5

Vim, Nano, Emacs. Which one should I learn if i were to learn one?

Comments
  • 5
    All of them or else you noob.
  • 6
    Vi, it's usually the only one available in bare bones environments
  • 2
    Nano. And of course how to quit Vim
  • 2
    Vim, it's pretty neat once you get familiar with it
  • 1
    @Ubbe why not nano?
  • 0
  • 1
    @borabinary because you need to know both in order to hate both
  • 1
    Nano is designed to be a super-simple terminal text editor, so it's lightweight and doesn't have features like syntax highlighting. Basically anyone can learn to use Nano after like 15 minutes

    Between Vim and Emacs, it's really just personal preference, but I like Vim because, although it has a steep learning curve, it's lightweight and the keybindings are simple-ish and intuitive
  • 2
    As far as editing goes I think Vim is the superior choice. Emacs, however, can be extended to do damn near anything in much more powerful ways than Vim, that last part is mhch more opinion than fact.
  • 2
    I personally use emacs because it's extensive with lots of packages and easy to configure and use. I think you should know how to use the others, vim is not very hard to use either. Nano is the easiest and is very good for quick config fixes
  • 1
    @borabinary Because it is my favourite, since I don't need any advanced features.

    I would just suggest you to learn the one you feel is the best one. Everyone here is going to tell you something completely different. It is like Windows vs Linux vs Mac...you are not getting any answers here or wherever you ask about it.
  • 4
    Vim.

    I know many hate it but I have so far never seen a linux machine without it, it might be just vi, but the important commands are the same.

    Once you know vi/vim you can choose any other editor as your preferred one, but those might not be available always.
  • 0
    Well, if you ask Google for Vi it suggests Emacs.

    Personally, prefer vim.
    It's just more comfy and pluggable for me.
  • 0
    Oh, another masochist tendencies club...
  • 0
    Learn Vim as a beginner
    Do the following steps
    vim file.ext
    Now press i to insert
    Write
    Press Esc and then wq to save and exit. It means 'write and quit'
    If you have not written anything simply press Esc and then q and enter
  • 2
    @neeno You are right neeeeenoooooo
  • 0
  • 1
    @AleCx04 There is always Spacemacs, which combines the best of both worlds. Setup is pretty finicky though.
  • 3
    Lost my comment.
    So not retyping all of that.
    But the gist is I agree with @Voxera.
  • 2
    All these baseless opinions. I blame you OP.
    What the fuck are you trying to do? Leaning a tool is never the goal itself unless you are in school.

    Some things to consider: vi is almost always present in UNIX like systems. Vim is way better for power users.
    Pico/nano are easier to learn but far less powerful, there is no undo for example.
    Emacs is less popular now but the key bindings make you extremely fast in the shell (they are the same in bash/zsh). And it's extremely powerful/fully programmable. Also makes it tad slower to load. Vim also gets slower with lots plugins. Depends on system how much this effects you.
  • 1
    @Root definitely, I agree, there is also vim mode without spacemacs. I just like Lisp OK??!!!!
  • 0
    vim and emacs. And se emacs with vim (doom emacs)
  • 0
    @Voxera vi(m) is not installed in Arch Linux by default. So it's not a rule you can live by. Think nowadays nano is always installed but again might have exceptions. Emacs is almost never installed by default.
  • 0
    I learned vim and enjoy the keybindings. There are so many tools and plugins out there which use them. Not sure if this is the same for emacs though. Vim keybindings you can setup in (but of course is not limited to) shells (zsh,..), webbrowsers (various plugins for major browsers, bunch of dedicated browsers like qutebrowser),IDEs(cannot remember an IDE that didn't have a plugin), window managers (i3,...), mail clients, file managers (ranger,..)

    Of course some of them have just a limited subset, but it feels very straight forward if you can use the basics in most applications
  • 1
    @hjk101 but nano is so easy you really do not need to learn it for basic usage ;)

    So if you know vim you will most likely be set to survive most servers :P

    But personally I actually like vim better than nano, probably most out of 25+ years of practice.
  • 0
    @Voxera wow you got some years on me. Barely a 16 year Linux user and started out with Emacs.
    I'm more proficient with vim too. I especially hate the missing undo feature in nano. Had to redo edits because my cat thought sitting on the keyboard is the new thing. Our just lost track of something. So even with small edits I like vim better.
  • 0
    Learn ed, the standard editor
Add Comment