[opensuse] Re: new 'man' behavior: "ask questions *WHY* REVERT?"
Dan Goodman wrote:
PS vi rules, if you take the time to learn how to use it. [...] And the time to do so is a lot less than the time to learn the Wordstar-like multi-key sequences of Emacs.
OK, I'll bite. You wanted it, you get it... ;-) :-) I know vi -- both the original and vim -- better than almost any hard-core vi fans that I ever met. Actually, those who know vi better than I do, are no vi `fans' but proficient vi users who knows the deficiencies of their tool and are therefore no fans any more. I learned vi back in 1984, and met Emacs in 1988 or so, and use both until today. But: Emacs was a revelation, and it still is. vi is just an editor. Emacs is not an editor, but a working environment -- that's the whole difference. Back then, getting rid of a modal interface was like heaven -- I had enough of them before, when I had to worked with MVS and BS 2000, no need to repeat that on Unix.
"Real hackers know how to use vi, even if they prefer Emacs. But if you > really know vi, what do you need Emacs for?" ;-)
You know how vi is pronounced, do you? "Why?" Read the classic, `Tog on Interface', and get an enlightenment how user interfaces should be designed. Please, no modal interfaces in a thing as essential as a development environment. Btw, tongue-in-cheek, I don't know what you mean with `multi-key sequences', the days of Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift are long gone; nowadays one uses the mouse or has adequate bindings to one's function keys -- just as in vim. In vi, I have more often to use : and some ex command than I use M-x and a function name in Emacs.
Plus, if you have to get on many different machines, many of which you don't control, depending on Emacs leaves you on the dock when the ship sails, at least part of the time. I have yet to find a Unix, POSIX-like, Linux distro, or other non-M$ system that didn't have a fully functioning vi on it,
I beg to differ. As Wikipedia already tells: In a 1984 interview Bill Joy explained that, at Sun, he used an early desktop publishing program, called Interleaf; when visiting labs outside Sun, he used plain old ed. Although vi was almost ubiquitous, he could not count on the local version working the way he expected. However, ed was never modified, so he could count on making it work without stumbling. Or, from my personal experience: You obviously haven't been in many troubleshooting environments where one has a Windoze system without putty, and some suits breezing down your neck that you shall solve the problem with the multi-million Euro Unix system that doesn't run properly since 4 weeks and where they tried to solve the problems with their outsourced Indian provider and didn't succed? Lucky you. Not that Emacs would help here, but that's exactly my point. If I would restrict myself to something that works in all environments where I regularly have to work; I would need to restrict myself to ed, sed, and awk. (And yes, I know ed, and can use it properly. Since, as you should now: ed is *the* standard text editor; see http://www.dina.dk/~abraham/religion/ed-standard for reference.) 0.75 :-) Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
In
ed is *the* standard text editor
vi has been part of POSIX/SUS for at least a decade. vi is a standard editor, as is ed. Emacs isn't and that's reason enough for me to not *depend* on it. Still, I should give it another try, I guess. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
Joachim Schrod wrote:
Dan Goodman wrote:
PS vi rules, if you take the time to learn how to use it. [...] And the time to do so is a lot less than the time to learn the Wordstar-like multi-key sequences of Emacs.
OK, I'll bite. You wanted it, you get it... ;-) :-)
I know vi -- both the original and vim -- better than almost any hard-core vi fans that I ever met. Actually, those who know vi better than I do, are no vi `fans' but proficient vi users who knows the deficiencies of their tool and are therefore no fans any more. I learned vi back in 1984, and met Emacs in 1988 or so, and use both until today.
You make some interesting points, but I can't resist a rebuttal. Every package has its deficiencies, as well as its strengths. And *not* having to use a mouse is one of the strengths of vi...taking your fingers off the keyboard just slows you down. And whether or not proficient users are fans or not is a subjective judgment, unless you specifically polled them on that one term with respect vi. After all, they may be aware of its deficiencies, but they are still users for a reason. I met vi about three years sooner than you, Emacs about the same time, and never looked back after seeing the differences.
But: Emacs was a revelation, and it still is. vi is just an editor. Emacs is not an editor, but a working environment -- that's the whole difference. vi fits the Unix/software tools philosophy: it does one thing well.
