Re: Emacs's popularity

[Lennart Borgman]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 11:28 PM, Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> But Vim is not only installed; it's really used a lot. In Debian Vim has
>>> always been a bit more popular than Emacs but in the first half of 2007
>>> Vim really got popular (around Vim 7.1 and Debian 4.0 release). This
>>> "used actively" graph compares vim-common, emacs21-bin-common and
>>> emacs22-bin-common packages:
>>>
>>>    http://preview.tinyurl.com/5thmmx
>>
>> That is a bit strange since the vi emulator Viper in Emacs is now so good.
>>
>
> Not strange at all Lennart, Why would someone run the Emacs OS to run
> emulated vim  when they can run the real thing in 100th of the
> footprint?

Exactly why do you think the footprint matter?

> The big problem is simply that Emacs is far less approachable than
> Vim. No matter what people say, I know from personal experience that
> people balk at the Tutorial which still emphasises center keys as
> opposed to arrows keys. It might appear minor to the seasoned emacs user
> but its not to the average new adopter who is used to standard Windows
> type CUA editors. I consider myself a pretty decent Emacs user now and I
> use the arrow keys ...
>
> In addition, and importantly, the type which stick with Emacs and know
> how it works are far less likely to by flag waving fan boys - something
> Vi/m has always had an abundance of....
>
>
> --
>  important and urgent problems of the technology of today are no longer the 
> satisfactions of the primary needs or of archetypal wishes, but the 
> reparation of the evils and damages by the technology of yesterday.  ~Dennis 
> Gabor, Innovations:  Scientific, Technological and Social, 1970
>