vi vs emacs in a student environment

[Eirik Fuller]

In article <1633 at hoqax.UUCP> bicker at hoqax.UUCP (The Resource, Poet of Quality) writes:
> ...
>
>I learned vi first (well actually, I learned TECO first, but that's
>another story) and then learned emacs.  I prefer emacs.  I wonder
>how many people would be able to say the opposite.  
>-- 

When I first started using Unix, I chose emacs for its online
documentation; I don't like reading things on paper.  I went over the
deep end with mock lisp (this was Unipress emacs); the most useful
thing I wasted my time on was mouse support that essentially made a
copy/cut/paste editor out of emacs.

When I got a workstation with no "real" (termcap-compatible) inverse
video (where'd that mode line go?) in its terminal emulator, but with
built-in vi mouse support and clumsy (at best) support for emacs
mousing, I decided to learn vi.  My switch in duties to user support
soon thereafter made this decision yet the wiser.

I went to the trouble of writing a terminal driver for emacs so it
could use the unusual terminal emulator without giving up inverse
video mode lines, partly because of the claims it couldn't be done.
The author of the terminal emulator wound up fixing bugs in order for
this to work; because it didn't comply with termcap nobody had ever
used the inverse video before.

So, after all that trouble, and hacking a bit on the X support in
Unipress emacs to get my mouse support working right, I still never
use emacs.  I actually took the trouble of adding vi mouse support to
xterm because I prefer vi.  I've written a smalltalk terminal
emulator too (it does essentially everything xterm does, including
responding to the resize command), and it too has vi mouse support.

I still know enough emacs to answer users' questions about it.  But I
never use it myself.  I much prefer vi.  Don't ask me for practical
reasons.  I don't do it because of startup time; I could leave an
emacs X window running perpetually and startup time wouldn't matter.
I don't do it so my environment is uniform; everything I use has
Unipress emacs if I want it, and smalltalk has its own editor (though
I prefer vi in a smalltalk terminal window for large files).  I'm not
shy about rebinding keys in emacs to cope with the brain-dead defaults.

I just simply prefer the feel of vi.  It's strange, but so am I.  One
of my coworkers watches me type vi (he's an emacser himself), and
can't believe a file can be changed that fast.  I'm a basically lazy
person, and vi seems more efficient to me than emacs.

In case it's unclear from the above, I have tried GNU emacs too.  I
don't like it.  If I want the universe as part of my text editor,
I'll use smalltalk.  (If that didn't make sense, don't sweat it).

Maybe you asked the wrong question.  Has anybody switched from vi to
emacs for practical, logical reasons?  Mine are all silly, but a
little detail like that won't change my mind.