If I want a working environment, there is Eclipse. Or Firefox for browsing. Or Thunderbird for email. Or pick your own favorite IDE, browser and mail client, independently of your editor. Choice is good.
Back then, getting rid of a modal interface was like heaven -- I had enough of them before, when I had to worked with MVS and BS 2000, no need to repeat that on Unix.
Modal interfaces are bad when they are things like modal dialog boxes that force you to respond to them before you can continue with what you were working on. There is no inherent drawback in a bi-modal program where the two modes are easy to distinguish (after your first five minutes with vi) and are switched back and forth with one or two keystrokes. And I have used various editors in MVS and older Windows environments, such as VisualEdit, SlickEdit, etc . and found that the first thing I wanted to do was re-create the keystrokes I had already stored into "muscle" memory with vi, so I wouldn't have to stop to think what keystroke did what I wanted. That is why, when I want , need or can have a GUI interface, vim is a good thing...
"Real hackers know how to use vi, even if they prefer Emacs. But if you > really know vi, what do you need Emacs for?" ;-)
You know how vi is pronounced, do you?
"Why?"
No, as you surely well know, it is pronounced vee-eye. But your pronunciation is a weak diversion from the reality of comparative interfaces.
Read the classic, `Tog on Interface', and get an enlightenment how user interfaces should be designed. Please, no modal interfaces in a thing as essential as a development environment.
There is a world of difference between interface design for special purpose, complex programs, and those for a special purpose and well-known single purpose tool. You have to meet a lot of Underwriter Labs requirements to make a usable and safe power drill, but if all you need is a screwdriver, you only need two modes (most of the time) - Phillips and slot. And a power miter saw can do a lot that an ordinary carpenter's saw can only do in the hands of the skilled, but I don't think I'll keep one in my toolbox in case I need to saw off some lumber for a gardening project.
Btw, tongue-in-cheek, I don't know what you mean with `multi-key sequences', the days of Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift are long gone; nowadays one uses the mouse or has adequate bindings to one's function keys -- just as in vim. In vi, I have more often to use : and some ex command than I use M-x and a function name in Emacs.
Colon commands all take the same first character, to trigger the command mode (vs. the edit mode). But it is a simple and consistent syntax. And if you are using a gui for Emacs, in order to avoid the original key sequences, then (a) you have to slow down to use the mouse, or (b) most of the practical advantages of Emacs can be just as easily obtained in vim.
Plus, if you have to get on many different machines, many of which you don't control, depending on Emacs leaves you on the dock when the ship sails, at least part of the time. I have yet to find a Unix, POSIX-like, Linux distro, or other non-M$ system that didn't have a fully functioning vi on it,
I beg to differ. As Wikipedia already tells:
In a 1984 interview Bill Joy explained that, at Sun, he used an early desktop publishing program, called Interleaf; when visiting labs outside Sun, he used plain old ed. Although vi was almost ubiquitous, he could not count on the local version working the way he expected. However, ed was never modified, so he could count on making it work without stumbling.
That was then (25 years ago) when publicly available Unix had only existed for about five years, BSD for less. At that time, vi was not standardized across platforms when ported, as everyone thought they could "improve" it. But within ten years, it was pretty much identical everywhere. Nice try, but your argument is a couple of decades late.
Or, from my personal experience: You obviously haven't been in many troubleshooting environments where one has a Windoze system without putty, and some suits breezing down your neck that you shall solve the problem with the multi-million Euro Unix system that doesn't run properly since 4 weeks and where they tried to solve the problems with their outsourced Indian provider and didn't succed? Lucky you.
No, you don't know me very well, or even at all. I *have* had to do just that, although nowadays, I am free from the 'doze platforms. My desktop is Linux (openSUSE 11.1, fully patched) all the way. And xterm beats putty hands down; I have used both, and if you are on an administratively locked down machine, how do you get either putty or Emacs installed if they aren't there when you sit down to begin? And I get paid to pretty much do just what you described, except the Unix systems are multiple varieties, Solaris (SunOS 4 -> Sol10, all stops in between; AIX; Dynix; and a lot of enterprise Linux - SLES rules!). So remove the "Euro" part, and broaden the class of outsourced providers, and that is where I am at these days. And vi is the only common denominator editor across hundreds of enterprise boxes and thousands of remote Linux platforms, for editing. And the only reasons I consider myself lucky is that I like troubleshooting, and I don't have to use Cygwin anymore, as my employer is a strong user and proponent of Linux, including on the desktop -- none of this "we don't support Linux for users on our network for security reasons" crap I have heard in the past from clueless Windows network administrators.
