Re: text editors

[John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com>]

tomás writes:
> It /is/ a steep learning curve at the beginning (I can confirm, having
> come from vi, then vim -- in which I'm still fluent). But it is worth
> every turn in that panoramic route.

I started out with Vi on UNix and eventually switched to Emacs.  I still
often use Vim.

I think that one problem people have with Emacs is that they think they
need to learn all of it before they can use it.  Work with the tutorial
until you are proficient enough with basic editing commands to be
productive.  After that whenever you come up with something such as the
need to mark a block of text read-only search the documentation: a
command to do it probably exists.  If you then find yourself using that
command frequently it will become automatic.  If not you will still know
that it exists and so will be able to quickly find it in the docs and
refresh your memory when a need for it pops up years later.

Of course, you can create function key shortcuts for the commands you
use a lot: no need to constantly type long strings into the minibuffer
or memorize exotic escape sequences.  Also, almost everything is
somewhere in the menus if you like that sort of thing.  There is even a
customization interface so you need not learn Elisp.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhasler@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA