View source for Editor war

{{Short description|Rivalry between Emacs and vi text editors}}
{{for|the type of conflict between Wikipedia editors|edit war}}
{{Tone|date=September 2024}}
The '''editor war''' is the rivalry between users of the [[Emacs]] and [[Vi (text editor)|vi]] (now usually [[Vim (text editor)|Vim]], or more recently [[Neovim]]) [[text editor]]s. The rivalry has become an endearing part of [[hacker culture]] and the [[free software movement|free software community]].

The Emacs versus vi debate was one of the original "holy wars" conducted on [[Usenet]] groups.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~joern/jargon/holywars.HTML |title=Holy War (Hacker Jargon) |access-date=2016-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402134919/http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~joern/jargon/holywars.HTML |archive-date=2012-04-02 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Since at least 1985, many [[Flaming (Internet)|flame wars]] have occurred between those insisting that their editor of choice is the [[wikt:paragon|paragon]] of editing perfection, and insulting the opposing group accordingly.<ref name=emacsvsvi>{{Cite web |url=https://www.linux.com/news/emacs-vs-vi-endless-geek-holy-war |title=EMACS vs. vi: The endless geek 'holy war' |access-date=2016-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161130184702/https://www.linux.com/news/emacs-vs-vi-endless-geek-holy-war |archive-date=2016-11-30 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Related battles have been fought over operating systems, [[programming language]]s, [[version control]] systems, and even source code [[indent style]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/just-let-me-code/240168735|title=Just Let Me Code|access-date=2015-04-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501233433/http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/just-let-me-code/240168735|archive-date=2015-05-01|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/10/25/why-coding-style-matters/|title=Why Coding Style Matters|access-date=2015-04-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503202415/http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/10/25/why-coding-style-matters/|archive-date=2015-05-03|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Background==
[[File:2012 SOTM Steve Coast (8091880545).jpg|thumb|Editor choice being brought up during a presentation at a technology convention]]

{{as of|2020}}, both Emacs and vi can lay claim to being among the longest-lived application programs of all time,<ref>{{cite web |first=David |last=Auerbach |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/05/oldest_software_rivalry_emacs_and_vi_two_text_editors_used_by_programmers.html |title=The Oldest Rivalry in Computing |website=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |date=9 May 2014 |quote=two rival programs can stake a claim to being among the longest-lived applications of all time. Both programs are about to enter their fifth decades. Both programs are text editors, for inputting and editing code, data files, raw HTML Web pages, and anything else. And they are mortal enemies.}}</ref> as well as being the two most commonly used text editors on [[Linux]] and [[Unix]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch15s02.html|title=Choosing an Editor|quote=these two editors express sharply contrasting design philosophies, but both are extremely popular and command great loyalty from identifiable core user populations. Surveys of Unix programmers consistently indicate about a 50/50 split between them, with all other editors barely registering.}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=September 2024}} Many operating systems, especially Linux and [[BSD]] derivatives, bundle multiple text editors with the operating system to cater to user demand. For example, a default installation of [[macOS]] contains [[Ed (text editor)|ed]], [[Pico (text editor)|pico]] ([[Nano (text editor)|nano]] before [[macOS Monterey]] 12.3<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tsai |first=Michael J. |title=Michael Tsai - Blog - macOS 12.3 Removed the nano Text Editor |url=https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/03/25/macos-12-3-removed-the-nano-text-editor/ |access-date=2025-03-19 |language=en}}</ref>), [[TextEdit]], and Vim.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html|title=Ed, man! !man ed|publisher=Gnu.org|access-date=1 December 2014}}</ref>

==Humor==
[[File:Richard Stallman - Preliminares 2013.jpg|thumb|[[Richard Stallman]] appearing as St I[[GNU]]−cius, a saint in the Church of [[Emacs]]]]
The '''Church of Emacs''',<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gospel.html|title=''Rules, Sins, Virtues, Gods and more of The Church of Emacs''|publisher=Gnu.org|access-date=1 December 2014}}</ref> formed by Emacs and the [[GNU Project]]'s creator [[Richard Stallman]], is a [[parody religion]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://stallman.org/saint.html|title=Saint IGNUcius - Richard Stallman|publisher=Stallman.org|access-date=1 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141122041857/https://stallman.org/saint.html|archive-date=22 November 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> While it refers to [[Vi (text editor)|vi]] as the "editor of the beast" (vi-vi-vi being [[Number of the beast|6-6-6]] in Roman numerals), it does not oppose the use of [[Vi (text editor)|vi]]; rather, it calls [[proprietary software]] a case of [[anathema]]. ("Using a [[free software|free]] version of vi is not a sin but a [[penance]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2006/04/unabridged-selective-transcript-of.html|title=The unabridged selective transcript of Richard M Stallman's talk at the ANU|publisher=Linuxhelp.blogspot.com|access-date=1 December 2014|archive-date=4 October 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004151936/http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2006/04/unabridged-selective-transcript-of.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>) The Church of Emacs has its own [[newsgroup]], alt.religion.emacs, that has posts purporting to support this belief system.

