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VIM 6.0 is Out 585

Posted by CmdrTaco from the best-text-editor-in-the-world dept.
LinuxNews.pl writes "It's more then a year after releasing the first 6.0 alpha. Lot's of improvements (i.e. you can edit files via FTP!) - check them out on vim.org" Of course everyone knows that vim is the best text editor in the world. Anyone who tells you differently is either wrong, lying, or criminally insane. (Or an emacs user, in which case they are wrong, lying and criminally insane).
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VIM 6.0 is Out More

VIM 6.0 is Out

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  • vi versus emacs (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rupert ( 28001 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:06PM (#2359540) Homepage Journal
    Boy, the way Taco is trying to start a holy war here, anyone would think that he made money on ad impressions every time someone posted a comment.

    • but it's solid content! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hawk ( 1151 )
      Finally, after all the errors, reposts, gullibility, and the like, we have solid information being reported on slashdot. No reasonable person can dispute what he wrote, save possibly the technical issue of whether "wrong" and "criminally insane" are in any way contradictory--but anyone who waste time on that matter would probably use emacs, anyway . . .


      :)


      hawk

    • Re:vi versus emacs (Score:5, Funny)

      by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:54PM (#2359920) Homepage
      Ugh, can we avoid the whole "Holy War" thing. I'm rather CNN'ed out right now.

      Call it "Infinite Debate" or something like that instead.

  • CT's bias (Score:5, Funny)

    by sl70 ( 9796 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:07PM (#2359542) Homepage
    How come we can't mod CT's original post down as a troll?
  • 3 modes editing: now hitting the ESC repeatedly won't help you, you're doomed.

  • Office Assistant? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mmontour ( 2208 ) <mail@mmontour.net> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:10PM (#2359570)
    So did Vigor [red-bean.com], the vi paperclip, make it into the 6.0 release?

  • because the 'announce' link doesn't work... (Score:4, Offtopic)

    by Si ( 9816 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:11PM (#2359578) Homepage
    here's the text of the latest 6.0ax announcement:

