Why No One Can Answer The 'Vim Versus Emacs' Question

It's the age old question: why should I, the Vim user, switch to Emacs? Well, the reason this question is difficult to answer is because the question hardly makes sense...

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[arcuscerebellumus]

"Emacs is an interstellar spacecraft that's primarily used to drive nails. Vim is a hammer..." - don't remember whom I'm quoting here.

[androth]

emacs is what a lisp-based computer/OS would look like. it's basically an e-lisp interpreter with a GUI window to display your elisp programs.

[muddyexport]

I have switched to emacs based on a lot of your (and others) vids. Being a nvim user, I use doom emacs config that I swiped the essence from your website and modified to fit my needs. I keep going back to your site to see if anything might have changed that I would like to copy to mine. I struggle with so many features that you can activate but muscle memory is taking over to my normal uses. I think that several months (years?) from now I will be proficient ;~) However, I enjoy the learning and use and sense of accomplishment when I get what I want to do without looking it up. I am currently using org mode to do a lot of documentation and tangled development.
It ain't easy but its fun!
PS -- I'm 76...

[Evertras]

"Emacs is a great OS, all it needs is a good text editor"

[guglielmobartelloni]

- Open a terminal in emacs
- Open vim

[gregsweats]

Exactly what I was loking for...something beyond the typical text editor showdown. You have opened my eyes. Thank you :)

[punchedchunk]

Hot take: I don't like when people say comparing Emacs to Vim is such a crazy comparison. At a high level both applications are solving the same issue for the end user. Under the hood yes they are vastly different but both can achieve very similar functionality to eachother. I just feel this message is misleading and confusing to beginner. Anyone who can appreciate the vast difference under the hood probably doesn't need a comparison video anyways.

[pagundu]

No one can answer because they all use VSCode.

[romangeneral]

Well said.
Been on emacs for a few years now. My entire workflow is now in emacs. Doom emacs to be specific so I am using evil mode...

Emacs is Life

[OmnisR]

Vim: I need to edit something with lightning speed. I need to make this .txt file real quick.
Emacs: The entire workspace. With a text editor included.
Comparing Vim to Emacs is like comparing pond to sea. That's why no one can answer Vim vs Emacs: It's not a good comparison to begin with. And yes, I used both, just long enough to understand the scope of these programs.

[adjusted-bunny]

The glasses make you almost look intellectual.

[friedrichdergroe]

I have Evil installed in Emacs, and I constantly switch back and forth between the two modes. I might recall how to do something in vim that I would have to look up in Emacs, and vice-versa.

And I have configured my Emacs over the years for software development. It is now configured for a number of language -- Haskell, C++, Rust, Ruby, Elixir.... I have not played at all with VSCode, but I dont see me using VSCode for anything. Oh, and did I mention OrgMode and Org Agenda?

And I have so many keybindngs configured that occasionally I have to grep my configuration files to find them! I should do a video about my Emacs configuration someday. Probably take me about an hour to cover it.

You are absolutely right, DT.

[JanBruunAndersen]

The only reason to use Emacs is that it can be used to edit binary files.

The main reason to not use Emacs is that you need a foot pedal to use it effectively.

[NightimeDemon]

Seems like the software definition of "it is, but also isn't" or "yes, but also no". I'll have to check it out someday for real. My curiosity is piqued.

Edit to add: I love that you have a playlist called "Church of Emacs". 10/10

[MeinITServiceDesk]

E xtensible
M odular
A rchitecture for
C ommand-line
S tandardization

(should be named)

[justsomeguy]

Vim vs Emacs is nonsensical, but Neovim vs Emacs is relevant. The reality is that Emacs is so much more mature when it comes to the ecosystem, and Neovim is playing catchup. Magit has no equal, but Neogit, a Magit clone, is catching up. Haven't looked into it, but I suspect it might be a similar situation for Emacs org mode.

I started with Emacs and then moved on to Neovim out of curiosity. Honestly, I think the best option is the one you learn well enough to be able to configure it to fit your own needs. And that really comes down to do you want to use Lua or ELisp for configurations? That's assuming you don't have some specific use case that's solved better in one or the other. But as far as just being text editors goes, they are equal since Emacs include evil-mode.

[pierrec]

Way back then, I wanted to edit a text file. Tried emacs, and found the exercise horribly confusing. Finally figured out how to get out of emacs, and concluded that going through all that crap just to edit my text file would irrevocably prove I am stupid. I never went back and risk proving I was stupid.

[mtjwxwo]

love your videos have learned many things through your vids keep moving forward
luv from india

[Belgarathe]

What final got me was that I wanted one place to do a lot of my task. eMacs can do it without the typical worry of having to relearn tools that change in windows with each major upgrade. It allows a lot of customization where all the tools work seamlessly together. Files can be processed from downloading, automatically scraping what you need, then push that into your knowledge file and then check to see what has changed and give you a diff report. All done in one button. You can do other things like enter a todo, which then triggers an update in other files such that when you are looking for all the information upcoming vacation trip, you can print pdf file that has your itinerary, reservation numbers, pack list, weather report for days on your trip automatically

[EbonySeraphim]

I used emacs for a solid handful of months then stopped for two reasons: 1) it actually crashed. I built releases from source but didn’t add any flags. 2) I used vim key bindings but they aren’t complete vim bindings you can’t search how to do things since it’s not actually running vim under the hood. The divide and overlap for how to do stuff made it awkward to really “lock-in” a consistent method for editing.

With neovim, most people decide their environment and workflow involves just their shell and tmux. Especially with the new generation of shell tools like ripgrep, fzf, zoxide, fish, etc it’s a tougher sell to convince me I need a heavier environment manager.