Vim mode in Emacs (no editor war)

Question

I've been using vim for some time now and I really appreciate the different modes and key bindings. I've experimented a little with emacs and I really like it as a development environment and its flexibility and extensibility, but so far I don't really like it as a text editor (I'm not interested in starting a discussion about vim vs. emacs / editor war).
Of course I might need to get more familiar with emacs to appreciate and get used to its text editing "paradigm". I've been thinking about using one of the vim modes for emacs (viper-moder, evil-mode...) to be able to use emacs as a development environment, and vim as the editor, but some people seem to believe that it's better to learn the emacs way of doing text editing.
Why would I not want to use a vim mode in emacs if I like the way of editing text in vim? What are the downsides compared to using emacs alone?
I basically want to keep vim as my text editor, but have the ability to use it with emacs when doing more than just simply editing text. Is this worth the trouble of using a vim emulator? Any other users doing this?
Thank you

Answer 1

Trilby wrote:I'm curious what additional behavior / features you want that vim can't provide.  I only very briefly dabbled in emacs, and also ask only out of pure curiosity: I've been amazed at how much I can extend vim's behavior and I'm wondering if there is either 1) something useful I am missing, or 2) something useful that could be scripted into vim.
lol, I totally agree with that statement. 
As for what could be scripted into vim, a built-in compiler or at least a compiler-command resolver would be nice.
NOTE: by compiler-command resolver, I mean that if you're working on a 'file.c' then when you run something magical like this:
:compile
it would send the following to the shell
gcc -Wall -O3 file.c -o file
akh wrote:I've experimented a little with emacs and I really like it as a development environment and its flexibility and extensibility, but so far I don't really like it as a text editor (I'm not interested in starting a discussion about vim vs. emacs / editor war).
I've also found that Emacs is really nice for certain development-esque tasks.  Like, I used to use Emacs, back when I first started using Arch, to edit openbox's config files and I have always fondly remembered it being super-cool at working with the xml.  Like it would even highlight mistakes and was always pristinely consistent with syntax highlighting and indenting from what I can remember.  (Honestly, I kind of miss using it to edit XML, lol, xD I've developed an emotional attachment to a text-editor. )  I still occasionally use Emacs for when I'm having a hard time getting a certain lisp function or what-have-you to work (see lispbox) and then only when I'm tired of how awkward my setup of vim-slimv is--I've been needed to amend some aspects of it for quite a while, but I haven't been using it lately, so--naturally--I've haven't bothered to do so. 
And I agree with you 135% on not liking much for text editing; I prefer a more modal environment. 
As for editor wars, I honestly don't understand where the glory of dying in battle for your favorite text-editor is... maybe behind the couch or wherever the potato chips are
in my opinion, they're a waste of time for the participants; as for the readers, I actually find it a bit amusing to read them, or of them.  Honestly, though, I don't understand why we can't all just enjoy having an editor that we adore and love no matter what that editor is. 
EDIT: Take a look at this forum post vim vs. emacs, I only glanced at it, but it seemed to be talking about ways to make emacs better for just plain text editing.
Last edited by lspci (2013-03-13 04:37:06)