Emacs vs Vim

Jason · **Posted:** January 16th, 2012, 8:13 pm

I'm going to keep this simple and avoid using terminology I don't know

For my CS class this term we are coding in Java and have the option of using Emacs or Vim and there wasn't recommendations on which to use so I thought I'd ask here since I know there are quite a few knowledgeable programmers here who might have an opinion on the matter.

Adbot · **Posted:** January 16th, 2012, 8:13 pm

Shane · **Posted:** January 16th, 2012, 9:52 pm

Vim. The single mode structure of emacs makes it too easy to inadvertently trigger key shortcuts if you enter the wrong keys.

But with that being said, why? Why put more stress on yourself using an ancient editor when there's much newer editors designed to make humans feel more comfortable? I'm a Mac user and I have an array of tools I've used in the past:
- Eclipse (Java)
- Xcode (Objective-C)
- Coda (PHP/HTML/JS)
- Textmate (PHP/HTML/JS/CSS/C)
- Sublime (PHP/HTML/JS/CSS/C)

When directly on the rsbandb server I will use vi.

Jamie · **Posted:** January 17th, 2012, 12:24 am

Vim, for the same reason Shane said. I have had countless amounts of rage when I hit ctrl instead of meta or vice versa in Emacs.

While I do like coding in more user friendly IDEs, I do have to admit that all the keyboard shortcuts on Vim/Emacs speed things up a lot, so it's worth the learning curve.

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

Nano. Very basic, but a bit easier to understand compared to VIM/Emacs. Ideally I'd use Notepad++, but maybe that's just me.

Between the VIM/Emacs decision, I've only really had experience in VIM. Not enough to do a whole lot, but more than Emacs.