etan@tellab5.UUCP (Nate Stelton) (12/08/86)
I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (under VMS), and I would like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: 1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? 2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? 3. Is VMS a better environment for electronic publishing than UNIX? (I.e., fuller support, more powerful tools). I realize that there are no correct answers to these, I was just hoping for some discussion. -etan
roy@phri.UUCP (12/10/86)
In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: > 2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? Hopefully this won't start up another round of "Emacs is better than vi. No it's not! Yes it is! Oh yeah? Well, your mother wears army boots!". Without publicly stating an opinion as to which editor is better, I would like to point out that it is possible to make emacs behave like EDT. CCA emacs, for example (and this is *not* an ad for CCA), comes with a set of key definitions which sort-of emulates EDT. I suspect other emacs have similar emulation packages available. As I understand it, there are certain fundemental difference between emacs and EDT that make is almost impossible to do a perfect emulation. I personally have never used EDT, so I can comment further on that. > I realize that there are no correct answers to these, I was just hoping for > some discussion. As a prophylactic measure, may I respectfully request that if you have no useful information to add to this discussion, you don't say anything. We've had more than enough of the Unix/VMS, emacs/vi and troff/tex/scribe wars to last a lifetime. Personally, I prefer SOS and Runoff on TOPS-10 :-) -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 "you can't spell deoxyribonucleic without unix!"
garry@batcomputer.UUCP (12/10/86)
In a recent article etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) wrote: >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (under VMS), and I would >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: > >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? Yes, for screen editing. Vi has fancier line mode search commands. >2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? Yes, someone local has hacked micro-emacs to make it resemble Edt. (Before you ask, I believe he's selling it, not giving it away.) >3. Is VMS a better environment for electronic publishing than UNIX? (I.e., >fuller support, more powerful tools). ...Please direct this to mod.religion.unix. >I realize that there are no correct answers to these, I was just hoping for >some discussion. > >-etan "vi" is an antique and should have been retired years ago. If you want to work on either VMS or large-system Unix, and don't mind learning a new editor, you should probably get a copy of GNU Emacs. I use Edtmacs and EDT (actually "TPU", plus the EDT flavor enhancers) because: 1) I have it microcoded in my brain, and 2) I can quickly get Edtmacs running on almost any machine, including micros. garry wiegand (garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu)
hoffman@hdsvx1.UUCP (12/10/86)
In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (under VMS), and I would >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? Ah, another round of UNIX vs. VMS! I have been asking this question of users of both systems for a long time, and have found that users who prefer UNIX generally prefer vi, while those who prefer VMS always prefer EDT. Both can be very powerful if you know how to use their macro facilities. Both are relatively easy for a novice to use (although I think that here EDT has a real edge, since there are no commands to be learnt, and since there is a comprehensive help facility). EDT does not have vi's ability to escape the shell, or to filter blocks of text through shell commands (though this is fairly easy to come by if you are using the TPU version of EDT). And the search and substitution facilities of EDT are truly limited (regular patterns? Ha! EDT doesn't even give you simple wild-card searches. Even IBM editors do that!). But the command structure in EDT is much simpler, and I think the *philosophy* is more straightforward. For example, there is no J command in EDT, because all you need to do to join two lines together is to delete the \n at the end of the first line. There are individual buffers for restoring the last line, word, character and paste block deleted, which I find much more helpful than the general purpose P command. And, best of all, ordinary letters are not used for commands! If you are in "keypad" mode, and type a character, it appears on the screen. No C or R or S commands are necessary, because you are always in insert mode: just move to the