Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on August 14, 2006 12:50 AM
Emacs comes with its own Emacs manual which is well-organized, up-to-date and coherent.
Do not tell me you are one of those "couple Emacs pros over there" who can read - and understand - the Emacs' help???
I use VIM since I understand well how it works. I yet to meet personally single person who knows and understand how Emacs works - and how it can be configured. Majority of my colleagues use Emacs with some config dug up on net about 15 years ago. And that's about it as far as usual Emacs "customization" goes. Everybody I know who uses Emacs is in the same situation.
I like many features of Emacs. But Emacs forces on me another antique programming language, documentation lacking basic links with real world and absolutely incomprehensible plugin/mode system. (e.g. how much nested hooks involved in handling of Tab key in c-mode? Enter key in cvs-mode? how can I override that? which hook out of hundreds shall I use??) No way I would ever find enough time to learn and properly customize Emacs to my liking. With VIM I need about 15 minutes to make 95% of adjustments. With Emacs I once spent 2 weeks to no avail - e.g. it's still impossible to force Emacs to use and understand Tab character as single character, not like N spaces.
To conclude. To read vast Emacs' documentation with its funny terminology out of another dimension uninhabited by humans could fill a full time job. The plugin system - modes - makes completely irrelevant any documentation written for Emacs. Nobody uses Emacs w/o modes - and no decent documentation (w/o prerequisite of in-depth e-lips knowledge) exists on how to use, customize and integrate the modes with each other.
Would love to be proven wrong. But honestly already lost any hope many years ago.
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wtf
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on August 14, 2006 12:50 AMDo not tell me you are one of those "couple Emacs pros over there" who can read - and understand - the Emacs' help???
I use VIM since I understand well how it works. I yet to meet personally single person who knows and understand how Emacs works - and how it can be configured. Majority of my colleagues use Emacs with some config dug up on net about 15 years ago. And that's about it as far as usual Emacs "customization" goes. Everybody I know who uses Emacs is in the same situation.
I like many features of Emacs. But Emacs forces on me another antique programming language, documentation lacking basic links with real world and absolutely incomprehensible plugin/mode system. (e.g. how much nested hooks involved in handling of Tab key in c-mode? Enter key in cvs-mode? how can I override that? which hook out of hundreds shall I use??) No way I would ever find enough time to learn and properly customize Emacs to my liking. With VIM I need about 15 minutes to make 95% of adjustments. With Emacs I once spent 2 weeks to no avail - e.g. it's still impossible to force Emacs to use and understand Tab character as single character, not like N spaces.
To conclude. To read vast Emacs' documentation with its funny terminology out of another dimension uninhabited by humans could fill a full time job. The plugin system - modes - makes completely irrelevant any documentation written for Emacs. Nobody uses Emacs w/o modes - and no decent documentation (w/o prerequisite of in-depth e-lips knowledge) exists on how to use, customize and integrate the modes with each other.
Would love to be proven wrong. But honestly already lost any hope many years ago.
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