mpr@nancy.UUCP (04/21/87)
Does anyone know of a version of vi written in TPU? If so, is it available
thru DECUS? Over the net?
-Mike Russellkenw@noah.arc.CDN (Ken Wallewein) (04/29/87)
>Does anyone know of a version of vi written in TPU? If so, is it available > thru DECUS? Over the net? My GOD! Why would you want to DO such a thing :-) ?!? It's like running CP/M on a Macintosh (I use both). Seriously, I've worked with a variety of editors, and that insert/command mode toggle in vi nearly drove me nuts. Sure, it's got some powerful line-mode commands... so do several others. I'd love to hear from somebody with EXTENSIVE experience using vi, emacs, teco, and maybe some crufty I*M editor. Too many people criticize things from a position of ignorance, and I must admit I only used vi for a month or so. Do you really get used to working in that split-brain mode? /kenw
CHRIS@ENGVAX.SCG.HAC.COM.UUCP (04/29/87)
>>Does anyone know of a version of vi written in TPU? If so, is it available >> thru DECUS? Over the net? > >My GOD! Why would you want to DO such a thing :-) ?!? It's like running CP/M >on a Macintosh (I use both). : >/kenw You know, I thought the same thing when I saw the original posting, but I also know that editors, operating systems, et al. are like religions. Everybody has their own favorite that they are used to. To them, that entity is familiar, they know how to work with it, and to accept anything different would just be too much to deal with. My motto is "never make fun of another person's editor". I know somebody who hacked VI into Unipres Emacs so that they would have a "decent" editor on VMS, and somebody who hacked VTEDIT into TPU (starting with the EVE source) only a year or two after having hacked it into Unipres Emacs so that they could use that old friend. In case you're wondering, VTEDIT's base ancestor was TECO, I understand that it was a full screen version of said editor. Me, I'm an old EDT hacker, but I also love having more than one window on the screen at once (4 or 5 if the )(&(*%&^$ screen is big enough!) so I started with EVE V 1.000 and combined in the VTEDIT TPU source mentioned above, Kevin Oberman's preliminary EDT keypad definitions for EVE and the rectangular cut and paste routines from the EDTPLUS (EDTSECINI.TPU based) routines by Portia Shao and friends. 'Course, I also figured out EVE's nifty HELP routines and modified them slightly so that they would use a help library other than the TPU help library and wrote help for all of it. Some of the important features include: 1) n (where n = (screen-length-2)/2) window capability, 2) full EDT keypad *feature* compatability (no functionality on the keypad lost, but some slight changes to the REPEAT, REPLACE, and SPECIAL_INSERT commands), 3) full EVE command compatability, 4) a host of routines like rectangular cut and paste, 5) routines that sort and spell a selected region or buffer (providing that from a subprocess you can issue the command SORT or SPELL <filename> and expect the output to go to a file of the same name, but one version higher). 6) Padding and trimming routines (actually, this was just a case of liberating these from EVE so that the user could get at them). At any rate, it's on (or at least it should be on...) the Spring 87 DECUS VMS SIG tape. Those SIG tapes have more interesting PD software on them than any one person could hope to ever find use for that I wouldn't know what to do without them! Contact your Local Users Group for information on how to obtain the SIG tape, but since DECUS is *this* week (I didn't get to go, sniffle) don't expect to see the Spring 87 tape for a couple of months. -- Chris
robert@arizona.UUCP (04/29/87)
In article <55*kenw@noah.arc.cdn>, kenw@noah.arc.CDN (Ken Wallewein) writes: > >Does anyone know of a version of vi written in TPU? If so, is it available > > My GOD! Why would you want to DO such a thing :-) ?!? It's like running CP/M > > I'd love to hear from somebody with EXTENSIVE experience using vi, emacs, teco > Too many people criticize things from a > position of ignorance, and I must admit I only used vi for a month or so. > Do you really get used to working in that split-brain mode? The statement that vi is split mode while Emacs and EDT are single mode is not quite accurate. They are both split mode. (Just hold on.) First, though, when you are editing with a pencil and eraser, you are in two modes: one is scanning through the material, the other is applying the pencil. You would not want the pencil touching the paper while reading the words. The same in vi. I spend a portion of my time reading and "flipping the pages" and positioning my "pencil and eraser" to where I need to make changes. The same in Emacs. But to prevent the "pencil" from marking all over my text, I need to CONTINUOUSLY inform the editor about my intentions by holding down the control key. (I used to have to use Emacs on a VT 240 and the control key is so far away my left pinky ached all the time. I didn't find it so funny.) In vi you touch <ESC> key once and then get on with moving around and all the other neat things. In Emacs I find myself having to concentrate more on the editing task to keep from inserting new text unintentionally. This detracts from the real task at hand. Emacs does have a lot of features I like, so I do jump over and use Emacs to do those. W.r.t. EDT, the command mode is done by having to reach away from the natural hand position on the keyboard and hit the "8" key to page down, the "5" key to page up (those are not mnemonic). The two modes are keyboard to insert, the keypad to command. And I think we could go on about every editor to define at least these two modes. -- Robert J. Drabek Department of Computer Science University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721
ESCFLASS@UBVM.BITNET ("Mr. Peter Flass") (04/29/87)
>>Does anyone know of a version of vi written in TPU? If so, is it available >> thru DECUS? Over the net? > I am new to this list and missed the original correspondence on this topic, but while we are at it does anyone know of a "clone" of IBM's SPF (or ISPF) written in TPU? I won't get into a discussion of the relative merits of editors (it's like discussing the relative merits of wives), but for people who use both IBM systems and VAXen having a common editor would simplify life immensely! Peter Flass (518)587-2100 Empire State College 2 Union Ave Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
george@vax1.UUCP (04/30/87)
Please, no more editor wars. Lets stop it now before it gets started again. (But I would like to just add that (gnu) emacs has a vi mode for those that prefer that editor but occasionally want the "power" of emacs. :-)