vi vs emacs in a student environment

[Guy Harris]

The reason I don't use "vi" is that "vi" is the Roman numeral for 6, and three
6's make 666, the number of the beast.

This reason is probably as good or bad as any of the other reasons for or
against any particular editor that fly around the net every time somebody
starts an editor war.  There are people who like "vi", people who like EMACS,
people who like EDT, people who like "ed", and people who like IBM 029
keypunches.  Some of those people may be convinced that some other editor is
better for them by some line of argument.  Others won't be, because they're
right - the editor they use *is* the best one for them, if for no reason other
than familiarity; it's not worth the effort to learn a new editor.

Your favorite feature of editor A may be of no consequence to some user of
editor B.  Your favorite gripe against editor B may not represent a problem to
that user either.

Unless 1) somebody has good ergonomic evidence showing that for a large
majority of the users tested, some particular editor really *is* easier to use,
2) the users tested represent a good cross-section of the *entire* potential
user population, and 3) that particular editor is *so* much better that it's
worth the time that users of all other editors would spend learning it (and 4)
that this editor is reasonably broadly available), few if any of these articles
have much point.

Can we please choke off the debate now?