vi vs. emacs

Many people have debated the relative merits of vi vs. emacs. (Google "vi vs. emacs" for a sampling of the debate.) Following are two novel approaches to learning these two programs. Once again:

1. As many of you know, I use vi, not emacs. But I recently found online instructions that make emacs easy to use! This is the first site that Google gives you, too, so it must be good!

   It's How to Use Emacs, by Gerald Oskoboiny

   but the contents are so useful, I'll repeat them here, verbatim:

   ---

   How to Use Emacs

   First, you need to "remember" where emacs is, using the 'rm' (remember) command:

   rm -f `which emacs`

   Next, you need to tell the system that you want to use emacs in "visual" mode:

   alias emacs=vi

   Now, you're all set to use emacs! To edit a file, just type

   emacs filename

   I hope this information has been useful.

   ---

2. Dr. David Pierce, a former CSE@UB faculty member, says:
   Personally, I find the vi editor much easier to use. It's even easier to set up than emacs. Here's all you have to do—learn ("ln") a substitution ("-s") for emacs, namely vi:
   ln -s `which emacs` ~/bin/vi

   Of course, ~/bin must appear first in your $path, so that substitutions are learned correctly.

   To use vi to edit a file:

   vi filename

   And there you go.