    From: Bram Moolenaar
    To: vim-announce@vim.org
    Subject: Vim version 6.0ax BETA is available
    Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:51:23 +0200
    Message-Id: Announcing: Vim (Vi IMproved) version 6.0ax BETA
    Author: Bram Moolenaar et al. Announcement
    ------------ This is a BETA test version of Vim. Vim 6.0 is a huge step from Vim
    5.x. Many, many new features and improvements have been included. For
    an overview, with a few screendumps, look here: http://vim.sf.net/whyvim.php The past two weeks many bugs have been fixed. This release is to check
    if no mistakes were made. If nothing important comes up, 6.0 will be
    released in a few days. Thanks to all people who reported problems and
    helped fixing them! If you notice a problem, please report it! It would be annoying if Vim
    6.0 will be released with a problem that could have been fixed if you
    would have reported it. If you are upgrading from Vim 5.x, please look out for problems you run into.
    Vim 6.0 is mostly backwards compatible, but not 100%. Check out ":help
    version6" for known incompatibilities. If you find a problem that can be
    solved, please report it to me. Details about changes since the first beta can be found in these messages:
    6.0aqhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 23413
    6.0arhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 23598
    6.0ashttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 23730
    6.0athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 23941
    6.0auhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 24252
    6.0avhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 24546
    6.0awhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 24841
    6.0axhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/messag e/ 25061 You can find the most recent patches here: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unreleased/patches What is Vim?
    ------------ Vim is an almost 100% compatible version of the UNIX editor Vi. Many new
    features have been added: Multi level undo, syntax highlighting, command line
    history, filename completion, block operations, etc. Those who don't know Vi
    can probably skip this message, unless you are prepared to learn something new
    and useful. Vim is especially recommended for editing programs. Vim runs on almost any Unix flavor, MS-DOS, MS-Windows 3.1, MS-Windows
    95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, OS/2, Atari MiNT, BeOS, VMS, RISC OS, Macintosh and
    Amiga. For more information, see http://vim.sf.net. New since version 5.8
    --------------------- The number of changes is huge. These are just the main new items: Folding - momentarily hide part of the text
    Vertically split windows - mixed with horizontal splits
    Diff mode - show and remove differences between files
    Easy Vim: click-and-type - for those who really don't like two modes
    User manual - learn to use Vim, reads like a book
    Flexible indenting - automatic indenting for any language
    Extended search patterns - more regexp power than you will need
    UTF-8 support - Unicode allows editing nearly all languages
    Multi-language support - translated messages and menus
    Plugin support - drop a script in a directory and you can use it
    Filetype plugins - an easy way to setup for editing a type of file
    File browser - browse directories, also on a terminal
    Editing files over a network - read and write a remote files directly
    command-line editing window - use any Vim command to edit an Ex command
    Debugging mode - debug your Vim functions and scripts
    Cursor in virtual position - edit tables and draw ASCII pictures
    Debugger interface - use Vim with Sun Visual Workshop
    Communication between Vims - let one Vim tell another Vim what to do
    Printing - print with syntax colors
    Quickfix extended - see error messages in a window and jump there
    Writing files improved - rename or copy to make a backup file
    Argument list - select groups of files to work on
    Restore a View - save the looks of a window and restore it later
    Color schemes - quickly switch between different color setups See this page for the details: http://vim.sf.net/htmldoc/version6.html Where to get it
    --------------- Information about which files to download for what system: http://vim.sf.net/download.php If you already know what to get, download it from here: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unreleased Or use one of the mirrors, see: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/MIRRORS Mailing lists
    ------------- For user questions you can turn to the Vim mailing list. There are a lot of
    tips, scripts and solutions. You can ask your Vim questions, but only if you
    subscribe. See http://www.vim.org/mail.html. An archive is kept at
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vim. If you want to help developing Vim or get the latest patches, subscribe to
    the vim-dev mailing list. An archive is kept at
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev. Subject specific lists:
    Multi-byte issues: vim-multibyte http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vim-multibyte
    Macintosh issues: vim-mac http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vim-mac Reporting bugs
    -------------- Send them to . Please describe the problem precisely. All the
    time spent on answering mail is subtracted from the time that is spent on
    improving Vim! Always give a reproducable example and try to find out which
    settings or other things influence the appearance of the bug. Try starting
    without your own vimrc file: "vim -u NONE -U NONE". Try different machines
    if possible. See ":help bugs" in Vim. Send me a patch if you can! If something needs discussing with other developers, send a message to the
    vim-dev mailing list. You need to subscribe first. Happy Vimming!

    • Screen dumps??? (Score:4, Funny)

      by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:27PM (#2359717) Journal
      It's a text editor. Screen dumps? Ooh, look: a v, and an i, and an m. And all those vowels . . .


      :)


      hawk

    • Snagged from the front page of vim.org:

      Vim-6 is out! rah rah rah! :-)
      And here is what Bram said in his announcement:
      From: Bram Moolenaar
      To: vim-dev@vim.org
      Subject: Vim version 6.0 available!
      Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:22:57 +0200
      Message-Id:

      Well, there it is. More than a year after Vim 6.0a Alpha.
      It's about time we get a full release!

      There are a few bug fixes since 6.0ax, I don't expect them to
      cause new trouble. The XIM problems have not really been solved,
      but I didn't want to postpone the 6.0 release any further.
      Hopefully the hack I included will make it work for most people.

      I'll announce it to a larger audience
      when the mirror sites have catched up.

      Thanks to all the people who helped making Vim 6.0 what it is now.
      Either by sending me patches and Vim scripts or just reporting tiny
      problems. Vim wouldn't be the same without your contribution!!!

      What next?

      Next week I'm going to visit the project in Uganda. In November I have
      another holiday planned. In between I'll try to fix the most important
      bugs that are reported. Anything else will have to wait for a while.

      Don't expect great new features in a next version. Vim has grown into a
      complex program with so many features and options that there is nobody who
      uses them all. Stability and easy of use are the main goals for the future.

