jpc@avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov (J. Porter Clark) (06/13/91)
My question was: > I'm looking for a text editor that runs under UNIX and is so simple > that the MS-DOS community could use it. It doesn't have to do > complicated stuff. > > I have users who would like to use the mailers and newsreaders on my > system but who don't want to have to learn vi or emacs to do so. I received a few replies and have not really had a chance to evaluate the possibilities, but I've received several requests for a summary already, so here it is. If I run across a really good package, I'll post again. Contributing replies were: gillham@edmund.cs.andrews.edu (Andrew Gillham) jik@cats.UCSC.EDU (Jonathan Kamens) amos shapir <amos@shum.huji.ac.il> allan@eskimo.celestial.com (Christopher Stewart) Tony Foiani (afoiani@nmsu.edu) Suggested solutions were: 1. simped: Generally thought to be what I needed, but slightly buggy. I haven't tried it yet, but I intend to. 2. dte. Ditto. 3. emacs: Use either emacs in its most basic form, without a .emacs, or use microemacs, or use emacs with the WordStar macros, or write my own elisp interface. This didn't appeal to me at first, but I'm still looking into it. The first bunch of users I showed emacs to seemed to think of it as yet another editor they didn't have time to learn. BTW, some of my users aren't too hot with WordStar either. I haven't written any elisp myself and would just as soon not reinvent the wheel. 4. edit: Yes, the one that's a link to vi. Doesn't really do it for me because it's a line editor. 5. Sift through the comp.sources.* archives and archie to find editors and try the most promising-looking. Actually, this was just exactly what I was trying to avoid. If the above editors don't work out, that's where I'll head next. Several people have told me that they have similar requirements but can't seem to find anything that really does the job. Not encouraging. It seems to me that it's hard to defend UNIX against charges of "expert-friendliness-only" with this type of experience. I haven't listed where to get these packages because I figure that you netters know how to locate them by now. If not, I'll be glad to help. (BTW, I did notice that all the sources for simped that archie knows about are in Europe.) -- J. Porter Clark jpc@avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (06/13/91)
jpc@avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov (J. Porter Clark) writes: > I'm looking for a text editor that runs under UNIX and is so simple > that the MS-DOS community could use it. It doesn't have to do > complicated stuff. > I have users who would like to use the mailers and newsreaders on my > system but who don't want to have to learn vi or emacs to do so. I'm confused. What kind of editor are you talking about? Could you name some messy-dos editors that would do the trick if there were unix versions? I haven't found any editor, dos, unix, what have you, that was so intuitive that anybody (like a secretary; and no flames please!) could start using from minute one productively and was intuitive and simple. They *all* seem to require some learning. It seems that you may be looking for the grail-of-editing. One of my managers (and i'm a system admin type) once told me that she thought that typing "mail fred" was far too complicated and that she wanted to type F1 or something and have it somehow "know" that she wanted to send mail to fred. I asked her if she wanted it to compose the letter as well. She thought about it for a minute, but by then I had already left the area. I was afraid of the answer. I have had the same kind of expectations of people w.r.t editors. Sheesh. You can't please everybody. derek -- Derek "Tigger" Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG -- U of MN Women's Lax I am the way and the truth and the light, I know all the answers; don't need your advice. -- "I am the way and the truth and the light" -- The Legendary Pink Dots
dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) (06/14/91)
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: >Could you name some messy-dos editors that would do the trick if there >were unix versions? >[...] >Sheesh. You can't please everybody. I understand what Derek is getting at, but I think what a lot of novice unix users would like to see is something along the lines of the editor that comes with Borland's "Turbo" products. Let me define what "intuitive" means to me (in decreasing order of importance): - text typed is always inserted at cursor (only one mode) - arrow keys move as indicated - backspace always deletes before cursor, including <cr>'s - function keys either do nothing, or do what they say ("end" should go to the end of something, etc.) Sure, all editors must be learned, but this way, a beginner only needs to memorize how to get in and how to get out. Other than that, if they know: - at least one way to get the cursor to any place they want - at least one way to remove an unwanted character - at least one way to add a wanted character then they are up and running, and only need to refine their skills as their (im)patience dictates. I think just about anybody can be told "use the arrows and backspace for editing, and hit <escape> when you're finished", and be capable of editing a text file. Therefore *any* editor that supports these rudimentary capabilities would do nicely. As far as I know (please, PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong... the editor would be more valuable to me than my dignity :-) there is no such editor available under unix. That means that a unix novice must spend a minimum of several hours fussing with inscrutable manuals even to be able to compose a usenet posting or "hello world" program. Unix has always been for programmers. The first time I started vi, I lost lots of my work, and it took a lot of practice before I got past the stage where editor-trouble was dominating my development time. Now I use it all the time. It's great! Don't get me wrong. But ... the first time I booted Turbo C, I typed in several complete programs and ran them in the first hour, without even breaking the shrink wrap on the manuals! I prefer vi, but all editors are not the best for all users. little david -- Unix is not your mother.
