hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Doug Merritt) (06/26/87)
In article <4401@ihlpa.ATT.COM> qix@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Puckett) writes: >I use DME exclusively now. Although it lacks many of the features of >microEMACS, it is extensible (perhaps if I had a full-blown EMACS...). > [...] DME can be configured to fit my idiosyncracies, which >makes it a lot more useful than any highly customized but closed editor. >Also, DME is fairly small. This is not intended as a flame, but I have some information about DME that might make you think twice. Initially I was very enthusiastic about DME, and started using it exclusively, and I liked its features, and was willing to reserve judgement about certain lacks, since Matt was creating updates. But then I found that DME destroys some white space information that is critical to some text files. It *always* optimizes white space into either spaces or tabs (you can pick one or the other), and you can't prevent this. Thus, for instance, blanks at the end of lines in a UUENCODED file will *always* be removed, which makes them impossible to decode correctly until the blanks have been added back in using another editor. And programs that have quoted strings containing literal blanks and tabs can be changed. The latter caused one program that I edited and recompiled to misformat columns that it printed. I discussed this via email with Matt, and he says that 1) this behavior is intrinsic to DME and only a total rewrite could fix it, and 2) for his own reasons he thinks that this behavior is desirable. I strongly disagree; I don't think that editors should feel free to destroy information in text files. Matt on the other hand doesn't think that files with UUENCODED information should be edited on the Amiga; he says that he handles uuencodes on Unix and then downloads, so it's not a problem for him. He didn't say what he does about white space in quoted strings, but presumably he doesn't mind fixing formatting bugs in programs caused by his editor. There were some other things I was hoping to see as well, but they were, I suppose, a matter of taste. Just for the record, I would be delighted to see an editor that supports undo and full regular expression search and replace. The other issues that cause people to get into religious wars aren't as important. Meanwhile I have switched back to another editor that I enjoy less, but at least can be trusted to handle my files safely. Anyone using DME or considering using DME should decide whether this issue is important to them *before* they get hopelessly hooked on it (the transition was difficult, DME does have some nice features that I was sad to give up). Doug Merritt ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug
klm@munsell.UUCP (Kevin McBride) (06/30/87)
In article <8706260802.AA10341@ingres.Berkeley.EDU> hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Doug Merritt) writes: >[...] >Initially I was very enthusiastic about DME, and started using it... > >But then I found that DME destroys some white space information that is... > >I discussed this via email with Matt, and he says that 1) this behavior >is intrinsic to DME and only a total rewrite could fix it, and 2) for >his own reasons he thinks that this behavior is desirable. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ *VERY* important point here! >I strongly disagree; I don't think that editors should feel free to... > >There were some other things I was hoping to see as well, but they >were, I suppose, a matter of taste. Just for the record, I would be ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Also important! >delighted to see an editor that supports undo and full regular expression >search and replace... > >Meanwhile I have switched back to another editor that I enjoy less, >but at least can be trusted to handle my files safely. Anyone using >DME or considering using DME should decide whether this issue is >important to them *before* they get hopelessly hooked on it (the >transition was difficult, DME does have some nice features that I was >sad to give up). > Doug Merritt ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug Well, Doug, I've said it before and I'll say it again, "When it comes to editors, you use what you feel comfortable with." This statement can also be made to apply to spreadsheets, data bases and other such things that us owners of the ultimate hacking machine aren't interested in. If you don't like DME for some reason, that's your business. Matt himself described the reasons for the existence of DME in his v1.1 release notes which I dug up from my archives yesterday. He wrote it to suit his own tastes because there wasn't anything else available that would do anything close to what he wanted. He found it to be useful and decided to share it with the rest of the world. If you don't like it, don't flame Matt, write your own editor. If you were paying for DME, I could see your point, but since you're not, you don't have much room to complain. I personally don't like the MicroTrashmacs on the 1.2 Extras disk, but I'm not going to complain about it too loudly because it was a "Freebie." If I had paid my unfriendly neighborhood computer store $150 bucks for it, I'd be screaming my head off. This posting comes with a double your money back guarantee. Just remember how much I charged you for it. :-) :-) :-) :-) -- Kevin McBride |Disclaimer: These | harvard -\ Eikonix - A Kodak Co. | opinions are mine, | ll-xn ---adelie-----> munsell!klm 23 Crosby Dr. | not my employer's, | decvax -v talcott -v | Bedford, MA 01730 | So There! | allegra ------------encore
page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (07/06/87)
I am a toolsmith and we are talking about religion here, although this posting contains no heat! Imagine! hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Doug Merritt) wrote: >DME destroys some white space information >I don't think that editors should feel free to [do that]. klm@knopfler.UUCP (Kevin McBride) replied: >If you don't like it, don't flame Matt, write your own editor. >since you're not [paying for DME] you don't have much room to complain. First, to Kevin and those netters who agreed with him -- an intrinsic property of people who make tools (and share them) is that they want as many people to use them as possible. This goes for most software, commercial or not. I think Matt would rather have people say "I like it but would like it more if it did this" rather than "I don't like it and I'm not going to tell you why since it's your tool and you were good enough to share it and it's not my right to complain about it" or even "I love it, don't change a thing, it mirrors my mind exactly." Secondly, to the net as a whole: what is life for if not to encourage us to build better tools, in order that we can in turn build better tools? I say let's build great tools ... together if we can, alone if we have to, but let's do it. Thirdly, about editors - I agree with Doug on this one. A text editor, of ALL things, is too widely used by too many people for a designer to envision all the possible uses. It should be, among other things, utterly predictable, and utterly safe with the text it is entrusted with. In the case of DME, I like the idea that Matt put in, but in no way should it be the default - it should not even be settable as a startup option, since the user will forget about it someday when she goes to a new application of the editor (like editing uuencoded files). Make it a menu selection or keyboard command or something. Lastly, I have no interest in DME, and will not use it regardless of the features that it has (no reflection on DME or Matt; I just don't want to learn a new editor right now if it doesn't have any more power than what I'm already using and can't run under Amiga, UN*X and VMS) -- but I was moved to reply to this exchange because a. it's bad to stifle suggestions on how to make tools more usable, and b. text editors should not automatically do ANYTHING to the text ``for'' me, and should not have options to do so (automatically). I would go to the extreme of saying that if I create a file without a newline at the end, it should be written out without a newline. Almost no text editor passes this test (the editor I use does, although there's a dastardly startup option to change this). Remember SOS and TECO? Everyone used their ``feature'' that you could read in a file and write it back out -- even though you didn't tell the editor to DO anything to the text, it would strip the extra CR's for you. Handy but too dangerous for me. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@ulowell.{uucp,edu,csnet}
darcy.otto@canremote.uucp (DARCY OTTO) (07/14/90)
Could someone please give me an example of the keymappings they use for Matt Dillon's DME editor? It would be a real help, as I am kind confused in some places, and I think another example (besides the one in the documentation) could really help me out. (Me) - darcy.otto@canremote.uucp ---