  • Real Programmers... (Score:5, Funny)

    by istvandragosani ( 181886 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:11PM (#2359579) Homepage
    ...use cat and od

  • You forgot.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:11PM (#2359580)
    "Anyone who tells you differently is either wrong, lying, or criminally insane."

    You forgot "selling something." :)

  • The other Vim site (Score:5, Informative)

    by anonymous cowpie ( 31472 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:11PM (#2359582)
    ... is at SourceForge [sf.net]. IMHO these pages are better organized and more helpful than the stuff on vim.org. Obviously not always up to date though, as the front page does not yet reflect the 6.0 release. :-|

  • what's the difference? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <andrewvc&gmail,com> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:11PM (#2359585) Homepage
    as a novice linux user I ask what is the difference between Vi And EMACS. I don't want to hear your opinion, but feature wise what is the difference?

    No flames please.

    • Re:what's the difference? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:33PM (#2359764) Homepage Journal
      as a novice linux user I ask what is the difference between Vi And EMACS.

      vi is like masturbation. It's not as good as the alternative, but it's always there.

    • Re:what's the difference? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:37PM (#2359798) Journal
      The two editors evolved differently. Vim started as 100% compatible vi clone with extra features, while emacs was an attempt to create a 100% free (as in speech) text editor when the alternatives were vi (closed source commercial implementations), pico etc.

      So in a nutshell here are the differences:

      o Emacs uses lisp to completely customize the editor. Vim uses it's own little scripting language to do syntax highlighting, create shortcuts etc...

      o Vim is just an editor. Emacs will do everything except pick your nose (ei: check e-mail, surf the net, even play games). You can also write Emacs extensions with emacs-lisp to get it to pick your nose if you really want it to.

      o The interface is quite different. Vim (like vi) has editing mode and command mode. Emacs just has editing mode. Both are command-driven though unless you use gvim or XEmacs - in that case you get an X11 user interface.

      There are lots of other differences feature wise but these are the big ones. The best suggestion I can give you is to just try both. They are both relatively hard to learn since you have to memorize a lot of commands. But once you have them down pat they easily become two of the best text editors available.

      One thing to note though: because they are hard to learn it's suggested that you only pick them up if you do a LOT of text-editing (programmers for example). They really are programmers editors and not for people who just want to create the odd ascii file. Do not use them expecting something like notepad for windows. If you do you will hate them.

      --
      Garett
      • You can also write Emacs extensions with emacs-lisp to get it to pick your nose if you really want it to.


        Don't give anyone any ideas. I'm sure there's somebody out there with too much free time and a Lego Mindstorms kit....
      • Emacs will do everything except pick your nose (ei: check e-mail, surf the net, even play games). You can also write Emacs extensions with emacs-lisp to get it to pick your nose if you really want it to.

        Sounds like an, um, "interesting" port for LEGO Mindstorms.

    • Re:what's the difference? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 ) <tms&infamous,net> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:40PM (#2359819) Homepage
      as a novice linux user I ask what is the difference between Vi And EMACS.

      vi - A VIsual editor. Older, smaller, and less full-featured. Newer vi-decendants, like vim, are larger and more feature-ruch. Mode-based editing - in insert more, typing "x" inserts an "x" into your buffer, while in command mode typing "x" deletes the character under the cursor. Commands are based on "ed", which is also the ancestor of sed. You can do some inserting stuff by feeding it ed commands, along the lines of ":%s/foo/bar/g" for global replacement. Pretty much tty based, some newer varients let you use the mouse directly.

      emacs. Editor MACroS. "The extensible self-documenting text editor." "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift." Modeless editing (mostly, sort of). Has a LISP interpreter built in, which means its big (some might say bloated) and can do anything you want it to - there are entire applications written in Emacs Lisp. Editing involves a lot of "control" and "alt" key combinations - Control-X Control-C to exit, Control-X Control-F to open a new file, and so on. Works ok in a tty, or under X with point-n-click, dropdown menus, etc.

      I like vi for small quick edits, and it's easier to run over a slow link. Emacs has a heck of a learning curve, but once you understand it, it'll be your best Unix friend. (Yes, there is a Windows version too.)