bill@franklin.com (bill) (06/14/91)
In article <jpc.676756992@avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov> jpc@avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov (J. Porter Clark) writes: : > I'm looking for a text editor that runs under UNIX and is so simple : > that the MS-DOS community could use it. It doesn't have to do : > complicated stuff. : > : > I have users who would like to use the mailers and newsreaders on my : > system but who don't want to have to learn vi or emacs to do so. Once upon a time, there was this thing called the Rand editor. I think you could call it the granddaddy of all windowing editors. It has some descendants that might do. Mined (not to be confused with the mined of Minix), is or was a freely distributable editor based on (cloned from?) the Rand editor. It is what I use and the interface could hardly be simpler. Unfortunately, the version I have is *very* old and a somewhat buggy, so I won't send out its code. (None of the bugs are critical, but they do require someone to "just know" what things not to do.) I understand that there are some people working on a newer version somewhere, but I don't know their e-mail addresses. If you become desperate, I can probably go through the chain of "so and so said"s and find out. Then there was the Grand editor, put out by Dave Yost. This was distributed as source code, but was a commercial product. It was comparatively cheap, though. I haven't heard of him or his editor in quite some time, so I have no idea what's up. Finally, there is or was Ten+ from Interactive. This was more than an editor, but it had at its core an adequate editor. I mention it so that I can bad mouth Interactive. The basic idea of their product was sound, but their implementation sucked, their support was worse than nonexistent, and their marketing brain damaged. Stay away from it. All these editors qualify as "simple" in that you can get a novice computer user to do useful work with less than an hour of training. Heck, I've only given my wife a few minutes of instruction and she uses it for her writing with only the occasional question to me.
mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun14.004711.25643@yenta.alb.nm.us> dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes: >det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: > >>Could you name some messy-dos editors that would do the trick if there >>were unix versions? >>[...] >>Sheesh. You can't please everybody. > >I understand what Derek is getting at, but I think what a lot of novice >unix users would like to see is something along the lines of the editor >that comes with Borland's "Turbo" products. > >Let me define what "intuitive" means to me (in decreasing order of importance): > > - text typed is always inserted at cursor (only one mode) > - arrow keys move as indicated > - backspace always deletes before cursor, including <cr>'s > - function keys either do nothing, or do what they > say ("end" should go to the end of something, etc.) > >Sure, all editors must be learned, but this way, a beginner only needs >to memorize how to get in and how to get out. Other than that, if they >know: > - at least one way to get the cursor to any place they want > - at least one way to remove an unwanted character > - at least one way to add a wanted character > >then they are up and running, and only need to refine their skills as their >(im)patience dictates. > >I think just about anybody can be told "use the arrows and backspace for >editing, and hit <cntrl - f> >when you're finished", and be capable of editing >a text file. Therefore *any* editor that supports these rudimentary >capabilities would do nicely. As far as I know (please, PLEASE correct me >if I'm wrong... the editor would be more valuable to me than my dignity :-) >there is no such editor available under unix. > >That means that a unix novice must spend a minimum of several hours fussing >with inscrutable manuals even to be able to compose a usenet posting or >"hello world" program. Unix has always been for programmers. > I agree 100% with what you say! Creating such an editor would be easy: Take the C code for either Jove or MicroEmacs and ruthlessly hack out everything except the above, plus perhaps a single "search" command. MicroEmacs has a simple method for putting a window on the screen which could contain a menu listing the commands that require control-keys (you would have hacked out everything involving "meta"). Doug McDonald
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (06/16/91)
dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes: >I think what a lot of novice >unix users would like to see is something along the lines of the editor >that comes with Borland's "Turbo" products. > - text typed is always inserted at cursor (only one mode) > - arrow keys move as indicated > - backspace always deletes before cursor, including <cr>'s > - function keys either do nothing, or do what they > say ("end" should go to the end of something, etc.) > - at least one way to get the cursor to any place they want > - at least one way to remove an unwanted character > - at least one way to add a wanted character Ahh, some hard requirements. (:-) This seems like a very reasonable list of actions to support for a beginning (non-unix-type) user and is, as you say, intuitive. If you find such an editor (with documentation, no matter how little is required!) please pass along this information to the masses (i.e., me and the rest of usenet). derek -- Derek "Tigger" Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG -- U of MN Women's Lax I am the way and the truth and the light, I know all the answers; don't need your advice. -- "I am the way and the truth and the light" -- The Legendary Pink Dots
