26 Jul
2005
26 Jul
'05
9:44 a.m.
People get past the learning curve and use Emacs because once they do,
they find that they can do things more quickly and easily than they
can in anything else. Some things are just impossible to do in
Windows-like editors without a lot of hard work - replace-regexp is my
favourite example, and has saved me hours of work. Add to that the
syntax highlighting, indentation awareness, cooperation with make,
latex, javac, whatever, region comment/uncomment, etc., etc., and you
will begin to see why learning Emacs is worth it.
Vi people will say the same kind of things about Vi, but of course,
they only like Vi because they haven't got used to Emacs yet.
although i havent used vi for more than editing conf files on systems that don't have
emacs, im fairly certain vim can do everything you mentioned above as well..the same way
that ardour is analogous to protools/nuendo/samp/tracktion/dp/logic/sonar they all can do
it, the issue of intuitive usability is often the tipping factor.
this is why i fire up vmware to run samplitude. unlike ardour, i am not asked to create a
project instantly spewing folders and files somewhere that i dont want them.
'peak' files are generated alongside the source file so they arent wastefully
regenerated on each usage. drag in compressed files and instantly use them without waiting
for them to be uncompressed to wav or fiddling with a cmdline to do this beforehand. and
no need to create new tracks, or play around in a sphaghetti mess of qjackctl to use stuff
that cant be used as a 'plugin' aka JAMIn and a bevy of midi-controlled standalone
jack apps.. i assume this is similar to a vi user fighting with 'edit mode' and
arcane single-key shortcuts..
the good news is the foundation is solid, but often those with the most intuitive ideas on
usability are not good programmers, and vice versa...