    • Re:what's the difference? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rocky Mudbutt ( 22622 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:57PM (#2359948) Homepage


      vi{m}? has 5 modes:

      Beep mode: everything you type rings the bell

      Disappearing text mode: everything you type vanishes

      Flash mode: everything you type makes the screen blink, scroll, and erase

      Escape mode: everything you type needs an ESC

      colon mode: all your text shows up at the bottom of the screen after a :



      Emacs has 5 modes:

      ESC

      Meta

      Alt

      Control

      Shift
      In all modes everything you type requires the depressing of more than one of the above keys
      in addition to a very-long-and-verbose-definition-that-you-look-up- regularly


      after 22 years of vi, I think hjkl instead of
      left down up right.

    • Unix is a collection of small things, each trying to do something well, with the bower being in the combinations. Windows tries to do everything.


      vi is like unix, while emacs is like windows: yes, there's a GNU operating system, although it's not the so-called GNU/Linux [1]. Emacs is an operating system that tries to do everything you could possibly conceive of. Vi edits.


      GNU/Linux would be like a tire and engine with no body, steering, seats, frame, etc. It's not until you include the rest of the stuff like perl, X, bsd stuff, etc. that you get what we normally call "Linux" and that you're able to get any work done.


      ob flame: besides, a large portion of emacs user move beyond the heresy of emacs and get arrested for unnatural acts with goats :)

      L
      hawk

  • Stress test (Score:3, Funny)

    by Papa Legba ( 192550 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:12PM (#2359589)
    All I can figure is that the Slashdot coders have made some sort of change and want to see if the crap filter can take a huge load or not. Batten down the hatches! It's destructive testing time! The only explination I can find for this topic at least.
  • Emacs has had a vi-emulation mode for ages. Has anyone done an emacs emulation mode for vim?

  • Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Klaruz ( 734 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:13PM (#2359596)
    Don't expect great new features in a next version. Vim has grown into a complex program with so many features and options that there is nobody who uses them all. Stability and easy of use are the main goals for the future.

    I'm not a vi user, and this isn't intended to start a flame war, but it's nice to see vim sticking by it's one of it's principles - making a lightweight editor.
    • Okay, let me attach some bait to the hook, drop down the line, and start trolling...

      ...it's nice to see vim sticking by it's one of it's principles - making a lightweight editor.

      vim is lightweight? What have you been smoking, and why won't you share?

      vim is only lightweight in comparison to emacs. It ain't lightweight compared to the vi family. It's like your 300 pound rube cousin you hate to invite for Thanksgiving because you'll have to cook two turkeys, and rent a spare sofa for the bowl games because the la-z-boy ain't big enough. The only thing that makes him tolerable is that he ain't your 500 pound neighbor emacs :-)

      If you want lightweight, try elvis.

  • Only v6.0? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gotroot801 ( 7857 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:13PM (#2359597) Homepage Journal

    Bah - Emacs is already at version 20. Clearly this means Emacs is 333% better than vim!

    Wait, you mean version numbers aren't a measure of quality? Dang!

  • vi for emacs (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 )
    For those of us who use emacs, there's a great simulation [www.dina.dk] available of the vi experience. (Check out the parent directory of that URL for more of the same)
    • Yeah, vi has two modes: command mode and beep mode.

    • Re:vi for emacs (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jburkholder ( 28127 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @02:28PM (#2360160)
      Oh, that's great. The vi/emacs flamewar is settled in my mind once and for all!

      I mean, the cearly superior editor is the one which can be made to completely mimic the behavior of the other, lesser editor, right?

      I once tried to find an emacs reference coffe-cup just like the one I had seen for vi. It was only available in sets of 20.

  • You're all wrong. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:17PM (#2359642) Homepage Journal
    From Ed, man! !man ed" [gnu.org]:

    From: patl@athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti)
    Subject: The True Path (long)
    Date: 11 Jul 91 03:17:31 GMT
    Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs,alt.slack

    When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like, 'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

    Ed, man! !man ed

    ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)
    NAME
    ed - text editor

    SYNOPSIS

    ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]

    DESCRIPTION

    Ed is the standard text editor.

