sridhar@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu (M. A. Sridhar) (02/13/90)
I'm looking for a screen-oriented editor for Unix machines. This is intended for students who are first-time Unix users, so ideally the editor must be simple to use, with lots of on-line help. (The VMS editor KED, or the built-in editor for Turbo Pascal, seem to be good examples.) It does not need to have all the bells and whistles that emacs, or even vi, does. For the moment, I'd like it implemented on an AT&T 3B2/300 running SysV, but perhaps it could be ported to other Unix machines. If I can't get such an editor, perhaps there is a set of micro-emacs or vi macros out there that could make the editor look like KED? Please e-mail your responses. I'll post a summary. Thanks in advance. Sridhar
sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) (02/13/90)
sridhar@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu (M. A. Sridhar) writes: |I'm looking for a screen-oriented editor for Unix machines. |This is intended for students who are |first-time Unix users, so ideally the editor |must be simple to use, with lots of on-line help. (The VMS editor KED, or the |built-in editor for Turbo Pascal, seem to be good examples.) |It does not need to have all the bells and whistles |that emacs, or even vi, does. For the moment, I'd like it implemented on an |AT&T 3B2/300 running SysV, but perhaps it could be ported to other |Unix machines. It is not necessary to have a stripped down editor for beginning users. Simply don't try to teach it to them all at once. For example, vi can be used quite well by learning about 10 commands. That's not a lot to ask of users. Later, when they want to do more complicated things, they can learn about them. If you assume your users are incapable of learning, then you have a self-fulfilling prophesy, and you will have another dilemma when they need to move up to more powerful stuff. Sean -- *** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean *** "May I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism *** in the British Navy. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there *** is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit." -MP
bwilliam%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Bruce Williams) (02/13/90)
In article <14133@s.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes: >sridhar@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu (M. A. Sridhar) writes: > >|I'm looking for a screen-oriented editor for Unix machines. >|This is intended for students who are >|first-time Unix users, so ideally the editor >|must be simple to use, with lots of on-line help. (The VMS editor KED, or >It is not necessary to have a stripped down editor for beginning users. >Simply don't try to teach it to them all at once. [...deleted...] >If you assume your users are incapable of learning, then you have a >self-fulfilling prophesy, and you will have another dilemma when they >need to move up to more powerful stuff. > >Sean >-- >*** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean Good point! I remember my first experience with EMACS was in a summer course which had an unusual format. All the students were High School age or just graduated, and we just jumped right in to Unix, Pascal, and every other topic under the CS sun. We were given the simplest Emacs and Unix commands and access to any other info we might want/need and were "let loose"! 'tho none of us were especially gifted students so to speak, we all quickly caught on to many features of Emacs and Unix that some people who have been in the CS dept. for years have yet to find out about. -Bruce ---- Bruce R. Williams University of Utah (bwilliam@ug.utah.edu) Salt Lake City
bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (02/14/90)
In article <14133@s.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes: sridhar@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu (M. A. Sridhar) writes: screen-oriented editor ... students who are first-time Unix users, so ideally the editor must be simple to use, with lots of on-line help... It does not need ... all the bells and whistles that emacs, or even vi, does. It is not necessary to have a stripped down editor for beginning users. Simply don't try to teach it to them all at once... For example, vi can be used quite well by learning about 10 commands. Right! For years, humanities froshlings at CMU used Emacs and Scribe for document production with no trouble at all. They learned what they needed and didn't worry about the rest. The horsepower of raw, naked Emacs was lying in wait for them to need it later on, but for starters, they found a modeless editor agreeable enough. If you assume your users are incapable of learning, then you have a self-fulfilling prophesy, and you will have another dilemma when they need to move up to more powerful stuff. Folks prefer to learn one paradigm and accrete other stuff into it, rather than jump around learning new talents as they need more capabilities. Don't impede their later progress by coddling them now.