is any better, I have never used it. I used to use Joe for a while (similar to WordStar - remember that?), but kept forgetting it was available and reverting back to vi.

[matrix4u]

Well its funny that people compares VI and EMACS. Both have their own features. In fact a few years ago I was addicted of VI while coding a few applications. But as soon as I came in touch of EMACS I become one of the emacs lover. As its a pretty handy editor which helps user (ofcourse after a few months of efforts) for comparatively easy to search (similar to firefox searchbar) and replace using it. And contains all the features which vi contains like syntax highlighting. But yes if today someone gives me file to edit then I prefer EMACS as a tool which gives comfortable navigation and updation support.

I recommand EMACS inspite of VI to use.

[phlipant]

What I really love about vi is the map function, which allows you to create your own vi instructions. a simple statement like

:map m /word1^v^[cwword2^v^[

allows you to change every event of word1 by toggling through a file with m.

[sleepyEDB]

When I was first learning UNIX, the guy teaching me insisted that I learn vi for many of the same reasons that have already been mentioned (it's the standard editor, always available, etc.). I too had a very hard time adjusting to straight vi.

That was, until I discovered vim. Vim (or vi improved) has many features and additions that make it more functional and usable than the original vi. Also, your local .vimrc file allows for an almost limitless amount of personalization. Since vim allowed me to satisfy my teacher in that I was (more or less) still using vi, while at the same time causing me to pull out significantly less hair, I never saw the need to try Emacs, and still never have.

I do agree that vi/vim have a very steep learning curve, but the payoff in efficient text-file editing once you're over that curve is worth it.

I also find myself reverting to vim commands when in other programs as well...even when replying to emails in MS Outlook! :p

So, in short...vim, FTW!! :D


sleepy

[X_console]

Actually where I work everyone uses vim. Just so much easier for development on UNIX/Linux. I haven't used emacs in ages, and I don't think I really would. It's not like vim or some other vi clone is ever going away for good. In the end they're both just text editors so whatever you use is your call. As long as it doesn't mangle the contents when I open it up in my preferred editor I'm good with it.

[kstrat2001]

this is a great thread for a beginner. I just stumbled upon this while looking for answers. I've been lost for a few days now with emacs. I'm trying to figure out how to compile a c program in this darn OS.

I'm such a spoiled Mac/Windows user without a clue what to do here. I'm downloading kdevelop now to see if an IDE will help but I would really like to try vi/vim. What is the best way to get started? Is there a "Hello World" example out there?

Some info on my sys:

AMD 64 based Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
I've got the latest gcc
I've got emacs
haven't opened vi yet (yeah, I'm that fresh with this)

Here's the gcc -v output:

gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: x86_64-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../src/configure -v --enable-languages=c,c++,java,f95,objc,ada,treelang --prefix=/usr --enable-shared --with-system-zlib --libexecdir=/usr/lib--without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --enable-nls --program-suffix=-4.0 --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-java-awt=gtk-default --enable-gtk-cairo --with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.4.2-gcj-4.0-1.4.2.0/jre --enable-mpfr --disable-werror --enable-checking=releasex86_64-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)

[X_console]

You should probably have just posted this in the programming question. What is your questions exactly? How to compile a program or how to write the program in vi? vi is just a text editor. Just type in the code there, and then you can use gcc to compile it.

[kstrat2001]

Sry bout the re-direction. Anyway, as a beginner, it seems that vim will be better for me. Emacs seems to be a bit too much to start with.

Another question, do people use vim for anything other than programming?

[sleepyEDB]

I would really like to try vi/vim. What is the best way to get started? Is there a "Hello World" example out there?
Check to see if vim is installed. Type the following in a console/terminal/command line:
which vim
if the result is something like,
/usr/bin/vim
then vim is installed. If the results are something like,
no vim in /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin: etc, etc....
then vim is not installed. You can install vim on Ubuntu by typing
sudo apt-get install vim

Once installed, simply type
vimtutor
on the command line and you'll get a nice introduction to vim that takes about a half-hour to complete and will teach you the basics. Good luck, and let us know if you have questions! :)


sleepy

[kstrat2001]

Just type in the code there, and then you can use gcc to compile it.

