Deciding on Emacs Bindings vs Modal Editing (Meow, Vim, Etc.)

Hello All, I am trying to figure out which is better. I used to do evil with Doom, but I decided to try out generic emacs bindings and I enjoyed them . Then I found meow and I like the inbetween'ness of Meow. Which is better for someone who doesnt want to customize all day? For example I probably will be using framework for the rest of my life and dont particularly care to over customize. Should I just keep with the "emacs bindings" or should I keep up with modal editing. OR just decide on the more popular framework because im lazy. Excuse the Ravings Posted this before bed. ​ TL:DR: Should i stick with Emacs bindings or modal. (i used evil/doom) for someone who would rather let someone take the reigns. ​ Thanks everyone

Whatever you want. That’s kind of the whole point of Emacs, you try them out for a few weeks and decide what you like better. I’m 100% in on Vim keybindings, I’d like to try a more vanilla experience than Doom Emacs, but I know for certain the first package I install will be Evil mode. But what should you use? That’s up to you.

This is one of the things you can only decide for yourself. It's a personal decision based on preferences. So, from a personal perspective, I've had bad experiences with modal editing in the past. But I'm always concerned about RSI and have been feeling some occasional soreness in my wrists lately. So I'm giving it another shot. I'm also trying out Meow for a second time now. The previous time I was very impressed and felt that it was an improvement over the Vim/Evil paradigm. It feels more like an *addition* to Emacs bindings, rather than a replacement. And the kakoune paradigm that it follows seems really good. I will wait and see if I can truly adjust to having different "modes" once and for all. But I don't plan to completely stop using Emacs bindings regardless. I think they are good for writing prose, when you don't want to interrupt your thoughts as much. Also, many DEs and apps come with the option to use a subset of Emacs's bindings (using same right now to write this comment in Firefox). Consistency and a wider adoption rate is an advantage in and of itself (which makes an even stronger argument for just using CUA mode). All of the alternatives require some amount of compromise, whether that is extra configuration or losing consistency with special modes or conflicts with existing keybindings. There will be something. With Emacs regular bindings, you have total consistency (inside of Emacs). Maybe that's a helpful perspective.

My take on this: * If you primarily edit existing things in files, the VI-bindings excel. * If you primarily insert or create text, use the Emacs bindings

As someone who thought about this a lot before going back to vanilla: False Dichotomy. The real issue is your keyboard, your config, and your workflows. The only argument is "less keystrokes" which is irrelevant if you have a proper keyboard and you explored ways to do X easily in emacs. There are keyboard layouts out there that allow you to hold down control with a thumb. There are packages and parts of emacs that allow you to work with less movement. There are ways to reduce keystrokes with every workflow you have. When it comes to the question of modal editing vs vanilla, the reasons for and against are negligible if one doesn't tackle the main issues: excessive hand movement, inefficient workflows, and not configuring your own keybindings/packages in a way that makes sense to you. It seems a little absurd to set up modal editting if one aims to spam `j` and `k` to move around a file. Using modal editing in emacs doesn't make sense, is what I've concluded. It's more configuration hoops to jump through for little benefit, compared to optimizing workflows (avy, quality search, ripgrep, etc) and investing in a custom keyboard (because it's not primarily emacs that gives you RSI, it's the keyboards you use).

As another comment said, look into keyboard layouts where you can access the C and M modifiers with your thumbs. In this case, the Emacs bindings are strictly better than Vim's -- you can both insert and edit without having to deal with "modes" at all. However, if you don't want to spend a lot of time customizing, I would hesitate to recommend Emacs. Maybe you can find some decent pre-made configs though.

The only true one, is xah fly keys

Do you code a lot? Editing code with Vim is simply a superior, faster and more enjoyable experience. Most of the keybindings are very easy to memorize and combine, in a sense that you start speaking Vim after a while. If you want to see what a proficient touch typist and vim user can do, check out ThePrimeagen on youtube. If you don't edit code all day, maybe modal editing is not worth it.

Another vote for Xah Fly Keys. Which is also keyboard layout independent, in case you wanna switch to Drovak or Colemak layout later in life for hand health.

It's not really about vanilla bindings vs evil/doom/vi bindings, IMO. 1. You can, and will, define your own bindings. 2. Vanilla Emacs has lots of "modal" behavior. It's just not *only* modal. And typically its "modal" behaviors still let you do some other things, which more locked-in modes might not let you do. No. 2 is really the point, or the choice/comparison, IMO. ***all modal*** or ***modal just where you want modal***. Predefined, systematic modal, or modal where it's defined by you -- or by vanilla Emacs or some library you use.

Try using the default emacs keybindings, if they dont work out for out, them go modal, if you don't already know Vi, consider giving Boon a shot, I feel in love with it, and it's pretty good out of the box https://github.com/jyp/boon

> Consistency and a wider adoption rate is an advantage in and of itself (which makes an even stronger argument for just using CUA mode). I will say evil has an advantage here too, for programmers at least, let's say one day you have to use intellij or vscode, both have decent vim plugins.

Why do i get the feeling you don’t even use emacs

Using Emacs for a year and recently using Evil. It has been a game changer. However, I'm slowly switching to neovim for pure editing and keeping Emacs for Org documents.

Thats suprising typically people who claim there software is “superior” haven’t actually tried the other software well unless it’s something like nano lol