mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Mike Khaw) (07/01/88)
> I actually do use "vi" on my Sun, until I get "sam" running. (The
OK, so what's "sam"? How is it better than both vi and emacs? Can
the rest of us get it if it's so wonderful? If it isn't freeware,
how much is it?
breath 'bated,
Mike Khaw
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hardcopy: Teknowledge Inc, 1850 Embarcadero Rd, POB 10119, Palo Alto, CA 94303gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (07/02/88)
In article <23552@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Mike Khaw) writes: >OK, so what's "sam"? How is it better than both vi and emacs? Can >the rest of us get it if it's so wonderful? If it isn't freeware, >how much is it? "sam" is Rob Pike's text editor. In "dumb terminal" mode, it somewhat resembles "ed" except that "dot" is a region, not a position, and there is a global apply operator. In this mode, "sam"'s main advantage is a powerful regular expression capability. When used with a mouse-driven interactive front end, e.g. on a 5620 or 630, it provides extremely convenient snarf/cut/paste/send, file menus, overlapping concurrent windows (into the same or different buffers), 3-way scroll bar, exchange of text with other terminal layers, etc. It's the layers mode that really stands out as an improvement over the conventional CRT orientation of "screen editors" such as "vi" and EMACS. I know you can add some degree of mouse support to screen editors (we've done this with JOVE), but it's not the same thing. As a possible indication of relative merit of the various UNIX text editors, I was told by a reliable source that Ken Thompson had resisted switching from "ed" to any of the newer editors, until "sam" came along. (I suppose he just didn't perceive sufficient benefit to be worth the bother.) "sam" is included in the AT&T UNIX System ToolChest's "dmd-pgmg" package (along with Dave Prosser's "myx" spiffy terminal program for 5620s). I don't remember how much that package cost but I think it was only a few hundred $$ (complete sources). I think "sam" is also shipped with 9th Edition UNIX, so if you have that, look in the manual. Of course, there probably are people who really do prefer dumb CRTs and other editors. More power to them.