    ---
    Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed because it's ED!

    "Ed is the standard text editor."

    And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
    -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

    Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

    "Ed is the standard text editor."

    Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

    golem$ ed

    ?
    help
    ?
    ?
    ?
    quit
    ?
    exit
    ?
    bye
    ?
    hello?
    ?
    eat flaming death
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^D
    ?

    ---

    Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

    "Ed is the standard text editor."

    Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

    ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

    When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

    TEXT EDITOR.

    When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

    Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

    ?

  • Bah. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ByteHog ( 247706 ) <{chris} {at} {bytehog.com}> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:18PM (#2359652) Homepage
    Text editors are for wimps!! I use a very small magnet to write my files. and CMOS when I'm feeling up to it..

  • Shocker (Score:4, Funny)

    by drodver ( 410899 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:19PM (#2359660)
    I recently installed a linux distro on a new hard drive. Imagine my surprise when I open up a config file in vi and (gasp) it was in color! The horror! I quickly turned off the monitor and haven't touched that computer since. Someday perhaps I will gather the courage to turn the monitor on again, but not anytime soon!

    Color text files! [[[shudder]]]
  • I wanna test out this puppy, but there are only FTP mirrors listed and the firewall here isn't cooperating. Any HTTP mirrors?

  • I don't see what the big deal is. I've been able to do all those things with emacs several years ago (some probably a decade ago). I also hope the network editing isn't just limited to the insecure FTP. I like being able to edit files and run compiles over the network with ssh/scp using emacs with the tramp [sourceforge.net] lisp module.

  • Edit files via ftp (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:26PM (#2359715)
    Nice anti-emacs rant, Taco. You also mentioned you're impressed that vim can now edit files via ftp. Well, let's take a look at the emacs changelog...

    GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 17-Aug-1988
    [snip]
    Changes in version 18.52.
    [snip]
    ** Visiting remote files.

    On an internet host, you can now visit and save files on any other
    internet host directly from Emacs with the commands M-x ftp-find-file
    and M-x ftp-write-file. Specify an argument of the form HOST:FILENAME.
    Since standard internet FTP is used, the other host may be any kind
    of machine and is not required to have any special facilities.


    So, emacs has been doing this for 13 years. You whining about how emacs users are crazy is like a Windows user in 1995 insulting Mac users, who had at the time been using the neat new Win95 features since 1984.

    • Not just that (Score:3, Funny)

      by Arker ( 91948 )

      Emacs has been able to emulate VI pretty completely for ages actually, in addition to actually doing real work. Just takes a single snippet of e-lisp.


      (use-global-map (make-sparse-keymap))


      There you go! Just like vi, it beeps every time you do anything, and you can't quit. :)

  • US Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by FredtheDead ( 461999 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:27PM (#2359718)
    Here the main us mirror site as vim.org is in Germany http://ftp.us.vim.org/vim/ [vim.org]
  • Lot's of improvements (i.e. you can edit files via FTP!)

    Ye gods -- BBEdit has been able to do that for YEARS! On Emacs, I routinely open files by tunnelling from my laptop, to my server, to another server and open the files remotely that way -- tunnelling through ssh, telnet, or a combination of the two -- (check out TRAMP [uni-dortmund.de] -- a lovely bit of wonderfullness).

    But now that VIM has it?!?! It's a freakin' BREAKTHROUGH!

  • Favorite new feature (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gorgon ( 12965 )
    My favorite new vim feature is :hardcopy. This feature lets you save to postscript (or print) versions of your file that look just like what's on the screen, including syntax highlighting. No more need to screw around with a2ps or enscript when you want to pretty-print code. Very nice. Thanks to Bram et al.
    • My favorite new vim feature is :hardcopy. This feature lets you save to postscript (or print) versions of your file that look just like what's on the screen, including syntax highlighting.

      I hate to sound like every other poster on this board today :P, but emacs has been able to do this for awhile, and its postscript printouts look *sweet*. Better than vim 6's.

