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From: lattice@iris.mincom.oz.au (Lattice)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: vi and emacs
Keywords: vi emacs
Message-ID: <1148@iris.mincom.oz.au>
Date: 6 Jun 91 03:01:29 GMT
References: <1991Jun1.021505.4043@trl.oz.au> <1991Jun03.151727.9944@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: lattice@iris.mincom.oz.au ()
Distribution: comp
Organization: Mincom, Brisbane, Australia
Lines: 53

In article <1991Jun03.151727.9944@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>In article <1991Jun1.021505.4043@trl.oz.au> soh@andromeda.trl.OZ.AU (kam hung soh) writes:
>>[...] I decided to dump emacs and use vi exclusively.
>>It was a horrible experience.  No multiple files / views / buffers, no
>>cut-and-paste between windows, no auto auto-indent for the code
>
>You can, of course, run multiple vi's under any windowing system that
>allows it, and use the windowing system's cut and paste if you
>prefer it to explicit tmp files (I don't, except when one of the
>windows is running something that doesn't know how to use files or
>the programs in the different windows don't share a common filesystem).
>You can also use an external program to auto-indent or whatever else
>you need to do.
>

I am a recent *convert* to emacs from vi, but I recognise that they are both
valuable tools, though emacs is now my editor of choice.

With reference to the above I would say two things:

	1. There is no need to use an external program for indentation -
	   vi has an autoindent mode, invoked using

		:set autoindent

		or

		:set ai

	  These can be invoked automatically by placing entries in your
	  ~/.exrc file or through the EXINIT env variable.


	2. vi does allow you to cut and paste between files, though not
	   as elegantly as emacs - the limitation being more that vi
	   doesn't support windows.

	   For example,

		"a3Y		; yank 3 lines into buffer 'a'

		:e otherfile	; call up the file to paste to

		"ap		; print the contents of buffer 'a' below
				; the current cursor position


	   There are many other ways that this can be done, including
	   yanking regions, printing the named buffer before the current
	   line, etc.  vi does tend to be fairly orthogonal in this way.


	mark stavar