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by ack 5800 days ago
have you tried mg instead of nvi for all those quick shell edits? the commands are still the same.
1 comments

Yes. By and large, it only preserves the aspects of Emacs I don't care for. (It is in OpenBSD's default install, though. That's cool.)

I like Emacs's extension model, and its "everything is a buffer" design, but dislike its modifier-heavy keybindings. I like vi's modal interface and general command orthogonality, but would rather have a persistent, extensible, etc. environment. (Also, I like Lisp, but elisp kind of sucks. And I have written, and continue to write, a fair amount of elisp.)

On the balance, Emacs works better for me, though if a synthesis of the two with a good extension language (I nominate Lua) ever comes along, and retroactively gets the ten programmer-centuries of work it'd take to match what Emacs has, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

Also: Yes, I know about Viper and the other vi-emulation modes, but people who write Emacs extensions follow the cultural standards for keybindings, etc. Including me.