Mark> It's interesting that you should mention emacs.
  Mark> I just started learning emacs while wondering
  Mark> if I should invest my time in vim instead. I
  Mark> have a book, "GNU Emacs" 2nd ed. Oreilly 1996,
  Mark> based on Version 19.30 where the author
  Mark> describes the advances and differences since
  Mark> the book's first edition based on Version 18.
  Mark> Here we are at Version 21 suggesting I should
  Mark> probably toss the book and use the online and
  Mark> help tutorials.

No one needs a book to learn Emacs, which is by nature
self-documenting. The tutorial is a fine place to learn
the basics, followed by the Info manual. Once you learn
how to find the information you need, which is always a
couple of keystrokes away, you don't need a book.

I don't get involved in Emacs versus Vim discussions
because they are not the same thing. No person who does
not know vi and its extensions upside down and
backwards can legitimately claim to know Unix. I've
known it since 1983. However, I've used Emacs since
1987, and since about 1991, XEmacs, for 99.5% of
everything I do on any Unix machine it is available on.

The bottom line is you'd better learn them both. In the
Unix/Linux classes I teach at UAT, I teach only vi
(vim) in the first semester, but have a brief lab in
Emacs (GNU) in the second semester.

-- 
Lynn