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun14.004711.25643@yenta.alb.nm.us>, dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes: |> det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: |> |> >Could you name some messy-dos editors that would do the trick if there |> >were unix versions? |> >[...] |> >Sheesh. You can't please everybody. |> [....] I believe in messy dos, there is one from PC Mag utility pack may fit the bill as a super simple text editor, tiny editor, that is. |> |> That means that a unix novice must spend a minimum of several hours fussing |> with inscrutable manuals even to be able to compose a usenet posting or |> "hello world" program. Unix has always been for programmers. |> I wouldn't go this far, even though as a SA type, I know quite a few text editors learned using "man" (crying, crying for my past suffering). But if one is in X Window environment, there are two clients which may fit the bill (1) the standard client xedit is a good one. VERY simple indeed. (2) the contributed textedit is another. VERY easy indeed. My own opinion is that (2) is slightly better than (1) You certainly can call them up from another program, X based or not. As long as the all powerful and merciful SA has set up a environment check so that they can be called only in X. [...] |> -- |> Unix is not your mother. Yep! That's why in UNIX we use man instead woman :-) Regards, Chin Fang Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun14.195428.26603@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: > In article <1991Jun14.004711.25643@yenta.alb.nm.us> dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes: > >I think just about anybody can be told "use the arrows and backspace for > >editing, and hit <cntrl - f> when you're finished", and be capable of editing > >a text file. Therefore *any* editor that supports these rudimentary > >capabilities would do nicely. As far as I know (please, PLEASE correct me > >if I'm wrong... the editor would be more valuable to me than my dignity :-) > >there is no such editor available under unix. > > > >That means that a unix novice must spend a minimum of several hours fussing > >with inscrutable manuals even to be able to compose a usenet posting or > >"hello world" program. Unix has always been for programmers. > > I agree 100% with what you say! Creating such an editor would be easy: > Take the C code for either Jove or MicroEmacs and ruthlessly hack > out everything except the above, plus perhaps a single "search" command. > MicroEmacs has a simple method for putting a window on the screen which > could contain a menu listing the commands that require control-keys > (you would have hacked out everything involving "meta"). You silly people. Why hack *out* functionality that *someone* will eventually want to use? The version of JOVE I'm using now can very easily be configured by any adminstrator (who could also install it) to provide full cursor key support and simple help, save&quit, etc. function keys. It can even do auto-wrap. If you can find someone locally (like myself) who has built a version on your kind of hardware, you can probably get a pre-configured binary version that supports rudimentary vt100 and ansi terminals (eg. 386 consoles)! UNIX has not always been for programmers. It's initial official purpose was to support the typesetting efforts of patent clerks, and according to one of the BSTJ articles they were taught the rudiments of editing and file manipulation within approximately two (2) hours of hands-on instruction. And that was in the days of ed and ASR-33's! There are *lots* of editors that support your needs, and the easiest one to get and use is probably vi. If the terminfo/termcap is properly defined, vi handles cursor keys nicely. Other than that, you only need to know <ESC>, <a> (for append) or <i> for insert, and either <Z><Z> or ":wq". -- Greg A. Woods woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP ECI and UniForum Canada +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] VE3TCP Toronto, Ontario CANADA Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible-ORWELL
dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) (06/18/91)
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) writes: >You silly people. Why hack *out* functionality that *someone* will >eventually want to use? >[...] >vi handles cursor keys nicely. Other than that, you only need to know ><ESC>, <a> (for append) or <i> for insert, and either <Z><Z> or ":wq". The problem with vi is that one inevitable wrong keystroke can easily mess up your work so thoroughly that only an expert can recover it gracefully. Even if you make <u> and <U> an important part of the first lesson, it is very intimidating and aggravating to have to tread so lightly. I want novice users to *feel* in control, and not get discouraged. I learned to drive with an automatic transmission. Now I can appreciate the advantages of doing your own shifting, but I'd hate to start that way. What I want is an editor with training wheels! >according to one of the BSTJ articles they were taught the rudiments of >editing and file manipulation within approximately two (2) hours of >hands-on instruction. And that was in the days of ed and ASR-33's! I wish I had two hours to spend with all my novice users. Heck, I wish they had two hour attention spans. Yes, many of them have macintoshes :^) The point is ... my goal is not to teach overall unix competence, and their goal is not to attain it. They want to participate in the wonderful world of email and usenet, and don't want to have to master a complicated editor. Hey! this is the age of instant gratification. We have microwaves, macdonalds, disposable everything, ever-faster 8086 donwannabes, and the home shopping network. You don't have to be able to program to use a computer, and you shouldn't have to be able to operate a real editor to be able to type a quick letter or posting. I know vi isn't hard...but there are real people that I know and love and talk to every day who are letting it get between them and complete enjoyment and participation in the net. Amateur radio dropped the morse code requirement to bring new souls to the hobby. Let's drop our "sophisticated editor" requirement to bring some new souls to the usenet. little david -- Early to rise and late to bed, Makes a man tired, wired, and dead.
