🚀 go-pugleaf

	EMACS is (in theory) a much better editor than VI. On most systems
now adays, you can press some other shift-like key to access the "escape"
codes (on Suns, the Left/Right keys, RT's the Alt key, etc.). So it's
not any worse than control codes. It is a much more powerful editor, and
very customizable, which is its best feature. You see, you can bind any
key to anything at all, which beats "map" right out. The reason I use VI
instead is that (as I said), I find EMACS intolerably slow, even on "fast"
machines. On my AT, I use Brief, truly the editor of the Gods, which is
basically an EMACS style editor that runs at a reasonable speed (e.g.,
not only does it keep up with my normal characters, but it keeps up
with everything - I can pound on PageDown, and it just rolls right along).
The other problem is that EMACS is large, in disk & memory. I work in the
instructional labs, so all our machines are the ones that no one else wanted.
On some of them, running EMACS chows enough memory to degrade the system
all by itself, before you actually *do* anything in it. Not to mention
filling the disk up (you try running a multi-user (5-9) system with UNIX
and a single 30 M disk). To be fair, EMACS was hardly the only thing we tossed
in search of disk space, but it was certainly high on the list.

Again, to be fair, if you have a big *fast* disk, and a *fast* machine, then
EMACS is cool. I don't so I don't use it. Important tip : try it out on a
configuration similar to the one you plan to use. See if it's fast
enough for you. Different people have different tolerances. Mine are small.
Your may not be.
Alan M. Carroll		amc@woodshop.cs.uiuc.edu	carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Grad Student (TA) / U of Ill - Urbana ...{ihnp4,convex}!uiucdcs!woodshop!amc
	"Too many fools who don't think twice
	 Too many ways to pay the price"  - AP & EW