      Before I get moderated down as off-topic, let me just say that vim 6 is badass... finally lets me use #RRGGBB values for syntax highlighting in the GUI. Whee. When the betas for 6 started appearing I spent a lot of time tweaking my .vimrc [forkbomb.net] file, and now I can't even use anything else. I even use vim (with mutt [mutt.org]) for email. It rocks.

      One thing I haven't been able to figure out how to do is to auto-read and -write GPG encrypted files (I know it can't do it in a perfectly secure way, the unencrypted version may get swapped out to disk, but I don't care so much about that. If somebody gets ahold of my hard drive, whatever. My secrets aren't all that interesting anyway.) I found some .vimrc stuff to do this through google, but it didn't work (and I couldn't figure out why). Anybody know how to do this?
  • For web projects I use Quanta [sourceforge.net]. It's definitely on par with Windows web editors like Allaire Homesite - I highly recommend it.

    Some of us use the GUI as more than just a place to put 47 xterm windows, you know.

  • I can use vim 6.0 to create a website that disparages vim 6.0 and vim.org without having to worry about violating the license.

    Yet one more way this is free as in speach.

  • emacs vs. vi (Score:2, Funny)

    by fetta ( 141344 )
    This may be old, but it was new to me:

    "Emacs is a great operating system - if only it came with a decent text editor."

  • hmm, smaller programs (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Sludge ( 1234 )
    Oh what? Since when do you have to release a new version of your text editor to get features like working over ftp? :) People blame emacs all the time for being one monolithic bloated program, when in fact it's far more modular than the lesser text editors that other people settle for.

    Calling emacs one big monolithic program is only true if you couldn't peel off the layers of LISP code that you may not require. It'd be like calling Linux bloated because it comes with ALL the GNU tools.

  • ...say I am criminally insane! I regularly consult M-x doctor thankyou very much! ;)
  • If i want console editing, i always use joe. I cannot accept that i have to press a special key before i can insert/append some text. And also, the delete method in vi is awful. And more, joe feels better than vi on strange terminals. When i can (X available) i use nedit.

    • I'll second that. vi and emacs users can stuff their dull editor wars up their :q! and their Meta-Alt-Insanity.

      Me, I'll just ^K D and keep on working...

    • Re:joe is better (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kvigor ( 66615 )
      As a former joe fan, I must suggest you check out Jed [mit.edu].

      Unlike joe, it is being actively developed and supported, has readable source (while I like joe, have you ever looked at the source? The medication is helping, but I still twitch occasionally...), runs on Windows (yeah, sometimes I have to work on a Windows box and it's really nice to be able to have my editor of choice), and has both console and X/Win32 GUI versions.

      Unlike emacs, it's relatively small & fast (though admittedly bigger & slower than joe); unlike vi, it's useful.

      If you like joe, you should check out jed.
  • Lot's of improvements (i.e. you can edit files via FTP!)

    from the emacs documentation:

    You can refer to files on other machines using a special file name syntax:

    /host:filename

    /user@host:filename

    When you do this, Emacs uses the FTP program to read and write files on the specified host. It logs in through FTP using your user name or the name user. It may ask you for a password from time to time; this is used for logging in on host.

    Normally, if you do not specify a user name in a remote file name, that means to use your own user name. But if you set the variable ange-ftp-default-user to a string, that string is used instead. (The Emacs package that implements FTP file access is called ange-ftp.)

    You can entirely turn off the FTP file name feature by setting the variable file-name-handler-alist to nil.

  • ok, make your case objectively? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @01:50PM (#2359896) Homepage Journal

    Well, that's easy to say, but emacs has had ftp editing for at least 4 years (probably much longer). In my exeperience, it's been more powerful and more customizable than vi has been (and I learned vi first, yes).

    Subjective issues aside, what does vi do that emacs doesn't? The only thing I've ever heard that I believe is that it loads faster.
  • If I were a pokemon I'd be vigglypuff, I would live to vanquish picochu.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @02:02PM (#2359984)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Get the Vim book (Score:4, Informative)

    by andy@petdance.com ( 114827 ) <andy@petdance.com> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @02:03PM (#2359989) Homepage
    Steve Oualline [oualline.com]'s book "Vi IMproved--Vim" [newriders.com] is pretty good both as an introduction to vi, and to the vim-specific things as well. It's also released under the Open Publication License [opencontent.org].

