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> What editor do you prefer, then? |
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> |
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> I have been making a little effort in the last year or two to come to grips |
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> with vi or vim, and am starting to prefer it, but ISTM that the problem with |
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> traditional Unix editors (i.e. vi & emacs) is that they depend upon learning |
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> obscure keyboard shortcuts. |
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|
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When I shifted to Linux full time a couple years ago, I decided to force |
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myself to learn vi. I don't make any claims that it's better than emacs or |
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any other editors out there. But for more advanced editors, I think it's |
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necessary that there will be some learning curve, and then the "best one" is |
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just what you bothered to learn. Emacs looks great, but I don't have a clue |
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how to use it. Sure, the shortcuts are obscure, but I think even with a |
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modern editor, shortcuts are obscure to the uninitiated. |
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|
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From this basic stand-point, I haven't found anything vi can do that emacs |
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can't and vice-versa. But I just started forcing myself to use my editor of |
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choice for everything, and then finding work-arounds (for example, in vi |
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:set paste when you want to paste stuff from the main buffer (a la |
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shift+insert in Konsole) without retarded indentation) and keeping a small |
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notebook for the vi commands I "learned." |
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|
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You can start making customized macros (I have one for printing the date, |
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for example, for log files), customized highlighting (find one online you |
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like the most and slowly tweak it), and nice default settings (like line |
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numbering auto-enabled, for example). |
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|
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So, my advice would just be to make some kind of informed decision on which |
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editor to use, and stick through the learning curve. It's much like choice |
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of linux distribution. You can always change, but you ought to stay with |
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your initial choice long enough to be competent with it. |
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|
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Besides, once you learn lots of obscure shortcuts, as one of my friends |
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said, "You can contort your hands in strange ways and make magic happen!" |
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|
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~daid |