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From: notes@pur-ee.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Re: EMACS Usage - (nf)
Message-ID: <1078@pur-ee.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Nov-83 18:30:18 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.1078
Posted: Sat Nov  5 18:30:18 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Nov-83 06:34:19 EST
Sender: notes@pur-ee.UUCP
Organization: Electrical Engineering Department , Purdue University
Lines: 34

#R:cca:-601000:ecn-ee:22000001:000:1415
ecn-ee!davy    Nov  5 13:13:00 1983


Since we're discussing Emacs usage....

Here at Purdue's EE Dept., we have about three or four copies of Emacs.  None
of them are "system" copies, they are all in people's personal directories.
I have a version of CCA Emacs which is about a year old, and the other people
all have (I believe) Gosling's.  If I were to estimate how many people used
any version of Emacs, I would have to say less than 25 people (out of a user
community of roughly 4000).

I can site various reasons for this.  First, the "system" does not support
Emacs, and therefore, news of its existence travels only by word of mouth.
Secondly, most of our users are students, and care only about getting their
assignment finished.  For this, they use the "eed" editor, which is a local
editor similar to "ed".  Secondly, the recommended screen editor here is "vi".
We also have the Rand editor, but it tends to punch the crap out of the 
system, and its use is therefore discouraged.  Finally, the locally available 
documentation for Emacs is poor.  

Personally, I find myself alternating between Emacs and vi.  I prefer to use
Emacs for writing C programs, because it is much more intelligent about
indentation, etc. than vi.  However, for straight text, I prefer vi.  Probably
because vi is still somewhat line oriented.

Let's face it -- you can argue all day about which editor is best, and still
not find out.

--Dave Curry
pur-ee!davy