text you want to change, delete the old text and type in the new. What could be easier? You should try it for a while, and judge for yourself. >2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? Not to my knowledge. Of course, EDT (like everything else) can be simulated with EMACS, which does run under BSD. But if you have EMACS, there are more exciting things you can do. >3. Is VMS a better environment for electronic publishing than UNIX? (I.e., >fuller support, more powerful tools). Probably not. I've used both for this purpose, and can't see any difference except in EDT vs. vi. The filter/pipeline concept might give UNIX a slight edge if you really know what you're doing; the friendliness of VMS might win back that slight edge if you don't. -- Richard Hoffman | "They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care, Schlumberger WS | They pursued it with forks and hope; hdsvx1!hoffman | They threatened its life with a railway share, 713-928-4750 | They charmed it with smiles and soap." (L. CARROLL)
robert@jimi.cs.unlv.edu (Robert Cray) (12/11/86)
In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: > > >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (under VMS), and I would >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: > >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? No. VI has many things EDT does not, regular expressions, the g & v commands, conditional replacement, the undo command, and lots more. EDT does not really do anything. If you want to use an editor under VMS, you should you EDIT/TPU This editor has multiple windows, the ability to execute commands on a buffer, and can be extended. It does not have regular exp. built in, but has the functions needed to build it yourself. Better still would be to use GNU emacs, it is free, runs on lots of machines, and there are lots of people working on different modes, e.g. C mode, TeX mode, etc. Of course you have to get it which can be painful if you don't want to ftp 8 meg of code. > >2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? > There is an emulator of EDT that runs under GNU Emacs. This comes with the latest dist. I think >3. Is VMS a better environment for electronic publishing than UNIX? (I.e., >fuller support, more powerful tools). I have found that everything VMS has, UNIX has, plus a lot more. It is much easier to do development under unix. It really surprises me that anyone would go looking for EDT, it is really one of the poorer editors that I have seen. VMS has Digital standard runoff,TeX & WPS, Unix has troff (like DSR except much better) and TeX. I have yet to talk to anyone that didn't hate WPS, so that leaves TeX, which you have on UNIX I think TeX is the best of all of them, this also is free and runs on lots (UNIX, VMS, TOPS-20, IBM-PC, Mac, Amiga) of machines. The only reason to use EDT on unix is if you don't have time to learn GNU or vi. Right now I use eve under vms and find it acceptable (You just about have to customize it, the way it comes is quite obnoxious, so don't be discouraged) --robert -- CSNET: robert%jimi.cs.unlv.edu@relay.cs.net UUCP: {sdcrdcf,ihnp4}!otto!jimi!robert seismo!unrvax!tahoe!jimi!robert -- CSNET: robert%jimi.cs.unlv.edu@relay.cs.net UUCP: {sdcrdcf,ihnp4}!otto!jimi!robert seismo!unrvax!tahoe!jimi!robert
rhorn@infinet.UUCP (Rob Horn) (12/12/86)
In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: > >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (under VMS), and I would >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: > >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? > I will avoid any attempt to answer superiority. Editors are a matter of personal taste, so you must try it yourself and decide. But, we recently moved some VMS/EDT users to a UNIX environment and they found it much easier to adapt to EMACS (Gnu) than to vi. They also decided that the available EDT emulation modes were not enough like EDT to be worth it. They bit the bullet and learned native emacs. -- Rob Horn UUCP: ...{decvax, seismo!harvard}!wanginst!infinet!rhorn Snail: Infinet, 40 High St., North Andover, MA
mike@mipos3.UUCP (Michael Bruck) (12/16/86)
There is a company that markets a version of EDT for Unix and MS-DOS.
I have not used their product and cannot endorse it in any way. Contact
them at:
Boston Business Computing, Ltd.
Riverwalk Center
360 Merrimack St.
Lawrence, Mass. 01843
(617) 683-7920
The price is $995 for the Unix version.
If you want to use vi under VMS, the only way I know of doing this is to use
Eunice (no flames, PLEASE).
--
--Michael Bruck
Corporate CAD, Intel Corp, Santa Clara, California
UUCP: ...{hplabs,decwrl,oliveb,amdcad}!intelca!mipos3!mike
CSNET: mike@mipos3.intel.com
Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.
