VI(1) vs. the world

[Michael Yoffee]

......I have used EMACS and VI(1) and have found good and bad reasons justifying
the existence/use of both.

	GOOD REASONS TO USE:
	===================
	1.  EMACS gives us the multiple-edit capablility which is 
	    very useful for cut and paste operations.

	2.  VI(1) gives us the POWERFUL facility of REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
	    that are infinitely(well probably finite) more useful and
	    productive for pattern matching than simple search&replace
	    facilities of other well known editors.

	3.  EMACS gives us the POWERFUL macro facility.

	BAD REASONS TO USE:
	==================
	1.  EMACS does NOT have REGULAR EXPRESSIONS which means you
	    must develop your own pseudo-regular expressions via
	    macros which is VERY slow(I experimented with this).

	2.  VI(1) does NOT give us the multiple-edit capability for
	    cut & paste but, you can yank a region and paste when
	    you enter a new file.

	3.  VI(1) does NOT give us a macro facility.

......I find that the absence of regular expressions in EMACS causes me
to turn to VI(1).  The multiple edit capability is a sacrifice but,
I don't use it very much anyhow.  As for VI(1) and the lack of a macro
facility - I use 'SED(1)' or 'AWK(1)' to make up for this loss and I 
must say that they fill that void EXTREMELY well.  Besides, when
you leave out something like a macro facility you get a MUCH SMALLER
executable which means MUCH QUICKER load&execute time.


-- 


Michael Yoffee
Harris / Lanier
Computer R&D
{akgua,akgub,gatech}!galbp!mjy