Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: vi vs. emacs
Message-ID: <926@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 25 Aug 88 21:16:33 GMT
References: <16697@brl-adm.ARPA> <517@uva.UUCP> <661@buengc.BU.EDU> <2679@mipos3.intel.com> <700@buengc.BU.EDU> <2716@mipos3.intel.com>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: comp.editors
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 44

In article <2716@mipos3.intel.com> nate@mipos3.intel.com (Nate Hess) writes:
>In article <700@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>In article <2679@mipos3.intel.com> I write:
>>>In article <661@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>>>I once went into the info mode of Emacs, saw the menu of commands [...]
>>
>>				--Blair
>>				  "No help is better than Emacs 'help.'"
>
>There is an entire, indexed, cross-referenced Emacs manual available
>on-line if you type 'i' at this point.  This goes into Info mode, which
>allows you to browse documentation quickly and easily.  There is a
>"primer for first timers" available once you get into Info mode.  Give
>it a try.

As you see above, it was the impossible-to-bother-with, entirely new
and different (read: superfluous) set of commands for the dinging
"info mode" that made me decide that emacs is someone's idea of
full employment for inefficient software engineers.  

I posted an article in comp.misc a few days ago in which I winsomely compared
programming languages to automobiles.

Here's such a thing:

ed is a vw bug
ex is a vw rabbitt
vi is a vw scirocco (with convertible roof down, stuck down... :-)

emacs is John Madden's CBS-provided travelling bus, but saddled with a
gas stove, bulletproof windshield wipers, separate radios for each
station, ZX-81 computer with two keyboards (both stuck in cyrillic mode),
redundant drivers, swimming pool, velodrome, pigeon coop, kitchen sink...

Capiche?

Oh, yeah, and if you push the red button on the left of the dash, Madden's
bus can rebind all its rivets to _emulate_ the scirocco, but I don't see
the scirocco people climbing all over themselves saying it can do
the converse.

				--Blair
				  "Guns don't kill stories,
				   editors kill stories..."
				   -Hildy Johnson