Re: Emacs's popularity

[Tim X]

"Lennart Borgman" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>>> It might also be worthwhile thinking about why vi clones are more
>>> popular than Emacs.
>>
>> Maybe, if specific vi features are found to be important to that popularity 
>> and
>> those features (or similar) might also make sense for Emacs.
>
> I think there are other possibilities too. For example it might be
> that people are used to that some vi program is always available, vi
> starts up quickly.
>
> Or perhaps it is that vi key bindings are perhaps more well-known
> nowadays. Emacs key bindings tend to clash with cua bindings which
> probably makes the emacs bindings less wellknown.
>

I doubt it - despite having used VI for 15 years, I would still say that
vi's key bindings and different 'modes' are far more alien to a new user
than emacs' (and I realise that modern vi clones are more forgiving in
the sense you can use the arrow keys to move around while in insert mode
etc). 

I just think they are different animals. A version of vi is supposed to
be guaranteed to be available on any nix system, but emacs is not. Vi is
faster to start 'out of the box' and suits a mode of operation that
possibly seems more familiar e.g. start the editor, edit, exit the
editor etc. 

the other issue is that we are running very close to theorising about
the basis of different editor choices, which has to be the oldest
'religious war' in the tech world. We are never going to resolve or
really understand the reason for the differences. Of course, that
doesn't stop me from lining up with the emacs team at the next emacs v
vi pie throwing contest at the next Linux conference I go to (the last
one, some years back was a hel of a lot of fun - until it came to
packing my grotty clothes to go home that is!

Maybe we should move on to argue why windows is more popular than OSX or
Linux or why python is better than perl or why common lisp is better
than scheme or why .......

We will never get an answer to these questions, which doesn't mean they
shouldn't be considered - only that we shouldn't expect to reach
consensus or a good answer.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au