VIM哲思(三)

吃鸡蛋的战争

our histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions than the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six and thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion. It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them,was upon the larger end; but his present majesty's grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor his father published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown.

"Gulliver's Travels" -Jonathan Swift

我们六千个月以来的历史除了利立浦特和不来夫斯库两大帝国外，也从来没有提到过其他什么地方。我下面要告诉你的是，这两大强国在过去三十六个月里一直在苦战。战端的发生是由于以下的原因：我们大家都认为，吃鸡蛋前，原始的方法是打破鸡蛋较大的一端。可是当今皇帝的祖父小时候吃鸡蛋，一次按古法打鸡蛋时碰巧将一个手指弄破了，因此他的父亲，当时的皇帝，就下了一道敕令，命令全体臣民吃鸡蛋时打破鸡蛋较小的一端，违令者重罚。老百姓们对这项命令十分痛恨。历史告诉我们，由此曾发生过六次叛乱，一个皇帝送了命，还有一个皇帝失去了王位。

《格列佛游记》-乔纳森.斯威夫特

VIM vs. Emacs

这两款编辑器都诞生于1976年，其作者也分别是计算机界举足轻重的人物，Bill Joy (Sun的共同创始人和首席科学家），和Richard Stallman (GNU的创立者和自由软件的教父)。这两种编辑器代表了不同的设计哲学，自其诞生起，关于它们孰优孰劣的争论便无日无之，伴随着它们的成长，直到现在。 在Wiki上有专门一个词条，叫做"Editor War"，它描述了这场延续了超过30年依然没有尽头的“战争”。

在Editor War中，VIM的粉丝这样嘲笑Emacs:

Emacs Makes Any Computer Slow
Emacs Manuals Always Cause Senility
Exceptionally Mediocre Algorithm for Computer Scientists

也只有VIM的advocate能想出这样搞笑而技术性的讽刺。(想想我在"VIM哲思二"里介绍的VIM递规特性吧!)

VIM是编辑器之神，emacs是神之编辑器

(又是不见血的讽刺)

至于 emacs 这个毫无疑问比 vim 更强大的工具没有被冠以The Editor如此称号，是因为他被称作：一个有编辑功能的操作系统，而不是一个编辑器。(a great operating system, lacking only a decent editor)在Emacs里面，你除了编写各种格式的 文件之外，可以构建和运行程序，收发邮件，以文本方式浏览网页，还可以玩游戏，聊天，听音乐，看电影甚至煮咖啡(恐怖吧？)。在某种程度上，Emacs俨然是一种信仰和生活方式。

对此，Eris.S.Raymond在"The Art of Unix Programming"中对此的解释是：

write a big program only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.

无奈啊无奈！

During the course of these troubles, the emperors of Blefusca did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran). This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: 'that alltrue believers break their eggs at the convenient end.' 

"Gulliver's Travels" -Jonathan Swift 

在这一切麻烦纷乱的过程中，不来夫斯库的帝王们经常派大使来向我们提出抗议，责备我们在宗教上分立门户，违背了伟大的先知拉斯特洛格在《布兰德克拉尔》（即他们的《古兰经》）第五十四章中的一条基本教义。不过我们认为这只是对经文的一种歪曲，因为原文是：“一切真正的信徒都要在他们觉得方便的一端打破鸡蛋。”

《格列佛游记》-乔纳森.斯威夫特