The above views are personal.bob@osu-eddie.UUCP (Bob Sutterfield) (12/17/86)
In article <2529@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: >In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: >> 2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? > ... >a set of key definitions which sort-of emulates EDT. I suspect other emacs >have similar emulation packages available. As I understand it, there are GNU Emacs also has an EDT emulation package. -- Bob Sutterfield, Computer and Information Science Department The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277 bob@ohio-state.{arpa,csnet} or ...!cb{osgd,att}!osu-eddie!bob (614) 292 - 0915
bjorn@alberta.UUCP (Bjorn R. Bjornsson) (01/06/87)
In article <397@jimi.cs.unlv.edu>, robert@jimi.cs.unlv.edu (Robert Cray) writes: > In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: > >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (under VMS), and I would > >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: > > > >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? Yes, for 95% of editing tasks. Use vi/ex, sed, awk or Gnumacs for heavy duty manipulations. > No. VI has many things EDT does not, regular expressions, > the g & v commands, conditional replacement, the undo command, > and lots more. EDT does not really do anything. True vi has many things that edt does not. Regular expressions are sorely missed, etc.. Much as I hate to paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith, I still think he has the definitive comment on the matter (no the original was not about text editors): Where text editors are concerned there are few standards. No one can say what is good and what is bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. I know you won't believe me but I know a person who first learned vi and was subsequently more or less forced to use edt (for lack of vi on VMS). You had better believe that to begin with there was no love lost on edt. But now many years after VMS and several Unix systems later he still prefers edt. Me, I saw edt before I saw vi and you know by now which one I prefer. It's fairly easy to modify just about any of the microEmacs editors that have been posted to the net to emulate edt keypad mode + use regular expressions. It helps to have a reasonably sized keyboard or an Atari ST. Oh and by the way, on of the premier features in edt is reverse video on "select ranges" (regions to you Emacs hackers). This has not been duplicated (for obvious reasons) in any Emacs package written to emulate edt. Don't let YOU keep ME awake, Bjorn R. Bjornsson alberta!bjorn
nz@hotlg.UUCP (01/08/87)
In article <397@jimi.cs.unlv.edu> robert@jimi.cs.unlv.edu (Robert Cray) writes: > In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: > > > >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (VMS), and I would > >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: > > > >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? > > No. VI has many things EDT does not, regular expressions, > the g & v commands, conditional replacement, the undo command, > and lots more. EDT does not really do anything. That's not strictly true. I have seen several editors that do less than EDT (mostly on IBM systems). Consider that the predecessor to EDT, K52 or KED, was written to run on non-separate-I&D PDP-11s. Rob Cray is correct in telling Nate that VI has many things that EDT does not have. EDT also has things that VI does not have, although not as many. > If you want to use an editor under VMS, you should you EDIT/TPU > This editor has multiple windows, the ability to execute commands > on a buffer, and can be extended. It does not have regular exp. > built in, but has the functions needed to build it yourself. I agree that EDIT/TPU is superior to straight EDT. EDIT/TPU does have the difficulty that it requires a higher degree of intelligence on the part of the terminal to work at all. TPU is a neat language, too. However, the vanilla EDIT/TPU still behaves a lot like EDT on the surface. > Better still would be to use GNU emacs, it is free, ... Again, I agree. GNU Emacs version 17 runs very well on VMS, and provides features that EDIT/TPU and EVE do not even pretend to approach. It is not very robust, for a variety of reasons, and it might be advisable to wait for version 18 (due in a few weeks, read recent articles in comp.emacs). > > > >2. Is there a version of EDT that can run under UNIX 4.2(or3) BSD? > > > There is an emulator of EDT that runs under GNU Emacs. This > comes with the latest dist. I think Anybody used to the real EDT may be frustrated by GNU's insistence on using the entire screen for editting, rather than only the top 2/3 :-). Also, some of the more VMS-specific parts of EDT are not included in the emulation mode. > >3. Is VMS a better environment for electronic publishing than UNIX? (I.e., > >fuller support, more powerful tools). Not a chance! Disregarding text editors, you have more options and much more flexibility for printing, typesetting, etc.. on a good UNIX system than you do on a VMS system. Further, the wealth of other tools available under UNIX can come in handy at the darnedest time. I once had to do a rather complicated match-replace-accumulate-and-dump sort of operation on a document (a User's Guide, about 40 p.) I was writing. I used a pipeline including tr(1), sed(1), and awk(1). You won't find