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this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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TechTakes
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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As someone not versed in the relevant deep lore, did emacs vs vim ever actually matter? Like, my experience is with both as command line text editors, which shouldn't have nearly as much impact on the actual code being written as the skills and insight of the person doing the writing. I assumed this was a case where you could grumble through working with the one you didn't like but would still be able to get to the same place, but this would seem to disagree.
If nothing else, it’s a trap discussion. The only real answer is “they’re both fine.” Anyone who seriously argues that one is far superior to another probably needs therapy. Joke discussions are fine and signs of a healthy brain.
E: when I think vim, I think of bram moolenaar, may he rest in peace. When I think emacs, I think of richard stallman, who can go fuck himself with a rake.
— Fred "Slacktivist" Clark
it's also a great test for knowing whether you're dealing with a mature/competent developer or not
remembering fucking stupid flamewars on comp.editors over vi variants, and then there's Sven Guckes (vim) and Thomas Dickey (nvi) having a lovely discussion
This is like learning about the christmas truce in WWI.
Also, I had to search both those guys. RIP Sven Guckes, I’m sure I have more to thank you for than I’ll ever know (unless I go back and check the commits). Thomas Dickey, I hope Luigi Mangione’s defence is going well.
It doesn’t matter. Vim is an emacs under the Finseth definition (which is my favorite way of riling up both vim and emacs people trying to keep the irrelevant editor war going). Those folks oughta find something else to center their entire personality around.
honestly the only important difference between them is that emacs's default keybindings can and will give you a repetitive stress injury (ask me how i know...)