- cross-posted to:
- programmer_humor@programming.dev
- emacs@lemmy.ml
Is Emacs a CLI or GUI tool? Because this looks like a GUI, but I always hear it compared to vim, which is CLI.
I've never used it, as you can tell. I just use nano like a casual.
It functions as both. It's got disgusting, archaic optimizations to work efficiently on VT100 terminals, but it can also run in X / Wayland with anti-aliasing and font shaping and images and whatnot. I like it because while I generally use the GTK version, I can load the same configs on a remote machine and use it through SSH.
If you run
emacs -nw
it will start in "no window" mode, for use in a terminal.Yes. There's a few different forks. Base emacs is designed for use in a terminal (or terminal window), but almost all editions are X compatible and will render their own window and simulate a terminal themselves (and support mice)
I had a professor use emacs so when I still coded in a terminal, that's what I used. It made more sense to me than vim, but I have no idea how much of that is just baked into the bias of learning emacs first.