vi vs emacs in a student environment

[Rob Healey]

In article <420 at ns.ns.com> ddb at ns.ns.com (David Dyer-Bennet) writes:
>>	[vi for student use...]
>> 	<ESC>, arrow keys, i, a, x, dd, O, o, :wq
>> 
>> 	The keystrokes listed above are ALL that 90% of the STUDENTS need.
>   Comparable emacs keystrokes appear to be
>	arrow keys, ^K, ^X^S, ^X^C
			  ^^ Try getting a control-S through a network mux....
			     When you can't you lose the memory aid.

>>Except for :wq and O all the above commands require the student to hit ONE key
>>; no 	control, no shift, no meta, no multikey combination. 
>   On the other hand, they have to understand about insert mode versus
>command mode.  Come to think of it, unless my VI is slipping, you've neglected
>any way to make corrections other than inserting characters, or deleting the
>whole line and starting over.

	I believe x was mentioned. They seem to grab onto the insert vs.
	"escape" modes very quickly. Also:
	i  Insert at blinking box
	a  Put stuff "After" blinking box
	x  "X it out"
	O  Put stuff "over" the blinking box

	The memory seems to hold the above better than ^K ^X^S etc.

	Quote of the year: "What's a "control" key, I don't see one."
	The usual beginner asks this one about 5 times per session, never
	ceases to amaze me...

	Startup time on our machines for vi is MUCH faster than emacs.

	GNU has a problem with arrow keys for some reason, we have 5
	different terminals and only the vt100ish one's seem to work
	OK. I'm the one who had the chore of getting emacs to recognise
	the other brands and there was no easy solution. (Why?) Seems like
	the terminal code in GNU should be smart enough to handle this...

>   I've had to guide several non-computer users (writers) into editors.
>They seem to pick up Emacs several orders of magnitude faster than vi. 
>Vi is downright user-hostile (that's the step BEYOND "user-surly" :-).

>Your mileage may vary.

	I guess it does, I've never seen someone take longer than 30 minutes
	to learn basic vi. Vi is maintained by our vendor thus we, read ME,
	don't have to figure out how to make it jump through hoops. I guess it
	comes down to a religious/environmental issue. Vi has been easier for
	our beginer's to learn than emacs, we held seminars for both and vi
	seemed to be learned faster in our case. Maybe it's the student
	mentality or something? B^).

>Your mileage may vary.

	What he said,

			-Rob
-- 

			-Rob