Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!oliveb!bunker!stpstn!aad
From: aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: vi vs emacs in a student environment
Message-ID: <1832@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jul 88 15:37:23 GMT
References: <399@cantuar.UUCP> <11418@steinmetz.ge.com> <6056@megaron.arizona.edu>
Reply-To: aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri)
Organization: The Stepstone Corporation, Sandy Hook, CT
Lines: 78

>As a consultant I'll volunteer the following advice:  don't get people used to
>emacs.  Please.  Why?  Because emacs is available on "some" unix machines.  
>Vi is available on almost all unix machines.  Old habits die hard, so I think
>it's better to start people out with something they can stay with...

Let's say I wanted to use TPU.  DEC doesn't provide that on all of it's
operating systems, so don't get people used to it.  By your argument, they
should all use TECO.  IBM PC's all come with edlin, so everyone should
use edlin.

The original EMACS runs on most or all of the pdp-10 os's.  Gosling/Unipress
emacs runs on:

AT&T 3B series
AT&T 7300 Unix PC
Amdahl
Apollo
Arete
Compaq (Xenix)
Computer Consoles (sysv)
Convergent Technologies
Convex
Gound
HP 9000/300/500/800
Heurikon
IBM PC-AT (xenix)
IBM RT/PC AIX and ACIS
Integrated Solutions
Intel 310
Intergraph InterPro
Masscomp
Motorola 1131/8000
NCR Tower
Perkin Elmer 32xx
Plexus xxxx
Pyramid
Sequent
Silicon Graphics
Sperry 5000/40/60/80
Sperry 7000/40
Sperry IT (xenix)
Stride
Sun
Tandy 3000 (xenix)
TI Business Pro (xenix)
VAX (bsd,sysv,ultrix,vms)
AT&T 6300, DEC Rainbow, HP-150, IBM-PC, TI-PC, and many clones (ms-dos)

They're working on it for the macintosh.

Emacs's also exist on DG machines, and EMACS is the standard editor for
Primos, running on Primes.

Microemacs runs on just about anything that has a c compiler (including
my 2.9bsd pdp11), the amiga, and I don't know what else.

Epsilon runs on the PC, and is essentially emacs.

A system administrator that does not provide some sort of emacs on his machine
is remiss in his responsibility.  vi is *not* a reasonable editor.  Unipress
doesn't really charge that much for a real emacs for your unix machine, and if
you want to be stingy and lose, you can try to run that GNU stuff, or if
you're just poor you can run microemacs, which is a perfectly good editor.

Sure, the better implementions of emacs have ridiculous functionality, but
it's all dynamic -- you don't load it if you don't want it.  As far as
the executable size, sure, an emacs (other than micro) is going to be
bigger than a vi, but if you've got four or five vi's going on four or
five different files, and one emacs on four or five different files,
it evens out.

(oh yeah -- not all phones can do tone dialing -- limit the students to
 doing pulse dialing)
-- 
@disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my
	    employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34)
beak is								  beak is not
Anthony A. Datri,SysAdmin,StepstoneCorporation,stpstn!aad