Not that Emacs would help here, but that's exactly my point. If I would restrict myself to something that works in all environments where I regularly have to work; I would need to restrict myself to ed, sed, and awk. (And yes, I know ed, and can use it properly.
"ed, sed, awk and vi" if you used vi. And you could run your editor natively on any of them. And I still use sed, awk, and the occasional cut or tr (mostly for clarity) unless a problem is big enough to warrant Perl.
Since, as you should now: ed is *the* standard text editor; see http://www.dina.dk/~abraham/religion/ed-standard for reference.)
0.75 :-)
Joachim
I could care less what someone else thinks is the standard. Vi is a common denominator on all the platforms I support, and a lot more. This isn't "American Idol" -- if I were basing it on popularity, based on number of installations, I suppose I should prefer the Microsoft command line editor, or a port of Notepad. But that is not why I still like and use vi -- none of its "deficiencies" are corrected in a way that is useful to me by any other alternative. "We don't need no stinking mice!" And I don't need a Swiss Army knife plus power saw plus wheelbarrow to edit a config file. VI will never die. And I am teaching my fifteen year old son to use it, as part of his education in computing. He already "gets under the hood" - and the only thing I can be sure of twenty years from now, re: editors, is that vi and its clones will still be available everywhere -- and especially in embedded and mobile systems, the wave of the future. Can you imagine editing config files with Emacs on those platforms? Where will the RAM come from? FWIW, Dan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dan Goodman wrote:
Joachim Schrod wrote:
Dan Goodman wrote:
PS vi rules, if you take the time to learn how to use it. [...] And the time to do so is a lot less than the time to learn the Wordstar-like multi-key sequences of Emacs.
OK, I'll bite. You wanted it, you get it... ;-) :-)
I know vi -- both the original and vim -- better than almost any hard-core vi fans that I ever met. Actually, those who know vi better than I do, are no vi `fans' but proficient vi users who knows the deficiencies of their tool and are therefore no fans any more. I learned vi back in 1984, and met Emacs in 1988 or so, and use both until today.
You make some interesting points, but I can't resist a rebuttal.
Every package has its deficiencies, as well as its strengths. And *not* having to use a mouse is one of the strengths of vi...taking your fingers off the keyboard just slows you down. And whether or not
Most argue that this is the biggest weakness any modern editor can have (and if something has a particular functionality it should the users choice whether or not they use it). I believe there is evidence that those editors that have mouse functionality actually increase productivity (if the mouse is used of course :-) )... I am a strong advocate of the use of the CLI as a system admin tool, but using a CLI-like interface in an editor in a modern context makes little sense. You may be comfortable with it, but I suspect you are part of a minority. Since we are playing the 'I met it first in year X game '. My first experience with a line editor was DEC's SOS and edlin/debug on PCs in the late 70s. SOS was basic but usable, but edlin was a horror story (my opinions on debug are probably best left unsaid, but editing text files in a debugger is not my idea of fun). At the time I never thought I would find something that would make edlin seem good until I first came across vi in about 1983.... <snip>
I met vi about three years sooner than you, Emacs about the same time, and never looked back after seeing the differences.
Emacs has versions that run reasonably consistently on all OS's and a broad user community whereas vi has never AFAIK had much adoption outside the *NIX world. One of the biggest errors Novell made with the first Netware port to (Red Hat) Linux was to present those familiar with Dos/PCDos/early Windows and Netware a vi based configuration interface... which got a general WTF is this rubbish type of response from the Netware people... I have used Emacs with VAX/VMS, IBM VM, Multics (once but that excursion I deliberately never repeated), DOS / Windows, PCDos as well a various *NIX platforms. (Usually the only major problem was identifying the 'magic' keys). I have always found it to be a reliable and useful working tool on all of these plaforms. In many situations using tools that are cross platform outside the *NIX context is extremely useful.
