Posted by Bogdanp 7 hours ago
I still have my meow config, but currently disabled. The kakoune model is definitely what you're looking for if your desire is to edit text with the fewest keystrokes, it's far better than vim. I think the vim model is better, though, because motion-as-selection is fundamentally exhaustive, and in vim, by the time you realize what you're going to do, you go into operator pending mode (e.g. pressing d) and the next keystroke also feels obvious, while in meow you may have to reset the selection by doing some movement.
What works best for me is no modal editing at all. Definitely requires the most keystrokes, but that's not a limiting factor for me. It just feels nice never having to think about modes or constantly pressing Esc, and instead navigating with a mixture of default Emacs keybinds and great, joyous to use packages like Avy, smartparens, tempel and combobulate. Meow's KEYPAD is also not really helpful, it does save some keystrokes but doesn't make anything easier to remember or reach for. For the commands that it is worse, it is much worse.
I used vim for 8 years and after switching to Emacs, realized that I'm the same. I was spending way more time (in vim) thinking about (to borrow another commenter's metaphor) how I was going to play the notes than what notes I was going to write.
Ended up writing an alternative to Meow which addresses the issues I had.
It's currently in review for Melpa, see:
With Vim, text editing feels like playing the piano. For every action, you compose a sequence of bindings and execute on it. It is really a language of editing.
Emacs feels more like blacksmithing, hammering the text into a proper shape. There's no composition, you just select the correct tools and applies it. And emacs have a lot of those tools.
When I was looking for my text editor 15 year ago I did try vim first because it was the hipster choice back then. I really tried and told myself it would be like learning a new language or something: it sucks today but one day I'd be talking the language of text editing.
It didn't seem to be happening so I tried Emacs instead. As soon as I disabled the awful GUI stuff my love affair started. It all just made complete sense. Key "chords" just work for my brain. I must know hundreds of them without really trying. And Emacs's version of a "mode", as in major modes and minor modes, is just perfect (I think other editors like VS Code have copied this aspect).
I've tried evil mode since but I still just don't see the point. Other than Emacs pinky (which is mostly solved by the caps/ctrl key switch) is there any other advantage at all?
I still edit with chords in insert mode but meow enables me to take actions on a variety of subjects more easily (current string, until start of scope, until the next 2 -, next 5 words).
I had a few packages to do similar things before (expand-region) but none of them clicked like meow did.
I use both kinds and have done since the late 70s. It's fine to disagree btw, there are many editors, these ones are mine.
Given how bad the defaults are, that's not a good aim