Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Vim vs. Emacs!!

I am writing this post from the backseat of a van on my way to San Diego on a mission trip. I had some trouble coming up with a topic for this post, I finally settled on the legendary Vim vs. Emacs debate.



At the moment I use both on a regular basis. I use Vim for my programming and Emacs for everything else. I am more comfortable sitting in Emacs for extended periods of time than I am in Vim. The reason for this is the ability to embed a terminal emulator within the Emacs window. I know this is is possible within Vim with the vimterm patch but, that requires me to build Vim from source. That is far more hassle than it's worth.



WHAT I LIKE ABOUT EACH:



Vim: I love Vim for it's speed and flexibility. I find it easier to use for long periods of programming.



Emacs: I love Emacs for it's ease of expansion. I really like LISP that is used quite extensively throughout all of Emacs.



WHAT I DISLIKE ABOUT EACH:



Vim: I dislike the gui Vim (gVim). I don't know exactly what I dislike but, there is just something about it that doesn't feel as smooth as it should. I also dislike the default mapping of switch to normal mode as , it is really inconvenient.



Emacs: I'll admit it, it's kinda bogged down with unnecessary code. The games and crap included is just a waste of space. I dislike using modifiers (eg: C-x, C-f) to get to functions.



CONFIGURATION:



Vim: I had to put a lot of work into configuring Vim. I really like vimscript, I didn't have to learn anything new to write my .vimrc.



Emacs: I like LISP, although I had to learn it as a additional skill along with just learning Emacs, it was worth it in the end. It is so much nicer than vimscript. Although I enjoy vimscript, LISP is more useful.



(I will attach my .vimrc and my .emacs files when I finish tweaking them. I will also put links to all of my plugins for each)



CONCLUSION:



Because I have to use Vim at work I will probably be using Vim more than Emacs for the time being. I hope to explore each more thoroughly in the coming months. I will write a new article on this topic when I am done with this endeavor of exploration.



Please no hating from the hot-headed opinionated geeks. :-)

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