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From: warren@ihnss.UUCP (Warren Montgomery)
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Re: EMACS Usage
Message-ID: <1782@ihnss.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Nov-83 17:30:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ihnss.1782
Posted: Wed Nov  2 17:30:48 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Nov-83 07:24:17 EST
References: <6010@cca.UUCP> kobold.190 <6027@cca.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 63

I didn't see the origin of this discussion, but I have a lot of data
on editor use at BTL, collected from examining accounting files,
rather than any personal knowledge of the users.  It certainly isn't
a scientific study, nor does it include data for all of the machines
at BTL.  It is, however, based on the data from about 150 different
machines, and is remarkably consistent over the last year.

In general, it reveals that of the screen editor uses, vi is about
2/3, emacs (mostly mine, some Gosling's) is about 1/3, with small
amounts of others.  This isn't surprising, since vi is more
generally supported and has been around longer than any of the
various flavors of emacs.  Ed  is invoked more commonly than
everything else put together, but I suspect that a lot of this is
due to batch usage of ed, as in shell scripts or various other tools
that do a little bit of editing as part of a larger task.  The data
shows strong pockets of users of one sort of an editor or another. 
Some machines show all emacs and no vi, some all vi and no emacs,
and some neither.

In selecting an editor, I agree completely with the perception that
editor preference is largly a religion once an editor is used.  In
my 15 years of computing, I have used the "retype the line by
line-number" editor used in BASIC systems, an ed style editor, and
Emacs.  Each transition was a bitter battle for me to accept a new
way of doing things.  I was one of the last people in my group to
make the transition to Emacs, but became a true believer.  My
perception is, however, that conversions are relatively rare, and in
general people stick with the editor they know and love unless you
take it away.  (When I left MIT and lost access to Emacs, I
re-invented it rather than learn vi or go back to ed.)
In making the initial choice, I would think that the following
reflects what influences people most: 

1)	A local Guru.  This is why you see pockets of use.  One
	organization will have an emacs Guru that shows each new
	user how to set up initialization sequences and patiently
	explains all of the commands to people in their
	organization.  Another will have a vi Guru doing the same.
	
2)	Official Support.  Some people don't like experimental
	things.
	
3)	Personal stye.  My perception is that emacs/vi use may
	correlate with other aspects.  People who compose and edit
	completely on line, without ever producing paper are more
	likely to favor emacs, while those who write drafts or print
	paper copy and mark it up for later editing are more likely
	to favor vi.  Some people are more comfortable with the
	push-a-button-and-watch-what-it-does style of emacs, while
	some favor a structured command oriented approach to
	human-machine interaction.
	
I think that the quality of manuals is important in user
statisfaction, but not critical in determining how users choose
editors.  Users are lazy and won't read the manual if the guy down
the hall will answer the question for them.

-- 

	Warren Montgomery
	ihnss!warren
	IH x2494