But: Emacs was a revelation, and it still is. vi is just an editor. Emacs is not an editor, but a working environment -- that's the whole difference. vi fits the Unix/software tools philosophy: it does one thing well.
If I want a working environment, there is Eclipse.
Eclipse is a bit heavyweight for simpler tasks. Pico and Joe are adequate for basic text editing but a little under-powered for programming projects. Emacs has a good combination of both functions for smaller projects. vi is something that should have been put into the dustbin of history long ago, the only reason for keeping it is legacy support. There is much talk about the desktop GUI as a barrier to Linux adoption, but the phasing out of anachronisms like vi is something that needs to be considered as being part of the same issue. Or Firefox for
browsing. Or Thunderbird for email. Or pick your own favorite IDE, browser and mail client, independently of your editor. Choice is good.
?!? We are talking editors here are we not... <snip>
"Real hackers know how to use vi, even if they prefer Emacs. But if you > really know vi, what do you need Emacs for?" ;-)
You know how vi is pronounced, do you?
"Why?"
Nice :-)
denominator editor across hundreds of enterprise boxes and thousands of remote Linux platforms, for editing.
Nope see above, maybe true for *NIX but *NIX is not the *only* player...
VI will never die. And I am teaching my fifteen year old son to use it, as part of his education in computing. He already "gets under the hood"
BTW In some parts of the world it is illegal to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on minors :-)
FWIW,
Dan
- -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoec04ACgkQasN0sSnLmgJhWgCfT5wjdioKCbhSv+MIIwHEhKiu 40IAn0Bri2ZUuLS2zkyzKtfSv2DDpvf3 =zlgg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
In <4A1E734E.9080809@gandalfsemporium.homelinux.com>, G T Smith wrote:
vi is something that should have been put into the dustbin of history long ago, the only reason for keeping it is legacy support. There is much talk about the desktop GUI as a barrier to Linux adoption, but the phasing out of anachronisms like vi is something that needs to be considered as being part of the same issue.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm cool with you not liking vi, and having it not be the default for new users, who will probably be more comfortable with KWrite or somesuch. However, I *want* vi available -- if I can't get it for an OS, I won't be using that OS. I also want to have that OS support the standard 'EDITOR', 'VISUAL', and 'PAGER' environment variables, at least, so I can communicate that it should always use vi for my user. I don't see any reason for removing vi. In fact, in the interest of OS interoperability, there is good reason to have it installed by default. If you think that's inappropriate, please work to modify the relevant standards. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2009-05-28 at 12:19 +0100, G T Smith wrote: ...
Since we are playing the 'I met it first in year X game '. My first experience with a line editor was DEC's SOS and edlin/debug on PCs in the late 70s. SOS was basic but usable, but edlin was a horror story (my opinions on debug are probably best left unsaid, but editing text files in a debugger is not my idea of fun). At the time I never thought I would find something that would make edlin seem good until I first came across vi in about 1983....
The edlin editor could be used without a display, via a printer. I had to use it once that way to recover a system. O:-) ... which means that is was already old when they included it in Dos. Old design, at least. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkohCqwACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VvFgCghFFcHxuIpQ4ETwxQErnDr+uF 4m0AoInYDHJwMrfOdPRcacheb8a8zG4K =eG/+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Joachim Schrod wrote:
You know how vi is pronounced, do you?
Six? ;-) -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Joachim Schrod wrote:
OK, I'll bite. You wanted it, you get it... ;-) :-)
I know vi -- both the original and vim -- better than almost any hard-core vi fans that I ever met. Actually, those who know vi better than I do, are no vi `fans' but proficient vi users who knows the deficiencies of their tool and are therefore no fans any more.
You are speaking of 'vi' -- not 'vim/gvim'. There is an active and motivated vim/gvim userbase with it supporting many user written plug-ins. Your information appears to be from about 21-25 years ago when 'vi' was only a curses interface on top of 'ed', and when emacs first came out.
Btw, tongue-in-cheek, I don't know what you mean with `multi-key sequences', the days of Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift are long gone; nowadays one uses the mouse
The purpose of 'vi' bindings was to allow those who had grown up having to take typing courses to edit efficiently. Taking your fingers off of home row to move to function keys, and especially, mice, has been shown to slow down most simple editing jobs. There are jobs for mouse and func-key -augmented GUI's -- but simple text entry/editing is made slower.
