Talk:Text Editors

From Linux 101, The beginner's guide to all things Linux.

If you've used Vi in the past, perhaps on a Sun Microsystems machine and hated it, give ViM a chance. I had the same reaction at first, and only used Emacs for a long time on the Sun machines at Clemson. However, once I found ViM and got a good cheat sheet for it, I took it up. To me, it's like an automatic vs. a manual transmission in a car. Emacs is easier at first because it doesn't have different modes like Vi does. Once figuring out how to operate ViM properly, however, I found it reduced the time it took for me to enter text. Most of ViM's keyboard shortcuts are near home row, while Emacs uses the function keys. If you remap your keyboard a little you can even get escape near home row (maybe map Caps Lock -> Esc) and ViM gets a lot faster.