jik@cats.ucsc.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) (06/19/91)
I don't want to get into a religious editor flamewar, but I find it necessary to point out that since GNU emacs is pretty much completely customizable and programmable, you can turn it into a simple editor with only basic commands accepted (and it IS possible to make it do function keys, arrow keys, etc. fairly easily), and disable the features that you don't want beginners to stumble over, and then give make that simplified version of emacs your default. The users who grow out of the simple set-up can then recustomize things to get a more powerful emacs environment. -- Jonathan Kamens jik@CATS.UCSC.EDU
phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN) (06/19/91)
dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes: >Let me define what "intuitive" means to me (in decreasing order of importance): > > - text typed is always inserted at cursor (only one mode) > - arrow keys move as indicated > - backspace always deletes before cursor, including <cr>'s > - function keys either do nothing, or do what they > say ("end" should go to the end of something, etc.) > >Sure, all editors must be learned, but this way, a beginner only needs >to memorize how to get in and how to get out. Other than that, if they >know: > - at least one way to get the cursor to any place they want > - at least one way to remove an unwanted character > - at least one way to add a wanted character > >then they are up and running, and only need to refine their skills as their >(im)patience dictates. I was about to type in exactly the same thing above except that I would have included: On a PC: "Delete" should delete the current character "Home" should go to the home place (beginning of file) "End" should to to the end of the file (is below "Home") "Page Up" and "Page Down" should move about a screen's worth. This sounds so utterly obvious that maybe editor programmers of the past who wrote editors for programmers were more afraid of accidently insulting someone? There certainly is no reason that an editor that adheres to the above specs cannot have additional features as well. The point is that a minimal subset to do most reasonable things will exist and most people can get going without having to learn what someone else happens to think are nifty features. Of course the catch is making sure that things like the arrow keys are being interpreted correctly. I don't know if termcap has this info or not (I know where to look, I just haven't yet) for the Unix version. I am planning to write a terminal/telnet program for a PC which will have an integrated local editor (for faster editing responses, special graphics, etc.) which edits files on the remote host and plan to make the default keymapping include the above. -- /***************************************************************************\ / Phil Howard -- KA9WGN -- phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu | Guns don't aim guns at \ \ Lietuva laisva -- Brivu Latviju -- Eesti vabaks | people; CRIMINALS do!! / \***************************************************************************/
Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM (06/19/91)
>>>>> "J" == Jonathan I. Kamens <jik@cats.ucsc.edu> writes:
J> I don't want to get into a religious editor flamewar, but I find it
J> necessary to point out that since GNU emacs is pretty much
J> completely customizable and programmable, you can turn it into a
J> simple editor with only basic commands accepted (and it IS possible
J> to make it do function keys, arrow keys, etc. fairly easily), and
J> disable the features that you don't want beginners to stumble over,
J> and then give make that simplified version of emacs your default.
J> The users who grow out of the simple set-up can then recustomize
J> things to get a more powerful emacs environment.
John's right. Look, full driver seat air-bag protection:
-----actual screen dump----:
You have typed C-x n, invoking disabled command narrow-to-region:
Restrict editing in this buffer to the current region.
The rest of the text becomes temporarily invisible and untouchable
but is not deleted; if you save the buffer in a file, the invisible
text is included in the file. C-x w makes all visible again.
You can now type
Space to try the command just this once,
but leave it disabled,
Y to try it and enable it (no questions if you use it again),
N to do nothing (command remains disabled).
---------------------------
See, GNU Emacs is your friend. Anyway, in the long run it doesn't
matter if you use its native emacs keybindings (an 804-line on-line
tutorial is included) or one of its vi emulations, etc... mere
inputting details... either way try to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome /
tendonitis while you're doing any typing over many years.
What impressed my a lot as a beginner was that nobody could take away
all those megabytes of source code from me---so I knew I could take my
GNU Emacs knowledge around with me and not worry too much about that
big investment in learning going to waste... I'd just recompile on the
next machine... anyway, this is one deep down long-term motivation...
protecting ones' personal learning investment.
