On 7/8/07, Mohan Nayaka mohansn@gmail.com wrote:
<rant> Sorry to play the devil's advocate but I think not. I used xemacs and am still trying learn it. It uses keybindings different from so many other editors that it leads confusion when you have to use emacs *and* other editors. For e.g. C-g goes to a specific line number in most other editors, whereas in xemacs it aborts the currently running command or he one being typed. I still haven't found an equivalent to <esc>:q!<enter> that is, to exit losing all changes, no questions asked. In xemacs I still have to type "yes" when emacs asks me whether I want to exit without saving. Of course, I could do M-~ and exit. There is no text copy facility: you have to cut, and paste twice. </rant>
C-g: read this as Control-god :-). that is what some people say when they repent
True. emacs' keybindings are different from other editors. emacs took birth when others did not exist, can't help. But, consider changing them to whatever you like. I heard, though did not try, the new gtk-snapshot of emacs can emulate the common behavior, as well as access to clip board.
It is not a good idea to compare vi with emacs, though lot of people try to do it and end up into unnecessary flame wars. vi is indeed an editor, a very good one. I learnt, and it is a must for any one willing to do sysadm. On the other hand emacs is a complete reconfigurable desktop environment, where editing is an option. Indeed, you can emulate vi within emacs.
It is easy to get what other applications do within emacs, but what is difficult is to get others do what emacs does. It absorbed every new invention and stood up for almost 30 years. This is one single reason that I never gave up emacs in the last 18 years.
To the best my knowledge, nothing is ever invented that can be legitimately compared with emacs, except of course a number of clones of emacs.
Nagarjuna