vile: That child is an abomination!

Depending on your allegiances, this screenshot is likely to make you howl with maniacal laughter, curse the heavens, or vomit uncontrollably.

Of course, if you have no allegiances (like me), then it doesn’t bother you at all.

That’s vile, which is understood to be an acronym for vi-like emacs. If you are a true believer of either of the vi/vim or emacs camps, the very notion of combining them into a hybrid application is likely to be heresy.

To be clear though, as I understand it, vile hopes to merge vi specifically with some of the emacs superstructure, so it may be that it is forgiven for trying to add on to what the ancient editor could do.

I don’t think it’s necessary to delve too deep into vile to see how it attempts to merge some of the features of both editors. Even the startup screen will cue you in, with the status line listing two or three ways — some very emacs, and some very vi — of accessing the help pages.

But that’s about all I’m going to relate about vile. I happen to belong to that third camp which says both of the prevalent editors are unworthy, and anything else is an improvement.

So the idea of merging vi and emacs strikes me as a completely pointless exercise. Neither of them is that great to start with, and their unholy offspring is not any clear winner.

“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” 😉