tools like that, or the flexibility in hooking them together, anywhere in VMS-land. > I have found that everything VMS has, UNIX has, plus a lot more. > It is much easier to do development under unix. True. VMS has some neat stuff, and there are things that are easier to do under VMS than under UNIX, but editing isn't one of them. > VMS has Digital standard runoff,TeX & WPS, Unix has troff (like > DSR except much better) and TeX. I have yet to talk to anyone > that didn't hate WPS, so that leaves TeX, which you have on UNIX. > > I think TeX is the best of all of them, this also is free and runs > on lots (UNIX, VMS, TOPS-20, IBM-PC, Mac, Amiga) of machines. TeX is demonstratably the best of them all, as well as the most widely distributed. For example, you can write a Towers of Hanoi solver in Troff, or in TeX, but not in DSR. WPS I don't know anything about, but I have heard that it is not so hot. > The only reason to use EDT on unix is if you don't have time to > learn GNU or vi. Right now I use eve under vms and find it > acceptable (You just about have to customize it, the way it > comes is quite obnoxious, so don't be discouraged) EVE is pretty neat. It does have windows, and multiple buffers, but the design is poorly thought out in some regards. For instance, as I understand EVE, you can pull many files in for editing, but you can never dispose of them. As usual for VMS utilities, it is also keypad-based. Keypads are nice if your terminal has one, but if it doesn't... > --robert > Now, for your reading pleasure, I will attack ANOTHER article on this same topic! In article <172@pembina.alberta> bjorn@alberta (Bjorn R. Bjornsson) writes: > In article <397@jimi.cs.unlv.edu>, robert@jimi.cs.unlv (Robert Cray) writes: > > In article <241@tellab5.UUCP> etan@tellab3.UUCP (Nate Stelton) writes: > > >I am a UNIX/vi user who was recently told about EDT (VMS), and I would > > >like to solicit some comments. What I'm wondering is: > > > > > >1. Is EDT a superior text editor to vi? > > Yes, for 95% of editing tasks. Use vi/ex, sed, awk or Gnumacs > for heavy duty manipulations. That is a pretty bald statement (so was Robert Cray's, to be honest). It would be interesting to see ``Gibson Mix'' of editting tasks, and compare (what metric to use?) EDT to vi on such set of task. One of the prime tenets of EDT seems to be: Don't Let that User Put His *&!%$&^@$ Hands on the Home Row! Anybody who is trained to type quickly finds: (a) that keypads are distasteful or (b) typing skills sure deteriorate quickly. I was always told in typing class that the key to fast and reliable typing OF ANY KIND was to keep your hands on the home row and your eyes off your hands. In EDT (and TPU, and EVE) this goal is impossible. > > No. VI has many things EDT does not, regular expressions, > > the g & v commands, conditional replacement, the undo command, > > and lots more. EDT does not really do anything. > > True vi has many things that edt does not. Regular expressions are > sorely missed, etc.. From a strictly formal standpoint, regular expressions make all the difference, because full regular expressions have all the power of a finite automaton, and fixed strings do not. One point that you are missing, and it is a VERY IMPORTANT ONE, is that EDT is built to be a closed system, vi is built to allow you to use all the power of the operating system. There is no way (at least I never heard of one) that you can ask EDT to send a portion of your file through a filter, much less a set of filters. Now, with EDIT/TPU, you can write filters in TPU, but it is still nice to be able to use filters that are already available. Needless to say, GNU allows you to do this filtering business, too. > Much as I hate to paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith, I still think > he has the definitive comment on the matter (no the original was > not about text editors): > > Where text editors are concerned there are few standards. > No one can say what is good and what is bad, although you > can be sure that everyone will. Sure enough. I have learned a lot from listening to the opinions of older and wiser men (and women). If my opinions, and those of Robert and Bjorn will help Nate learn more about editors and computers, then maybe the argument wasn't in vain after all. > I know you won't believe me but <person goes vi --> edt and > likes it> I knew some folks like that. They were all ``infrequent users'', not sitting-at-a-terminal-half-the-day-every-day types. If there are any EDT fans out there in netland, remember how tried your arm got from switching from keypad to keyboard after a 6 hour edit session? > Me, I saw edt before I > saw vi and you know by now which one I prefer. It's fairly easy > to modify just about any of the microEmacs editors that have been > posted to the net to emulate edt keypad mode + use regular expressions. Yes, but that doesn't give you all of EDT. I get annoyed quickly with skin-deep emulators, and I know many experienced programmers who agree. > Oh and by the way, on of the premier features in edt is reverse video > on "select ranges" (regions to you Emacs hackers). This has not > been duplicated (for obvious reasons) in any Emacs package written > to emulate edt. Really? I have heard of that feature, but never used it. I think I would go mad if I saw an editor do that more than twice! Just think of the number of characters