Only a fool would be blind to only use one or the other. While I prefer Emacs for editing code (it is much more than an editor, it’s a LISP machine that has file editing functionality by default), vi is suitable for small edits and will always be on any UNIX system.

Also, how can one say they prefer one or the other without learning both to come to a sound conclusion? I tend to ignore people that make seemingly biased judgements on one side but are ignorant of the other.

In my opinion, the arguments most have with “emacs vs vi” have nothing to do with technical matters but is a “my team vs your team” mentality issue. Some seem to want to have this desire to belong to a “team”.

But as for vi keybindings, I’ve never had to use them outside of vi. Emacs keybindings I use everywhere all the time.

I agree vi is worth learning, yet I disagree with the misleading title of learning due to keybindings. Emacs keybindings are in everything by default, vi keybindings are not. Since I started UNIX in 1996, I don’t think I’ve used vi keybindings in anything other than vi or vim.

Just the other day, I overheard someone on my ops team tell another, “I figured out how to go back one word in bash, it’s control-b.” It didn’t occur to me that people didn’t know that, it was natural to me because I use Emacs.