  • Emacs/XEmacs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by solarce ( 450240 )
    The more I hear about the many "features/modules" of Emacs/XEmacs the more I want to dowload and try it out, seems to me that it is not "monolithic", but rather customizable to the point of a development evironment you do nopt have to leave, most of the time, that is for those of us who prefer the console style environment. And I am thinking this coming from four years of using straight vi/vim.

  • No matter what you use daily, you still need vi (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @02:24PM (#2360142) Homepage Journal
    because one day you might need to restore your system from a boot disk, and vi is about the only thing that can fit along with the stuff you need to boot your system with. I suppose you could use edlin for this as well, but hardly anyone uses it. Additionally, vi is the one thing you can count on being on every system.


    Therefore, no matter what you use on a regular basis, you should still learn how to use vi.

  • It reminds me... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AmX ( 229879 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @02:31PM (#2360186)
    ...of a fortune I saw (can be found in the "linux" file in the fortune package):

    vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a
    muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know
    I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be
    said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^
    exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D

    -- Jesper Lauridsen from alt.religion.emacs
  • Or an emacs user, in which case they are wrong, lying and criminally insane

    Hey wait! We may be lying and criminally insane, no doubt about it, but we ain't wrong!

  • America's New War: (Score:5, Funny)

    by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Thursday September 27, 2001 @04:23PM (#2360890) Homepage Journal
    Emacs vs. vi

    Emacs President Shrub today announced a new iniative in the war on user-friendlyness; Operation Infinite Swapspace.
    This can be seen as a direct response to vi's recent attacks on Emacs functionality when a flock of rabid vi supporters chanted "vi don't suck, vi is leet, vi can edit in ftp!" outside the Emacs embassy in Kaboom, capital of Afarawayistan.

    An Emacs representative commented the attack with "Those evil vi-llains will do anything to confuse the issues. The fact is that Emacs can solve the Towers of Hanoi problem faster than a vi user can learn to save a file and this bugs the hell out of them since most of them don't even know where Hanoi is. We are going to find their leader /vigor/bin/laden and make him pay for this atrocity."

    vigor himself just said that "Vi vill :q! them!"

    The Piconian ambassador was not available for a // comment, but rumours has it that he's busy compiling evidence.

  • VIM License (Score:3, Informative)

    by Meltr ( 45049 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @04:29PM (#2360930)
    I apologize if this is redundant, but I didn't find any mention of it yet.

    VIM has a charityware license. If you use VIM and like it, you can donate to the Kibaale Children's Centre, which helps orphans in Uganda. In VIM, type ":help iccf" to get more info, or go to ICCF's web site [vim.org].

  • vi for Notepad lovers (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fjord ( 99230 ) on Thursday September 27, 2001 @08:33PM (#2361842) Homepage Journal
    Just thought I'd weigh into this holy war by mentioning WinVi [winvi.de]. It's done by a German guy and is available in English, German, and Spanish. The design goals were to be identical to Notepad in a CUI sense, but still have vi functionality. It isn't a perfect vi implementation, but it has the majority of things you would need, and it's a great bridge to vi. If you've wanted to learn vi, but don't want to give up windows L&F, then it's a great choice. Oh and it loads as fast as notepad, and it's GPL'ed.

  • vi vs. vim vs. emacs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Domini ( 103836 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @04:13AM (#2362788) Journal
    emacs won the war long ago against vi. vim is a different beast however. As someone said: emacs is a great operating system, but when I want to edit something I use vim. vim is still the best programmers editor. (Whish is what I use it for...) But personal preferences set aside. Some of the coolest things vim now has is vertical splitting, and code folding. It may or may not be true that emacs has had this for bilions and bilions!? of years, but that's not the issue... its just really useful stuff being added to the staple-code editor. My 0.02

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