Or, from my personal experience: You obviously haven't been in many troubleshooting environments where one has a Windoze system without putty, and some suits breezing down your neck that you shall solve the problem with the multi-million Euro Unix system that doesn't run properly since 4 weeks and where they tried to solve the problems with their outsourced Indian provider and didn't succed? Lucky you.
Putty? Glue? I'd BMO util disk including Gvim among others. You go to customer sites and DON'T have your own personal SW CD/DVD/USB-frob with all your own debugging tools loaded onto it? You are right. I don't usually go to customers sites so ill prepared. If I did, first thing I'd do is start downloading SW. They don't like me running my own SW -- then we have a problem. I wouldn't trust any 'random', 'generic' sw they might provide. Who knows what problems it may have. Their problems could be buried in their own libraries and utils -- and you would use their utils to debug such a problem? Maybe you want to rethink your support strategy. With Gvim, I have access to most modern scripting languages (perl, python, tcl, ruby -- even LISP) to augment the tool if I as well as complete syntax files for 100's of file formats. And emacs comes with ...what? Oh yeah, a requirement for a META key I don't have. But whatever works for you...and peace and though you make walk in the valley of windows, may you be spared from evil blue screens and the hidden, unspeakable DRM tactics of the trickster who tempts us toward evil... (just throwing in a bit of religious stuff to keep this talk in perspective! :-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2009-05-29 at 16:04 -0700, Linda Walsh wrote:
Joachim Schrod wrote:
Btw, tongue-in-cheek, I don't know what you mean with `multi-key sequences', the days of Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift are long gone; nowadays one uses the mouse
The purpose of 'vi' bindings was to allow those who had grown up having to take typing courses to edit efficiently. Taking your fingers off of home row to move to function keys, and especially, mice, has been shown to slow down most simple editing jobs. There are jobs for mouse and func-key -augmented GUI's -- but simple text entry/editing is made slower.
And did a bad job of it. Botched it, IMO. For a good keyboard interface, designed for touch typists (ie, professional or good typists), you have to go to the old Word Star, which interface has been sucessfuly cloned by several programs: notably the Borland IDE. In Linux is in use by the jstar flavor of joe. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkohCcMACgkQtTMYHG2NR9X+PACaA32CPdE121SRBFLhXN2bJJOW E3EAn0RSYEmT22+hQvSSdKzOurX5ZIjR =O/WD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Carlos E. R. wrote:
For a good keyboard interface, designed for touch typists (ie, professional or good typists), you have to go to the old Word Star, which interface has been sucessfuly cloned by several programs: notably the Borland IDE. In Linux is in use by the jstar flavor of joe.
- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAkohCcMACgkQtTMYHG2NR9X+PACaA32CPdE121SRBFLhXN2bJJOW E3EAn0RSYEmT22+hQvSSdKzOurX5ZIjR =O/WD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- I am probably one of the earliest users of WordStar, back in CPM days, and I liked it. The trouble is, you'd almost surely find it hard to get instructions in it anymore. I doubt if I have my book(s) anywhere.
--doug -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
D. McGarrett wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
For a good keyboard interface, designed for touch typists (ie, professional or good typists), you have to go to the old Word Star, which interface has been sucessfuly cloned by several programs: notably the Borland IDE. In Linux is in use by the jstar flavor of joe.
- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAkohCcMACgkQtTMYHG2NR9X+PACaA32CPdE121SRBFLhXN2bJJOW E3EAn0RSYEmT22+hQvSSdKzOurX5ZIjR =O/WD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- I am probably one of the earliest users of WordStar, back in CPM days, and I liked it. The trouble is, you'd almost surely find it hard to get instructions in it anymore. I doubt if I have my book(s) anywhere.
--doug Many years ago, I used WordStar 2000 at work. I much preferred it to Word Perfect. At home, I used PC-Write. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write
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participants (9)
-
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. -
Carlos E. R. -
D. McGarrett -
Dan Goodman -
G T Smith -
James Knott -
Joachim Schrod -
Linda Walsh -
M Harris