elisp -> Python (was Re: [OT] Emacs, Eclipse, Leo (was Re: IDE

[G. S. Hayes]

Ville Vainio <ville at spammers.com> wrote in message news:<du71xj6q04b.fsf_-_ at amadeus.cc.tut.fi>...
> You switched from emacs to vim? That borders on blasphemy ;-).
> 

I did that too, after 4-5 years of Emacs.  Modal editing works well
with my brain.  :-)

> Seriously, is Vim as customizable/programmable in python as emacs is
> in elisp? If that is the case, I'm switching too...

No, it isn't.  Emacs has many more output options; vim basically only
supports text (and some file selectors and menus).  So you couldn't
do, for instance, a web browser with inline image support in vim.

But you can access all vim commands, define new user functions and
keymappings, edit the text, set marks, etc.

So basically, it's a fully customizable text environment, and people
have done mail readers and so on in vim/Python.  Getting debuggers
running in subshells and such is possible too, but basically only for
line-oriented tasks (no full terminal emulation).

But the general consensus in the Vim community is that Vim should
remain an editor, not an environment, and it should obey the Do One
Thing Well philosophy.  The Emacs community often views Emacs as their
OS, doing everything from reading  news/mail to playing games to
surfing the web from Emacs (and oh, yeah, editing text too).  So don't
expect to find anything as polished as GNUS out of the box for
Vim--but do expect a lot of people who know how to make vim and slrn
work together very well.

Getting anything graphical interacting with Vim in a meaningful way
would be right out, at least until someone convinces Braam to add a
few things (like adding an input fd with callback), and polling
periodically can't happen either (so e.g. mail readers can only check
for new mail when the user hits a key, not every 5 minutes) until that
happens.