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like those
Stallman uses) or "Eventually Munches All Computer Storage", in reference to Emacs's high system resource requirements. GNU EMACS has been expanded to "Generally Not Used, Except by Middle-Aged Computer Scientists" referencing its most ardent fans, and its declining usage among younger
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two rival programs can stake a claim to being among the longest-lived applications of all time. Both programs are about to enter their fifth decades. Both programs are text editors, for inputting and editing code, data files, raw HTML Web pages, and anything else. And they are mortal
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these two editors express sharply contrasting design philosophies, but both are extremely popular and command great loyalty from identifiable core user populations. Surveys of Unix programmers consistently indicate about a 50/50 split between them, with all other editors barely
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A game among UNIX users, either to test the depth of an Emacs user's understanding of the editor or to poke fun at the complexity of Emacs, involved predicting what would happen if a user held down a modifier key (such as
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As of 2020, both Emacs and vi can lay claim to being among the longest-lived application programs of all time, as well as being the two most commonly used text editors on Linux and Unix. Many operating systems, especially
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nature (a common point of frustration for new users) some Emacs users joke that vi has two modes – "beep repeatedly" and "break everything". vi users enjoy joking that Emacs's key-sequences induce
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also joined in on the joke by having searches for vi resulting in the question "Did you mean: emacs" prompted at the top of the page, and searches for emacs resulting in "Did you mean: vi".
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derivatives, bundle multiple text editors with the operating system to cater to user demand. For example, a default installation of
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of editing perfection, and insulting the other, since at least 1985. Related battles have been fought over operating systems,
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editor, which was the implementation basis, via macros, of the original Emacs.
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Editor choice being brought up during a presentation at a technology convention
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The Emacs versus vi debate was one of the original "holy wars" conducted on
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programmers compared to more graphically oriented editors such as
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fought between those insisting that their editor of choice is the
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740:"Google suggest vi for Emacs and Emacs for vi | Hacker News"
822:"using a free version of vi is not a sin, it's a penance."
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Rules, Sins, Virtues, Gods and more of The Church of Emacs
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764:"A Murder at the End of the World: Are you Vi or Emacs?"
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For the type of conflict between
Knowledge editors, see
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Results of the Sucks-Rules-O-Meter for Vi and Emacs
843:discussing vi and Emacs in relatively modern terms
239:in Roman numerals), it does not oppose the use of
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235:as the "editor of the beast" (vi-vi-vi being
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809:Humor around Vi, Emacs and their comparisons
416:"EMACS vs. vi: The endless geek 'holy war'"
69:Learn how and when to remove this message
16:Rivalry between Emacs and vi text editors
648:"Some funny acronym expansions of Emacs"
610:. Linuxhelp.blogspot.com. Archived from
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681:from the original on February 16, 2021
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724:"Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL".
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41:tone or style may not reflect the
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675:"The Unix Acronym List"
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728:: 263–265. July 1983.
231:. While it refers to
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130:programming languages
796:Comparing keystrokes
634:"vi (Hacker Jargon)"
516:"Choosing an Editor"
338:Google search engine
305:As a poke at Emacs'
245:proprietary software
588:on 22 November 2014
275:Constantly Swapping
243:; rather, it calls
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534:"Ed, man! !man ed"
441:"Just Let Me Code"
343:In the web series
307:creeping featurism
300:Visual Studio Code
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420:the original
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395:the original
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362:Browser wars
357:Console wars
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292:Sublime Text
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836:WikiWikiWeb
832:Emacs Vs Vi
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650:. Gnu.org.
311:concurrency
223:'s creator
221:GNU Project
189:, and Vim.
851:Categories
773:2023-12-26
749:2022-04-07
726:Datamation
710:2020-12-08
658:1 December
618:1 December
592:1 December
566:1 December
540:1 December
476:2015-04-24
451:2015-04-24
426:2016-11-30
401:2016-11-30
378:References
144:Background
122:flame wars
83:editor war
562:. Gnu.org
536:. Gnu.org
260:newsgroup
169:contains
805:per task
799:Archived
685:March 4,
679:Archived
652:Archived
503:enemies.
351:See also
296:TextMate
248:anathema
187:TextEdit
109:and the
834:, from
256:penance
227:, is a
185:12.3),
181:before
126:paragon
298:, and
288:BBEdit
118:Usenet
99:Neovim
857:Emacs
497:Slate
373:Notes
267:modal
237:6-6-6
210:Emacs
193:Humor
167:macOS
159:Linux
87:Emacs
687:2021
660:2014
620:2014
594:2014
568:2014
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336:The
331:TECO
320:Ctrl
284:Atom
252:free
215:The
179:nano
175:pico
161:and
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323:or
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