JM Ibanez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > If it's any consideration, Zak and I are both Emacs users (sorry Zak > :P).
Buwahahaha! Oh well, let Emacs back on the editors-kill-ring :P > The one reason I find why I always seem to gravitate towards Emacs is > its extensive repertoire of keyboard shortcuts. Sure, some will > dismiss and criticize the sometimes unintuitive nature of these > shortcuts (and call me a disciple on this), but once you get the hang > of it, some editors suddenly just don't cut out for you. > > Additionally, I can extend it and customize it to my preferences and > my work habits. > > But that's me. :D How about you? :) I mostly share the same reasons for continually using Emacs for the past 3 years or so. While it does indeed have a high barrier of entry even to most computer power users, Emacs provides a nice environment to do just about everything (defined as editing, reading mail and news, surfing the Web while avoiding non-textual components, and going to the doctor) and anything else I could think of. And its programmable, too. Lately though, I've been exploring into other avenues of the business of text editing, as evidenced by my previous posts on acme(1) and sam(1) on Plan 9: those two editors are quite far off the usual editor wars radar, but they lead to some interesting (if unusual) strategies to manage text. For instance, in Acme, just about everything is editable, including the taglines (menubars, except they aren't menus in the GUI sense) which maintains a list of common commands for editing, which by themselves are editable. In fact, because even the editing commands are just text, I can actually enter those commands *directly* on the text I'm editing in, execute them with the mouse, and repeat as necessary; no context switching on my part (as a human editor) happens. No need for vi's ESC modals or Emacs' M-x; where Acme lacks a full language (or widgets, even,) it makes up by making command execution simpler and easier. Sam, on the other hand, is a much more down-to-earth text editor, being Acme's predecessor. I haven't used it much, but one thing that it has and looks interesting is its use of structured regular expressions (SREs) that exploit Sam's focus on selection-oriented operations. Indeed, this is something I have to learn yet. Using these editors other than Emacs and Vi made me realize that there's more to text editing than mere infinite customization, keyboard friendliness, or stranded-on-desert-island support; there's also text editing to be done. Cheers, Zakame -- Zak B. Elep [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
