🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <m2688dacks.fsf@mol.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de (David Kastrup) writes:

|> In article <4qs8kg$15t@knot.queensu.ca> changj@jeff-lab@queensu.ca (Jianlin Chang) writes:

|>    Another question is: is it better to start with emacs vip or viper
|>    mode and gradually move to emacs mode or to start with emacs
|>    completely? Thanks a lot.

|> First thing to note is that viper is a standard package: you can rely
|> on it being present on any emacs of reasonable date (the latter you
|> cannot necessarily rely on, however). So you need not fear that a
|> standard emacs on another platform will not offer this functionality
|> to you as well.

|> Having that said, however, I'd recommend taking the pains and learning
|> the standard bindings. Print out the emacs help sheet, it will be an
|> invaluable aid in the first week or so. Emacs has a lot more of
|> functionality than vi, and has his own philosophy behind
|> keybindings. You will learn this better and more consistent if you use
|> the standard keybindings, and will typically need shorter key
|> sequences to get around.

Well, I'd learn some of the standard key bindings, but not really all
of them.  For normal editting chores, they are definitly sub-optimal,
and you will typically need less key strokes (and certainly less
complicated mutliple key pressing) in viper mode than in standard
emacs.

|> If you intend in not using any emacs functionality besides that vi
|> offers you, you might not need to use emacs at all.

The additional functionality that emacs offers has nothing to do with
key bindings.  When editing programs, for example, CC-Mode is orders of
magnitude better than what other editors will offer.  And I sort of
like the fact that my editor is also my mail and news reader.

It is the large scale functionality where emacs wins.  For the little
stuff, vim IS better.

|> An additional boon, of course, is that you will get better along with
|> any older versions of emacs thrust at you.

|> In my opinion, viper mode and wordstar mode and so are more or less
|> there because some-one saw a challenge in doing them, and did them. Of
|> course, they are functional (to larger or lesser degree), but are not
|> "the real thing", and will obstruct keybindings which are put to
|> better use when using plain emacs.

This may have been true with older versions of VIP.  The current
version of Viper, however, is pretty good.  And when I did find a small
incompatibility, it was fixed immediately.  (I wish my providers of
commercial software were that good.)  So the authors do seem to take it
seriously.

|> I consider them demonstrators, like M-x hanoi, of what you can do with
|> emacs if you really try.

Again, this has nothing to do with the keybinding problem.  The
standard emacs keybindings are a pain, both literally and figuratively.
(When I regularly used emacs with the standard bindings, I found that
I regularly got cramps in my hand muscles, no doubt due to the
stretching that my hands had to do to hit the multiple keys.  This is
considerably less problem in vi.)
-- 
James Kanze         Tel.: (+33) 88 14 49 00        email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr
GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
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