The Best Programmers’ Editor

I learned vi back in the bad ol’ days of 1980 when I was fresh out of college and working on a PDP 11/70 running UNIX version 6 with DEC VT100 terminals on a dozen users’ desks. Life was good. I even wrote a short book, How to Use Vi in 10 Easy Lessons, which was used inside TRW to train WPS-8 users on how to create documentation with nroff, the MM macros, and a VT100 on a UNIX system. Go figure.

A couple years later, I was introduced to emacs and life instantly got much better. Unlike vi, emacs can split the screen and display two (or more) files simultaneously or (glory of glories) two parts of the same file. Never mind that the screen way back then was exactly 24 lines by 80 columns in size and splitting it in two meant that you had two “windows,” one ten lines tall and one 11 lines tall. It was cool (and useful, too).

I thought I was pretty cool until I learned that real programmers spurn both emacs and vi and use “cat >a.out” instead. Someday I may approach that level of coolness.

And now, this very morning, xkcd raised the bar (click the image for a larger version):

I don’t think I can even dream of attaining that level….