Not trying to start a flame war - Do you use emacs or vim or nano?

[Fryguy8]

Well, I just realized that I have been using linux for over 2 years now, and that I made a decision when I started to use vim without ever really looking at emacs. For some reason, I decided to take a look at emacs howtos etc tonight, just to see what the big differences were.

I'm "at an advantage" because I never really learned vim (just the basics), so I can still teach myself either one without having to worry about unlearning stuff. To me emacs seems much better for document writing and programming. Sure it's bloated, but who cares? I've got Horsepower to spare, and it's on a console app, it's not like mozilla thunderbird running on my system.

So which do you use and why? And if anybody has a good beginner's howoto to vim (something paralleling http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Emacs-Beginner-HOWTO-3.html, which I am currently reading), that'd be helpful.

I can't believe it took me 2 years to realize that I might be using "the wrong" text editor (in terms of my preference).

[soda_popstar]

I've never really seen any need for anything besides nano. Then again, I'm not really a hardcore programmer.

[nouse66]

i'll second that... i use nano for console also. i'm always in x when i'm coding so i use something "fancy" like kate or eric. back in college i used vi though.

[endoalpha]

I am also a nano (or pico) user. When I code, i do use vim tho. Nano/pico is used for most everything else. I am happy to see other nano enthusiasts

[maccorin]

i love vim, cause i know it, although i'm sure emacs is capable of everything that i love about vim...

i also have thought about looking into emacs because of it's gdb integration. On that point alone I would prolly recommend emacs to someone new, even though i personally prefer Vim

[Fryguy8]

well I use nano for editing basic stuff (screwing around with XF86Config etc), but when I'm doing from scratch stuff I want to look into gvim or xemacs. What about other editors like kate etc? I was always under the impression that gvim/xemacs were more powerful?

[nouse66]

Originally posted by Fryguy8
well I use nano for editing basic stuff (screwing around with XF86Config etc), but when I'm doing from scratch stuff I want to look into gvim or xemacs. What about other editors like kate etc? I was always under the impression that gvim/xemacs were more powerful?

yeah, they are more powerful but they're also complicated if you ask me...

[carbon-12]

I really dont know. If im programming in java/python/c, I just use gedit. For editing config files, I love Pico.

[freakmn]

I'm a nano user also. I always thought that nano was a little out there, as it isn't even included on a knoppix cd. I guess I'm not the only one...

[nouse66]

Originally posted by freakmn
I'm a nano user also. I always thought that nano was a little out there, as it isn't even included on a knoppix cd. I guess I'm not the only one...

well its just the gnu enhanced version of pico, right? maybe knoppix has pico instead like suse (8.2 for me).

[asklepios]

Originally posted by soda_popstar
I've never really seen any need for anything besides nano. Then again, I'm not really a hardcore programmer. you said what i wanted to :)

[Strike]

I blaze through stuff with vim (I offer as evidence. my customizing vim NHF (http://justlinux.com/nhf/Tools/Customizing_vim.html) that I wrote probably 3 years ago as proof of my wizened guru status :p), but I'm not an emacs hater. I just know that at this point that the marginal increase in utility I'd get from switching to emacs (there is just more crap available for it) would not outweigh the productivity/speed hit I'd take. I use emacs on occasion when coding in Haskell or Scheme, for example. But even not 100% then.

[deathadder]

I use to use emacs, but then I got my hands on nano. I've used it ever since for most editing. I do use nedit for coding though. I've tried vim once or twice, but couldnt really get my head round it :)

[WayStar]

I *really* like vim, but it's my personal preference. My husband absolutely hates it, and he's not too fond of emacs, either. He'll use nano or pico if he has to edit something on a *nix machine, assuming one or the other is available. If all that's available is vi, he screams to me for help.

I think they're all great tools.

-Waylena

[saturn-vk]

I use vim out of principle, it will always be installed, on any machine, because it's something like a standard. I don't like using it, but there's no other choice when you have to boot off the slackware cd and edit your config files.

[Syngin]

Put me down for a vote for nano too.

[Icarus]

VI, all the way...Isn't emacs considered a distro by now? All it needs is a bootloader :)

Lots of votes for nano, so I added it ;)

[madcompnerd]

Ok, if you are voting for nano than vote for it, there is a poll attached....

I voted for Vim, nano and pico waste screen space with control space; plus they don't have nearly the functionality of VI. As for Emacs being bloated, come on it's seriously not that horrible. I don't like it, but that's cause I prefer vi for console.
Generally though I do not code in console. I console code some small changes from my laptop, but usually I do coding in anjuta. I like an IDE that's very comfortable with a lot of helpers for my bad memory (code hinting). I usually use the most powerful editor for the environment.

[AndrewLubinus89]

I use pico because I am a lazy n00b who hasn't bothered to learn vi yet (which i will eventually)

[Fryguy8]

What about other editors? Ideally I'd like something that had the text moving/editing power of vim, with the ability to have a "tree" of files on the left (for programming projects). I'm well aware of vims ability to do this (or simply using terms and alt-tabbing), but I've got a nice, huge *** space here, with the ability to run graphical apps, and the horsepower to do so, so I feel somewhat limited by vim.

Edit: yes I know about gvim :)

EDIT2: wee i'm on a roll, anyways

does anyone know of anything programming/text editting specific that one editor can do and the other can't (obviously emacs does all that other weird stuff that's not really related to programming/text editing), but realistically if I just pick one and learn it, I'm not really missing out on much/anything, especially if I have a second term open right next to it, right?

[owlish]

Originally posted by AndrewLubinus89
I use pico because I am a lazy n00b who hasn't bothered to learn vi yet (which i will eventually)
Ditto... Except that its nano for me!

[cozmo]

from the console you can type in vimtutor. It drops you into VIM from the console and in about half an hour of lessons you can learn so much about VIM. I bought a book a long time ago about EMACS and never got around to reading it. I have thought about giving it to my local LUG library. OTOH, I have been learning a lot about Perl and HTML lately and have been quite happy with VIM. I have used nano for editing config files because it is what is suggested to be used in the gentoo documentation, and I have used several simple text editors. I think the best thing to do is learn one very well and stick with it.

[SunOfTux]

Personally, I like pico the best for editing simple text from the terminal. However, I use vi if pico is not available (emergency shells, etc.)

[knute]

Put me down for vim.

To me vim was just easier to learn. I even made an attempt once or twice to learn emacs, and for me, it just wasn't intuitive enough.

[Loki3]

I'm lazy. I use nano. For papers and reports I use Open Office.

[hardcore]

I primarily use nano, mostly for config files and the like. I use vim for quick little concept programs (cscope highlighting is nice as well). Bigger (read multi-source) projects are done on Kdevelop. Any thing else is handled by OO.o