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On Thu, 22 Feb 2007, Michael wrote:
Emacs can take about 1-2 seconds to start on a slow machine with a big
configuration file, but it doesn't take longer on a modern computer. You
can run it with macros for HTML editing that definitely speed things up. I
cannot believe that emacs is slower than nano once it is running. Do you
have a way of demonstrating that? Slower at what?
The load time is all that matters to me. A lot of my edits take only a
couple seconds to make so any noticeable load time does make a
difference. Not as much as it used to on slower computers of course. ;)
OK, but when I load a file in emacs or nano on my Linux box (dual Xeon 2.8
GHz), it doesn't take any time at all for either program -- just a blink
of the eye. So I don't think it's an issue.
It isn't the length of the code that matters. If there are certain
kinds of tags that you add often, you can use a macro to speed that up.
It definitely helps.
I use all tags equally.
Do you keep statistics on that? ;-)
Usually the only repetitive function I use is cut and paste. The only
real feature I can think of that I'd find useful is a really easy CnP
function that let you use multiple cuttings. My problem is that it'd
need to work across multiple OSs.
Emacs has multiple kill buffers and it works on multiple OSs. To recall
cut text, use Ctrl-y (yank). To recall an earlier one: Ctrl-u N Ctrl-y,
where "N" is a number indicating which cut text you want to recall.
Emacs also has excellent Undo functionality allowing you to go back, way
back, and figure out where you screwed up.
Does nano do interactive regular expression search and replace? Emacs
does that. That would be one example of a feature that I find useful.
My code is short and clean so replacements are usually not very
difficult. I use the 'rpl' command-line tool for this. Anything complex,
which is rare, I'd use Perl to do probably. Why learn additional tools
that do the same thing?
Perl does *interactive* regular expression search and replace? I don't
think so. Emacs isn't an additional tool that does the same thing.
I don't need to sell emacs to anyone, but I find it hard to believe that a
programmer who spends lots of time in text editing wouldn't find out in
the end that emacs was not worth learning.
When I teach students to use UNIX/Linux, I start them with Nano because
it is so easy to use. I tell them that emacs exists and that they
should plan to learn to use it if they are going to continue working in
a UNIX/Linux environment.
You should probably teach vi also as it's needed for anyone that plans
to be a serious Unix/Linux person.
It is unnecessary. Although it is a theoretical possibility that one will
someday be on a system that doesn't have pico or nano or emacs but it does
have vi, it is very unlikely to be a problem because you will then have
someone install what you need.
The reason I will never teach vi is that it is a ridiculous little piece
of junk -- that is how every student will see it. Learning it is a waste
of time for them. It is very awkward to use. It was designed for use
over a 300 baud modem, not for modern computing (I think I sent the Bill
Joy article about this a few weeks back). I know that long-time users
like vi, but they are just stuck in the past unable to move forward.
The other reason I will not teach vi is that I haven't used it in many
years and I don't really know it anymore and I don't feel any need to
learn it. The one thing worth knowing: How to get out of vi if the
system uses $EDITOR and puts you into vi for some reason.
I find nano a nice in-between in the vi versus emacs flame war. IMO vi
is to lightweight and emacs to bloated. It really depends what you're
doing but I do find that Unix already does damn near everything emacs
does so I don't see a point in using emacs to do what I've already
learned to do just as well in Unix.
I guess you don't use emacs so you don't know what you're missing. I'm
not sure what it means to say that Unix can do what emacs does. I can't
think of an interpretation of that statement that is true.
People always say that emacs is "bloated." Sure, let's say that it is
bloated -- it does have tons of functionality. It will take about 40 MB
on your HDD and a few unnoticable extra milliseconds to load on some
systems and it will use 11 MB of RAM when loaded in its own window or 9 MB
when loaded in the current window. But this is 2007!! Even an older
machine will not have a problem with that. In other words, the bloat is
not noticable when comparing performance with nano.
I do agree that nano is good. It uses less HDD, uses much less memory and
it probably loads faster but I can't detect differences on that time
scale. It has much less functionality than emacs, but what it has is good
and works well.
Mike
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