SPUG: and now, for something completely different:

[Trey Valenta]

> Why not emacs?  I find it works really well.  I use cperl mode which
> highlights and indents automatically for me.  If I think it's indented wrong
> then I've made an error.  The syntax coloring is very useful.  I've also 

Knowing better than to get involvled in a land war in asia... but not
heading said advice....

I used to use emacs or jove as my editors. But since the question is
'Why not emacs?', there are several reasons I switched to vim.

emacs got too big for my needs. I don't need it as a mail reader or new
reader. It does have great support for running 'make' and jumping to
your location, but i don't use that either. In previous lives I didn't
have enough disk space for an emacs install.

I switched to vi/m because no matter at what machine I sat down, I
always had a copy of vi to use and for that I felt it would be good to
know. I also worked on boxes that for various reasons I couldn't install
emacs. I could go to a client and start editing proficiently without
having to install a new editor. Yes, the keystrokes were a bit more
difficult to learn, but once I did I found it to be, for me, quicker to
use. vim added the things I missed... multiple undo, syntax
highlighting, paragraph formatting, multiple windows, and it was still
quite small.

On the other hand, I needed to work on many different machines. If I
didn't do any administration, I would probably still be using emacs and
just request my administrator install it for me.

my suggestion is to flip a coin, pick your editor, and work on the
assumption that either will be just fine if you can't come up with a
reason for choosing one or the other from the beginning. Join your local
jihad in your free time and edit away without any cares in the world
because you chose the right one.


-- 
trey valenta trey at ministry.eu.org seattle     (maybe a) random quote--v
Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.

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