Others have felt the same way, so we have all joined together and
added features, making the GNU Emacs world as rich as it is today.les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun19.013030.23227@cbfsb.att.com> Dan_Jacobson@ihlpz.ATT.COM writes: >What impressed my a lot as a beginner was that nobody could take away >all those megabytes of source code from me---so I knew I could take my >GNU Emacs knowledge around with me and not worry too much about that >big investment in learning going to waste... I'd just recompile on the >next machine... anyway, this is one deep down long-term motivation... >protecting ones' personal learning investment. OK, nobody is going to argue that GNU Emacs is a poor choice for a computer professional. But.... If you ever had to work on a PC or a machine as slow as the early 3B2's, or one that didn't have a compiler and many megs of disk space available, even you might reconsider. >Others have felt the same way, so we have all joined together and >added features, making the GNU Emacs world as rich as it is today. But do you really think it is suitable for someone who only wants to answer a mail message and has no intention of using any other functionality? Suppose you wanted to exchange email with some member of your family that had no previous experience with computers. Would you buy a computer capable of running GNU emacs and train them on it or would you go with something a little less "rich"? Has anyone seen the new screen editor that comes with MSDOS 5.0? Without seeing it, I'll venture the opinion that it is the one to emulate. Regardless of features or lack thereof, within a year or two more people will have it than any other screen editor and if it has the few basic functions that people have been asking for in this thread, unlike edlin it will actually be used. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun19.192526.21975@chinet.chi.il.us>, les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes: |> In article <1991Jun19.013030.23227@cbfsb.att.com> Dan_Jacobson@ihlpz.ATT.COM writes: |> |> >What impressed my a lot as a beginner was that nobody could take away |> >all those megabytes of source code from me---so I knew I could take my |> >GNU Emacs knowledge around with me and not worry too much about that |> >big investment in learning going to waste... I'd just recompile on the |> >next machine... anyway, this is one deep down long-term motivation... |> >protecting ones' personal learning investment. |> |> OK, nobody is going to argue that GNU Emacs is a poor choice for a |> computer professional. But.... If you ever had to work on a PC |> or a machine as slow as the early 3B2's, or one that didn't have |> a compiler and many megs of disk space available, even you might |> reconsider. |> Sigh... That's not it. Before I came back school for this silly grad degree, I was a aerospace engineer for five years and I worked first at Bell Helicopter and later North American Avaiation, Rockwell International. Both are primier aviation companies. At both places, MIS/technical computing control everything, even workstaions owned by my group (bought using group's budget). No one can be a root unless you are from MIS/technical computing dept. So this "carrying my learning investment" can be only realized in certain fields. Absolutely NOT possible at many many places :-( Per my colleague at Rockwell International, only until one month ago, my group's 6Mhz IBM PC/AT with 30 Megs HD was replaced by a stupid IBM PS/2 55SX. Now this is the company which designed/made the space shuttle main engine and the star war satellite killer missles. And my group was heavily involved in both. Now if anyone tells me to build GNU emacs on a PS/2 55 SX, I may burst in uncontrollable laugh....:-( As a student UNIX SA now, with Giga bytes at my disposal, I do routinely build monster pkgs. But people, this is, in my opinion, an exception rather than rules. Conclusions: Don't depend anything big and requires root privilage to install. => super simplity/smallness is MUST => NO FSF GNU emacs. ^^^^^^^^^ I do use emacs/vi/crisp/ed/xedit/textedit/..... just to prepare the day when I am no longer a super user :-( Sincerely, Chin Fang Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM (06/21/91)
>>>>> On 20 Jun 91 03:26:55 GMT, fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) said:
Chin> Conclusions: Don't depend anything big and requires root
Chin> privilage to install. => super simplity/smallness is MUST => NO
Chin> FSF GNU emacs.
You don't need to be root to install and edit things with GNU Emacs.dylan@ibmpcug.co.uk (Matthew Farwell) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun20.235116.3132@cbfsb.att.com> Dan_Jacobson@ihlpz.ATT.COM writes: >>>>>> On 20 Jun 91 03:26:55 GMT, fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) said: >Chin> Conclusions: Don't depend anything big and requires root >Chin> privilage to install. => super simplity/smallness is MUST => NO >Chin> FSF GNU emacs. >Minor correction: GNU Emacs does not require root privilege to >install. $ ftp ftp.uu.net ftp> mget emacs.tar.Z 255 You must be joking - on your quota!!!!! Dylan. -- Matthew J Farwell: dylan@ibmpcug.co.uk || ...!uunet!ukc!ibmpcug!dylan But you're wrong Steve. You see, its only solitaire.
