terse editor

[cmr at gis.net]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 00:09:48 -0500 (EST)
David Backeberg <dave at math.mit.edu> wrote:

>> Both editors support copy and paste, special color highlighting (vim
or 
>> emacs run within X), and other nice features for "power users". Emacs
also 
>> has "buffer modes", which affect the way syntax highlighting behaves,
for 
>> instance, there are special color modes for editing C++ or html
files.

>> One of the things I do frequently in emacs is to use ediff. This is a
diff mode that allows you to compare 2 or more files. Each difference 
is color highlighted, and you can perform various operations. 

> BTW: Vi also has multiple buffers, so you can copy something into a
buffer, load another file, and paste, but I think that emacs is a bit
easier here.

> Another emacs feature is keyboard macros. You can record a keyboard
macro, name it and save it.

Truly, it is vim that has all the features, and not vi.  Vim means vi
improved.  There are multiple buffers and windows, syntax highlighting
(you can write your own syntax highlighting as well), remote file
tranfers, and macros: (recording, assigning, etc.).  I'm sure vim was
brought about becuase vi users didn't want to switch to emacs, and just
wrote add-ons to vi.  With the block visual mode in vim, you can select
columns or blocks of text as well: very handy for cutting out line
numbers from pasted text.


--
Chadwick