it has to send to mark up half the screen in reverse video! Just for selecting a range that you are about to delete anyhow. CCA Emacs had a neat feature where you could set the other end of the select range (region) to reverse (just one char). GNU doesn't do that, unfortunately. One problem with EDT, of course, is that you cannot have multiple select ranges. You have one mark, and that's it. Vi has 26 (one for each letter of alphabet), and most Emacses have 26 or more. > Bjorn R. Bjornsson > alberta!bjorn Just to get this discussion onto solid ground, I have made up a quick list of features and a comparison of how they are implemented, and their level of availability, in 3 editors: VMS EDT, UNIX (SystemV) vi, and GNU Emacs. I would like to include EVE, but I don't know enough about it. Please would some VMS hacker out there will post a column for EVE? Feature EDT Vi GNU ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Searching | Fixed | Partial Regular | Full Regular | Patterns | Strings | Expressions | Expressions | | | | | Replacement | Fixed Strings | Regular Exprsns | Regular Exprsns | | No Control | y/n/q control | y/n/q/e control | | | | | Edit Buffers | Exactly One | One, with alt. | Up to 1023 (?) | | | | | Edit Windows | One | One | Many, user | | | | configurable | | | | | Key Control | Little to none | Keys can be re- | Fully customizable| | (TPU fully conf.) | defined, runtime | | | | | | Term Indep. | No (TPU is, tho) | Yes | Yes | | | | | Line Edit Mode| Yes | Yes | Mostly No | | | | | Tab Control | Yes | Partial | Yes | | | | | Spawn CLI | Yes? | Yes | Yes | | | | | Perform CLI | No | Yes | Yes | Command on | | | | Edit text | | | | | | | | Language Sen- | No (EVE has some) | Mostly No | Yes | sitive Modes | | | | | | | | Macros | Keyboard Macros | Sequential Cmd. | Keyboard Macros | | (EVE has TPU?) | Macros | Emacs-Lisp | | | | | Undo | No | Yes, 1 step | Yes, 32 steps | | | | | Rectangle Ops | No | No, but can use | Yes | | | filters and CLI | | | | | | Auto-Fill | No | Yes | Yes | | | | | Text Justify | No | No, but can use | Yes, some, and | | | filters and CLI | can use filters | | | | | Directory Edit| No | No | Yes | | | | | Re-indent C | No | No | Yes, C & Lisp | or other Code | (EVE has F77?) | | | | | | | Send Mail or | No | No | Yes | read News | | | | | | | | On-Line Help | Yes, some | No | Yes, complete | | | | | Case Sensitive| No | Yes | Either | | | | | Spell Check | No | No, but can use | Yes | | | filters | | | | | | Arbitrary Mvt.| No | Yes | No | Regions for | | | | Commands | | | | | | | | Can Emulate | No | No | Yes | Turing Machine| | | | | | | | File-Name | No | No | Yes | Completion | | | | | | | | Show Paren | No | Yes, on | Yes | Matches | | screen only | | | | | | Proprietary | Yes | Yes | No | | | | | Implementation| BLISS (?) | C | C and Elisp | Language | (TPU for EVE?) | | | | | | | Places to | 1 | 26 | 26 | Squirrel Away | | | | Text | | | | | | | | Kills Kept | 1 | 10 | 30 or more | | | | | Max Line Len | 32768? | 512 | available memory | | | | | Special Fcn. | No | No | Yes | Libraries | (TPU can do this) | | | | | | | I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Any additions from editor fans out there? Any mistakes (probably)? [This article entered with GNU Emacs version 17.64] -- ...nz (Neal Ziring @ ATT-BL Holmdel, x2354, 3H-437) "You can fit an infinite number of wires into this junction box, but we usually don't go that far in practice." London Electric Co. Worker, 1880s
ken@rochester.ARPA (SKY) (01/10/87)
Keywords: While the article contains a good summary, editors are very much a personal preference thing. Try them all and see what you like. Let's not start that "my editor can beat yours" again. There are more interesting things to flame about :-). Use the one that suits you best but be aware some tools can do certain jobs better. And any editor is better than none. You should try "editing" with punch cards and update decks :-). Ken
spiros@ahxenix.REL.COM (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos) (01/12/87)
TPU does expect too much of terminals; I wrote an implementation of MicroEMACS on TPU (using lots of DEC's EVE code in the process) and an awfull long part (including interfacing TPU with "C" (horror story)) went into tweaking the terminal to accept some vms-forbidden control sequences. Then, the language does not have arrays (:-(), can not do vertical split windows, and some other annoyances. To its credit, TPU emacs is MUCH faster in scrolling/moving, and because of underlying code (i.e. TPU itself) is very robust. But... I switched to MicroEMACS 3.7i long ago... spiros -- Spiros Triantafyllopoulos spiros@ahxenix.uucp
dma@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Controls Wizard) (01/13/87)
EDT does have multiple buffers. I use the select range feature for a lot more than marking things I'm going to delete - it's used for cut/paste and changing case of the range as well. For those who have learned EDT and want to use TPU without learning the EVE keypad definitions, it is possible to redefine the keypad. Personally, I prefer using the keypad to using keyboard characters as in vi because I'm a lousy typist using terminals that are too stiff for me to type fast. But since my only real option at work is SPF (on an IBM 3090) which has exactly one nice feature (the split screen capability) I'll take EDT any day. Miriam Nadel