Regarding vi's [[Mode (user interface)|modal]] nature (a common point of frustration for new users),<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~joern/jargon/vi.HTML| title = vi (Hacker Jargon)}}</ref> some Emacs users joke that vi has two modes – "beep repeatedly" and "break everything." vi users enjoy joking that Emacs's key-sequences induce [[carpal tunnel syndrome]], or mentioning one of many satirical expansions of the acronym EMACS. These include "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift" (a jab at Emacs's reliance on modifier keys),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gnuemacs.acro.exp.html|title=Some funny acronym expansions of Emacs|publisher=Gnu.org|access-date=1 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210216155135/https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gnuemacs.acro.exp.html|archive-date=February 16, 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> "Eight Megabytes And [[Thrashing (computer science)|Constantly Swapping]]" (in a time when that was a great amount of memory), "EMACS Makes Any Computer Slow" (a [[recursive acronym]] like those Stallman uses),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.roesler-ac.de/wolfram/acro/Cmd.htm#_E |title=The Unix Acronym List |last=Rösler |first=Wolfram |access-date=March 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210216123740/http://www.roesler-ac.de/wolfram/acro/Cmd.htm#_E |archive-date=February 16, 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> or "Eventually Munches All Computer Storage" in reference to Emacs's high system resource requirements. Nonetheless, [[key bindings]] from both editors are found in many other contexts. GNU EMACS has been expanded to "Generally Not Used, Except by Middle-Aged Computer Scientists" referencing its most ardent fans and its declining usage among younger programmers in comparison to more graphically oriented editors such as [[Atom (text editor)|Atom]], [[BBEdit]], [[Sublime Text]], [[Kate (text editor)|Kate]], [[TextMate]], [[Notepad++]], and [[Visual Studio Code]].{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

As a poke at Emacs' [[creeping featurism]], vi advocates have been known to describe Emacs as "a great operating system, lacking only a decent editor".{{citation needed|date=September 2024}} Emacs advocates have been known to respond that the editor is actually very good, but the operating system could use improvement (referring to Emacs' famous lack of [[concurrency (computer science)|concurrency]], which has now been added<ref>{{Cite web|title=Concurrency has landed (was: Please test the merge of the concurrency br|url=https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2016-12/msg00378.html|access-date=2020-12-08|website=lists.gnu.org}}</ref>).

A game among UNIX users, either to test the depth of an Emacs user's understanding of the editor or to poke fun at the complexity of Emacs, involved predicting what would happen if a user held down a modifier key (such as {{keypress|[[Ctrl key|Ctrl]]}} or {{keypress|[[Alt key|Alt]]}}) and typed their own name. This game humor originated with users of the older [[TECO (text editor)|TECO]] editor, which was the implementation basis, via macros, of the original Emacs.<ref>{{cite journal |date=July 1983 |title=Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL |journal=Datamation |pages=263–265}}</ref>

The [[Google Search|Google search engine]] also joined in on the joke by having searches for vim resulting in the question "Did you mean: emacs" prompted at the top of the page, and searches for emacs resulting in "Did you mean: vim".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Google suggest vi for Emacs and Emacs for vi {{!}} Hacker News |url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25371017 |access-date=2022-04-07 |website=Hacker News}}</ref>

In the web series ''[[A Murder at the End of the World]]'', there is a scene referencing the editor wars where a character asks a woman if she uses Vi or Emacs.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Murder at the End of the World: Are you Vi or Emacs? |url=https://xenodium.com/are-you-vi-or-emacs/ |access-date=2023-12-26 |website=xenodium.com|date=22 December 2023 }}</ref>

==See also==

* [[Console wars]]
* [[Browser wars]]
* [[Comparison of text editors]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
* [http://www.textfiles.com/programming/vivsemacs.txt Results of an experiment] comparing Vi and Emacs
* [http://danzig.jct.ac.il/unix_class/emacs-vi-Commands.html Comparing keystrokes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517203626/http://danzig.jct.ac.il/unix_class/emacs-vi-Commands.html |date=2014-05-17 }} per task
* [http://www.softpanorama.org/Editors/humor.shtml Humor around Vi, Emacs and their comparisons]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041009204831/http://www.tarunz.org/~vassilii/srom/ Results of the Sucks-Rules-O-Meter for Vi and Emacs] from comments made on the Web
* [http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html#st-ignucias-and-the-church-of-emacs In the Church of Emacs] "using a free version of vi is not a sin, it's a penance."
* [http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViKeys Emacs offers Vi functionality], from the Emacs wiki
* [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EmacsVsVi Emacs Vs Vi], from [[WikiWikiWeb]]
* [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch13s03.html The Right Size for an Editor] discussing vi and Emacs in relatively modern terms

[[Category:Emacs]]
[[Category:Free software culture and documents]]
[[Category:Hacker culture]]
[[Category:Internet culture]]
[[Category:Software wars]]
[[Category:Text editors| ]]
[[Category:Vi]]