I don't mean to be rude or anything but it seems like you couldn't be any less descriptive in helping me understand what to do here. I opened vim from the command line. I type in some code say like this:

int mian(){

printf("hello from linux");

}

now what? use gcc? there's a new one. To the programming forum...

[kstrat2001]

Thanks, Sleepy...

I will try to get this thing goin...

[phlipant]

this is a great thread for a beginner. I just stumbled upon this while looking for answers. I've been lost for a few days now with emacs. I'm trying to figure out how to compile a c program in this darn OS.

I'm such a spoiled Mac/Windows user without a clue what to do here. I'm downloading kdevelop now to see if an IDE will help but I would really like to try vi/vim. What is the best way to get started? Is there a "Hello World" example out there?

Some info on my sys:

AMD 64 based Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
I've got the latest gcc
I've got emacs
haven't opened vi yet (yeah, I'm that fresh with this)

Here's the gcc -v output:

gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: x86_64-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../src/configure -v --enable-languages=c,c++,java,f95,objc,ada,treelang --prefix=/usr --enable-shared --with-system-zlib --libexecdir=/usr/lib--without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --enable-nls --program-suffix=-4.0 --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-java-awt=gtk-default --enable-gtk-cairo --with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.4.2-gcj-4.0-1.4.2.0/jre --enable-mpfr --disable-werror --enable-checking=releasex86_64-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)

Linux is very different from MS. vi and emacs are more like an extremely powerful version of Notepad. While I prefer vi as an IDE, you are probably looking for a Linux equivalent to Visual Studio. I would recommend you try qt-designer, although there are many other Linux IDEs.

[X_console]

I don't mean to be rude or anything but it seems like you couldn't be any less descriptive in helping me understand what to do here. I opened vim from the command line. I type in some code say like this:

int mian(){

printf("hello from linux");

}

now what? use gcc? there's a new one. To the programming forum...


It seemed you already knew about gcc from your original post, so I assumed that you knew how to use it. Save the code in vim into a file, say code.c and compile with gcc: gcc -o code.exe code.c That will create the executeable code.exe.

Now if you want the actual step by step:

1. Type vim code.c

2. Press i to enter insert mode.

3. Type your code.

4. Press Esc to return to command mode.

5. Type ZZ to save the file.

You should be back on the shell now. Type gcc -o code.exe code.c. This will generate the code.exe file. You can run it with ./code.exe

[kstrat2001]

hehe. Sorry about that. I do know of gcc and how to get its version from the command line. Thanks for the help.

The vim tutorial is awesome. This is definitely my choice over emacs for starting off.

Now I don't want to turn this into a flamewar but... it seems this text editor is much more handy than notepad on windows and text edit on OSX. Sometimes the best things in life are free, I guess. I think I'm starting to see why all the hardcore developers use Linux. I've been caught up in Visual Studio for too long and I feel like I just took off my training wheels. Even kdevelop is looking pretty solid but the class I'm in this fall calls for pure text editor development.

[Calipso]

Another question, do people use vim for anything other than programming?

Well basically any text editing short of big documents. Although some purists might still do it in vi ;)

[kstrat2001]

It worked! I can't believe I'm programming in linux.

Of course now I want to get more advanced and so I will take this topic to the programming section of the forum. Thanks for all the help here.

[X_console]

hehe. Sorry about that. I do know of gcc and how to get its version from the command line. Thanks for the help.

The vim tutorial is awesome. This is definitely my choice over emacs for starting off.

Now I don't want to turn this into a flamewar but... it seems this text editor is much more handy than notepad on windows and text edit on OSX. Sometimes the best things in life are free, I guess. I think I'm starting to see why all the hardcore developers use Linux. I've been caught up in Visual Studio for too long and I feel like I just took off my training wheels. Even kdevelop is looking pretty solid but the class I'm in this fall calls for pure text editor development.

