[Ologn]

You don't have to choose one. I use vi a lot, but when I want to do something complicated I often switch to emacs.

It is easy for me, and not a lot of typing. I log on a server, and type vi program.py. Now I am in normal mode at the top of the file. If I want to go to line 80 I type 8-0-return. If I want to search for a list called dataList below that I type /dataList and return. If I want to go to the bottom of the file I type G. If I want to go back to the top of the file I type 1G. It is economic with how much typing you need to do. It loads up quickly. It also uses the same commands as ed in case you're on a dumb terminal, although that tends to be rare nowadays.

If I'm doing a lot of multi-window stuff, or cutting and pasting from the middle of a line to the middle of another line 3000 lines down or something complex I use Emacs. For example, emacs has a command 'keep-lines' where only lines matching a regex get kept (or flush-lines where all lines matching a regex get deleted). Vi can do more complex stuff but I usually just switch to emacs when things get complicated.

Speaking of speed - if you look at the old e-mails and Usenet posts and such from Bill Joy on the net, you may notice he did not capitalize any letters when he wrote. That saved him the time of having to hit the shift key.