On Monday, April 8, 2002, at 12:18 PM, Bergel Alexandre wrote:

> Hummm... Vi is good, but nothing compared to emacs :-)

Boy, if ideology doesn't divide us, now we are moving on to fundamental 
religious tenets.  I am reminded, however, of a wonderful story.

I have now attended for many years Glenn Tenny's Hackers/Think 
Conference.  Quite happy that Glenn moved from a strictly 
invitation-only affair to one where past invitees may invite worthies as 
"buddies" on a one-time only basis.  My buddy the year before last was a 
brilliant-but-very-young technologist, Michael Conlen, who I had hired a 
few years earlier in my former life as a dot-com CTO.  Mike was thrilled 
at an opportunity to meet the luminaries who routinely attended the 
conference.

Michael was certainly worthy of the invite, but was dramatically star 
struck, at least at first.  As we arrived at the hotel, none other than 
Professor Knuth came by and greeted me by name (more from familiarity 
with my controversial legal year-in-review presentations than my 
technical cred).  I introduced him to young Mike and Don (who is quite 
tall), hovered over Michael and asked, with his informal yet incisive 
eyes appearing to peering directly through Mike, "what do you do?"

Mike tried the line that got him his job during his interview with me, 
when I asked him what he considered the most important programmer's 
tool: "anything I can do with VI."

Don replied, "I prefer emacs," turned on his heels and walked briskly 
away.

To the best I can discern, Mike's mouth is still frozen ajar.