Don't completely overlook other development environments though. Knowning vi is definately a plus but if you're planning on getting a programming job, knowing how to use other IDEs shows that you're current with today's technology and not some old dinosaur who still programs on a black screen with a text editor. :)

[phlipant]

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070910&mode=classic

Sorry, had to. :D

[leonpmu]

When I first started using linux I used emacs, then a couple of years ago, just after I moved to MU, I was developing a website, and found that emacs couldn't handle the French characters, and my friend showed me vi, and a couple of commands on how to use it. Never looked back since.

The other beauty of VI as that, all of the distro's and *nix boxes I have worked with including Toms, has got vi in it.

[goon12]

I have been using vim for years, and I haven't ever tried emacs for more than 5 minutes. That said, I can't really comment on vi vs. emacs because I only know vi/vim.

I am still learning the features of vim, and there are a ton. For example, just the other day I came across this: http://cscope.sourceforge.net/cscope_vim_tutorial.html (It works awesome for Java too.)
And:
http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/if_pyth.html

[ArtVandelay]

I'm not the worlds most knowledgeable vim user but it suits
my purposes fairly well.

I made attempts to learn vim and emacs.
I don't really "get" emacs, I guess.

When I set up a freeBSD server and regularly ssh'd in,
thats when I started getting abit more serious about vim.
It didn't have emacs installed by default and at the time
I didn't know how to install ports.


The two things I found cool and got me hooked were:

1 - that you could
turn on and off various features using commands
like
:set nu
:set nonu
And you could put those exact commands (without colon)
into .vimrc if you wanted it on start up.

2 - putting numbers before commands
makes that command happen that number
of times.
example:
3>>
to indent three lines of text
12dd
to delete 12 lines of text


I liked how in that vi tutorial, the guy kept saying
"So you're learning how to use vi slowly but surely"
:)

[blackbelt_jones]

Wow, looks like it's not even close. Now I wish I'd started this thread before I invested 40 dollars in a book about emacs.

[EnigmaOne]

I'm still chaffing over that dinosaur comment...though the UF follow-up helped take the sting out of it.

Yeah, vi's the way to go for me too.

[thump]

@ kstrat2001 & balckbelt_jones.
Whichever OS you're using, try
info info
in the command line. If you have the info pages, the command I just gave you will teach you how to use the info system. Once you know how to use it, try
info vi
to learn more about vi. [shortcuts, modes, et&c.]
To learn about emacs, open emacs and look for the tutorial. It's a walk through of the commands and how to use emacs.
Before you start either one, make sure you have a lot of free time.
hth
thump

edit: on second thought, 'info' files can help on a lot of your questions about usiing GNU/Linux. But don't let that stop you from using this forum.:)

[zveroboy]

Interestingly enough some good answers to you questions come from the Windows realm.
check out this links (although they pertain mot to vim rather than plain vi but close enough)
This one attempts to answer the question WHY USE VI:
http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html

This is an invaluable resource for anyone who is trying to learn vi:
http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

and of course don't miss this page:
http://thomer.com/vi/vi.html

I hope you find the above information useful and interesting.

In my experience VI is worth learning. A word of warning though: the learning curve is steep; but once you get used to vi you will not want to go back to anything else. In fact you'd wish this forum allowed vi-like text entry :).

Have fun.:)

[Ishtaar]

Personally, I use VI over emacs

I use it because I had a CompSci teacher who showed me the light ;)

my favorite command would have to be:

:syn on

this turns on syntax coloring when programming

(NOTE: not all versions of VI support this command)

If you want a free ebook on vim/vi
check out this url :D

http://ftp.chinalinuxpub.com/download/oreilly/vimbook-opl-vi%20improved%20(vim).pdf

the .pdf file is 3.7M and 572 pages long

[blackbelt_jones]

Ah well, I still like using emacs, plus it's a way of paying tribute to Richard Stallman. It's the least I can do, since I just can't seem to force myself to go around saying "GNU/Linux".

Stallman also got me to switch from Coke to Pepsi. I got this link (http://killercoke.org/) off his personal page.

[nabetse]

Sometimes I push 'i' before typing a command into a console.

Though I've used emacs before and have no problem with it, I use vi almost exclusively now simply because I've gotten much more used to it as opposed to emacs.

Those that program in lisp would probably benefit more from using emacs.