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun21.012239.4994@cbfsb.att.com>, Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM writes: |> >>>>> On 20 Jun 91 03:26:55 GMT, fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) said: |> |> Chin> Conclusions: Don't depend anything big and requires root |> Chin> privilage to install. => super simplity/smallness is MUST => NO |> Chin> FSF GNU emacs. |> |> You don't need to be root to install and edit things with GNU Emacs. ^^^^^^^^^^^ Hmmm... I never said that one needed root privilage to "edit" things with emacs. You misunderstood me post. As a SA myself, I said "installing emacs requires root privilage" with the following understanding: Whenever BIG disk space is required, root privilage (at least stuff or source privilage) is required. I have had a quite interesting discussion with Thomas at MIT regarding this point. May I ask you, can anyone at your site write to /usr/local? can everyone at your site have more than 20 megs disk quota? (and that's just sufficient to decompress and build this thing) At our site, a typical user has only four megs, I don't think this is even good for holding the compressed GNU emacs distribution. I routinely build emacs for our four platforms, DECs, IBMs, SUNs, MIPs, I said "root privilage" required out of practical considerations. Let me mention a few more facts regarding sizes: Compressed/fully built 386 version of emacs and friends require somewhere like four megs. The binary is like 0.6 megs after everything is strip(1)-ed and mcs(1) -d -ed. For Suns/DECs, it's like 0.8~0.9 Megs. For RISC 6000s, the dumped version requires 1.7 Megs! This is just the emacs executable itself! As another perhaps interesting point here: If you build emacs on a system using Berkeley Fast File System (FFS), then a file system's last 10% (?) can be only written to by root. An example, say your /usr has 100 megs, and it has 30 megs free space left, and say you are a common user trying to build emacs in this file system, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO, for the reason given above. I do agree with you that by itself, GNU emacs never dictates you where to put it's support files, but if you are (or were) a SA, would you put all emacs stuff in one directory? If during account checking, I find someone put a complete emacs in his/her $HOME, I would ask this user why, and why indeed. Now I hope my point is clear. Emacs is a great editor (in fact a great interface too, and I often have the suspicision that RMS wants to run UNIX as unix.el or unix.elc in it someday :-) Sincerely, Chin Fang Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun21.040309.26255@leland.Stanford.EDU> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: > As a SA myself, I said "installing emacs requires root privilage" with the > following understanding: Wow. He's an SA. He must be right. I've installed emacs without being root several times. > Whenever BIG disk space is required, root privilage (at least stuff or source > privilage) is required. I have had a quite interesting discussion with Thomas > at MIT regarding this point. And I've spoken to another man to whom you can say Wow. Hint: not everyone runs BSD. And of those that do, not everyone runs quotas. And of those that do, not everyone has quotas so small you can't build emacs. > May I ask you, can anyone at your site write to /usr/local? Why would they need to? I've built emacs in /usr/igb before now. > can everyone at your site have more than 20 megs disk quota? Yes. And everywhere I've been. > (and that's just sufficient to decompress and build this thing) What else would you want to do with it? And anyway, if you know someone who has the same machine-type as you, they can compile it and give you a binary. My bare-essentials tape that I use on all the machines we used to build has emacs in about 1.8M (by deleting all the .el files for which you have a .elc, etc). > At our site, a typical user has only four megs, I don't think this is even good > for holding the compressed GNU emacs distribution. I routinely build emacs > for our four platforms, DECs, IBMs, SUNs, MIPs, I said "root privilage" required > out of practical considerations. Right. ``Because my system is so tightly regulated that I can't build emacs without being root, neither can anyone else anywhere.'' > As another perhaps interesting point here: If you build emacs on a system > using Berkeley Fast File System (FFS), then a file system's last 10% (?) can be > only written to by root. An example, say your /usr has 100 megs, and it has > 30 megs free space left, and say you are a common user trying to build emacs > in this file system, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO, for the reason given above. Right. And if you're an SA who believes that root SHOULD write in the 10% reserve, I suggest you read a manual or two. > one directory? If during account checking, I find someone put a complete > emacs in his/her $HOME, I would ask this user why, and why indeed. You poke around in your user's directories? My, what a fine SA you are. Do your users know? ian
