From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: don provan Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Hard to switch from vi Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 10:25:10 -0700 Message-ID: References: <45299CB0.5090003@speakeasy.net> <4529A0E4.60403@charter.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1161452437 30708 80.91.229.2 (21 Oct 2006 17:40:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:40:37 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 21 19:40:31 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GbKpe-0004z5-SY for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 21 Oct 2006 19:40:27 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GbKpe-0004Aq-E6 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:40:26 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:25:03 -0500 Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:/nzK9P5vgIB2thttveM5qt/nzqw= Original-Lines: 36 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.5.238.65 Original-X-Trace: sv3-ImpVH6LYDJe0TXt2Juxcbnvo63IGjHXOn7LKxk1qrpmjw57iKzilX0kuh/XFo5uWcuiPrmsRmdHohwr!3jeZxF3MIYw0bEXf9WsoeDT9dp9KcXrQZ3XYRG+qnEFt9AKAmf9P3pUKB17SdQ== Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:142538 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:38159 Archived-At: Wen Weng writes: > ken wrote: >> First, I don't know of any comparison of the number of keystrokes. > Well, that's just my experience so far after one week of using emacs. Could you elaborate? I can't think of any serious inefficiencies in emacs vs. vi, so I'm wondering if something else is going on. Perhaps you're mentally ascribing two key strokes to control-f because you have to push two keys and you aren't used to that, or possibly maybe the issue is that you're familiar the vi "big commands" but, being a emacs learner, not the emacs ones, so in emacs you have to do everything in small steps that in vi you can do with single commands. Anyway, if you could explain, maybe we could see why your experience doesn't jive with ours. There's no doubt that the two editors involve entirely different approaches to editing, but I think emacs starts getting interesting when you get past editing and start using the rest of the emacs system. >> Secondly, other things are much more important. > Actually, the number of keystrokes is number one importance to me and > to a lot of people, I guess. Well, I actually agree with others that there are many more important issues, but the one that drives me crazy about vi actually winds up causing more keystrokes in vi: the modalism. It seems like every vi session I end up spending the majority of keystrokes cleaning up text executed as commands because I thought I was in text-enter mode or commands entered as text because I thought I was in command-mode. Now, of course, this is in large measure because of me and my inexperience with vi, but I still consider it a fundamental problem that vi forces me to be in sync with its idea of what mode we are in. -don