jimp@cognos.UUCP (Jim Patterson) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun21.040309.26255@leland.Stanford.EDU> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: >In article <1991Jun21.012239.4994@cbfsb.att.com>, Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM writes: >|> >>>>> On 20 Jun 91 03:26:55 GMT, fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) said: >|> Chin> Conclusions: Don't depend anything big and requires root >|> Chin> privilage to install. => super simplity/smallness is MUST => NO >|> Chin> FSF GNU emacs. >|> >|> You don't need to be root to install and edit things with GNU Emacs. > ^^^^^^^^^^^ >Hmmm... I never said that one needed root privilage to "edit" things with emacs. >You misunderstood me post. >As a SA myself, I said "installing emacs requires root privilage" with the >following understanding: >Whenever BIG disk space is required, root privilage (at least stuff or source >privilage) is required. >May I ask you, can anyone at your site write to /usr/local Yes > can everyone at your site have more than 20 megs disk quota? Yes We don't bother with disk quotas at our site. I know this isn't a feasible approach at many educational sites, but it works quite well in a software development environment. Your site seems to have two classes of users: - Those with 4MByte disk quotas - Those with root privilege All you're really saying is that you need lots of disk space. If your operations group can't give someone some additional disk quota without just giving them root privilege, I think you have a serious organizational problem. Granted you will likely have to "justify" your request, but the basic problem is one of economics (you can't afford unlimited disk space). I'd also suggest that it is (or should be) a lot easier to justify 20 MBytes of disk space to your system manager than it is to justify root privilege, since the latter is basically giving away the keys to the store. Of course if you can convince your sysops to maintain emacs for you, all the better. -- Jim Patterson Cognos Incorporated UUNET:uunet!cognos.uucp!jimp P.O. BOX 9707 BITNET:ccs.carleton.ca!cognos.uucp!jimp 3755 Riverside Drive PHONE:(613)738-1440 x6112 Ottawa, Ont K1G 3Z4
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/22/91)
In article <9754@cognos.UUCP>, jimp@cognos.UUCP (Jim Patterson) writes: |> In article <1991Jun21.040309.26255@leland.Stanford.EDU> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: |> >In article <1991Jun21.012239.4994@cbfsb.att.com>, Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM writes: |> >|> >>>>> On 20 Jun 91 03:26:55 GMT, fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) said: |> |> >Whenever BIG disk space is required, root privilage (at least stuff or source |> >privilage) is required. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Note that I said either root privilage of staff (sorry about my earlier typo) or source privilage. The later two are not the same as root, but people with such privilage can write into certain directories like /usr/local/.... Why so many people misread this provision? It's obvious, isn't it? |> We don't bother with disk quotas at our site. I know this isn't a feasible |> approach at many educational sites, but it works quite well in a software |> development environment. |> Quite infeasible at our site. We have (PAY ATTENTION!) 9763 active user accounts, only 7 gig bytes for user disk space :-( and about 7 gigs for holding apps and other system stuff. These are file server disk space. We may acquire another 40 gigs in this summer, but with over NINE thousand users, even with 40 gigs more, it's not much. Totally, we have 14 DEC 3100s, 54 SUN SPARCs, 15 IBM RISC 6000s, and one DEC 5500 These workstations each have about 200~300 megs disk space for /tmp, swapper, OS, X etc, and they are NFS mounted to file servers, ie, a few powerful SUN 4s and one RISC 6000 530. We provide unlimited computing time to any Stanford student/faculty/staff, but unfortunately with so many users, only 4megs for each as default. This is due to economics, nothing else. With 9000+ users, some of them are bound to be very irresponsible :-(, we didn't impose disk quota for about one year and we got TONS of troubles because there are many careless users turned disk hogs :-( They caused system crash on the average once a week. After a while, we SAs had enough (and I imagine responsible users also had enough too) so we kicked in disk quota. Note, this is a campus-wide computing service, even a new freshman can immediately have a UNIX account, you don't need to be a grad student to get one. You don't need to be a member of a research lab to get one either. I imagine many schools also have a similar site like ours. We also provide hand-holding consulting etc. Of course, at my school, each dept has it's own computing facilities. Place like Center of Integrated Systems has so much disk space and CPU power it's eye-poping! The place I work is just one of the sites on this compus but it's the only one available to ANY Stanford academic member therefore the busiest :-( |> Your site seems to have two classes of users: |> - Those with 4MByte disk quotas |> - Those with root privilege |> WRONG! Root, staff/source group/privilaged subgroups and general users. People in staff/source group don't have security privilage, which is reserved by two super users. (I am not one of these two, what a relief :-) You know how much time my head SA spent on fending off off-campus system breakers? |> All you're really saying is that you need lots of disk space. If your |> operations group can't give someone some additional disk quota without |> just giving them root privilege, I think you have a serious organizational |> problem. |> That's what staff/source groups etc are for, we also have subgroups, like people taking care of IBMs have ibm_src group privilages. They can modify file systems on file servers used by IBM workstations, for instance. We don't have any "orgainzational problem" at all. What "I" have now is lot's people have misunderstanding of my post(s). |> Granted you will likely have to "justify" your request, but the basic |> problem is one of economics (you can't afford unlimited disk space). Indeed, we sometime grant a group of students like hundred megs for their projects, but their sponsors have to sign some forms. |> I'd also suggest that it is (or should be) a lot easier to justify 20 |> MBytes of disk space to your system manager than it is to justify root |> privilege, since the latter is basically giving away the keys to the After you read above, I guess you would know the way we do is what most SAs would as well. |> store. Of course if you can convince your sysops to maintain emacs |> for you, all the better. |> Yes, I am the guy maintain NFS mounted /usr/local/bin for all our platforms. That's why almost all our users are happy :-) Because they don't need to build emacs in their own $HOME. If at a wide access site like ours, a user HAS TO build emacs in his/her $HOME, it's a sign of incompetent system adminstration! Besides, at a busy site like ours, disk usuage checking is a must given our limited disk space. We even have to expire news fairly quick to recover disk space too. Imagine you let hundreds users build/use their own emacs in their $HOME, what a waste! Finally, as a "conclusion" related to the subject, I think if someday, an editor like the MSDOS shareware Qedit from SamWare is available to the UNIX world, all the better. If I am not mistaken, it only requires 45k bytes disk space to hold it. GNU emacs is granted extremely powerful and is a nice interface to many apps, but it's SOOOOOOO HUUUUUGE! Sincerely Chin Fang Student UNIX system adminstrator, Academic Information Resources, Stanford University, grad student Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
gaynor@brushfire.rutgers.edu (Silver) (06/22/91)
fangchin@leland.stanford.edu writes: > At both places, MIS/technical computing control everything, even workstaions > owned by my group (bought using group's budget). No one can be a root unless > you are from MIS/technical computing dept. Who needs to be root, anyway? As long as the space and cpu cycles are available... > 6Mhz IBM PC/AT with 30 Megs HD was replaced by a stupid IBM PS/2 55SX. This is my opinion only, not a statement of fact. Your MIS/group leaders have a pretty screwed up idea of what a productive development environment looks like. Jeepers, do you have any idea of how many mips and megs you can get nowadays for a few grand? Ok, well, neither do I. I know enough that for about $5k, I could probably wind up with an Sparc SLC with a couple hundred megs. > Conclusions: > Don't depend anything big and requires root privilage to install. > => super simplity/smallness is MUST => NO FSF GNU emacs. Simplicity/smallness (ie optimized for space, speed, and simplicity) is right for the tiny little embedded systems. This is totally unacceptable for a human environment -- humans benefit greatly from a little extra effort. Computers and peripherals are becoming so cheap that there is very little reason to skimp. How much does a 10 mip processor cost nowadays? A quality 300 meg disk? Thinnet cable, per foot? Consider this cost relative to improved productivity. It _is_ reasonable for me to say that developers spend most of their time tapping at an editor, right? Suppose one person can work 5% faster because they have a superior editor at their disposal? Suppose five people work 5% faster? YOU're a scientific type, YOU do the analysis. Regards, [Ag]
welsh@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Donald Welsh) (06/24/91)
In article <1991Jun18.065340.25187@yenta.alb.nm.us> dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes: | | I wish I had two hours to spend with all my novice users. Heck, I wish | they had two hour attention spans. Yes, many of them have macintoshes :^) | | The point is ... my goal is not to teach overall unix competence, and their | goal is not to attain it. They want to participate in the wonderful world | of email and usenet, and don't want to have to master a complicated editor. Aaaaaarrrgh! And you're helping these dweebs *onto* the net! Urgh! Puke! | Hey! this is the age of instant gratification. | You don't have to be able to program to use a computer, and you | shouldn't have to be able to operate a real editor to be able to type a | quick letter or posting. We already *know* one need not think in order to post. But do you really want to encourage people not to think? | I know vi isn't hard...but there are real people that I know and love and | talk to every day who are letting it get between them and complete enjoyment | and participation in the net. If, by your own admission, these people are too intellectually lazy to learn an editor, what makes you think they won't carry this laziness over into the net? Thanks, we have enought people replying without reading the whole thread, enough "me too" postings, enough frequently asked questions which completely ignore the FAQ questions list, enough repetitions of the same damned flamewar again and again in the same newsgroups, on and on and on.... You want *more*? | Let's drop our "sophisticated | editor" requirement to bring some new souls to the usenet. I knew it. You're my worst nightmare come true. -- Donald Welsh | His particular sadistic specialty was contumely, welsh@latcs1.oz.au | which Melissa craved with an abject thirst. | -- Karen Elizabeth Gordon