mic@hpesrgd.HP.COM (Marc Clarke) (04/29/88)
GNU EMACS will meet your needs nicely.
carroll@snail.CS.UIUC.EDU (05/05/88)
/* Written 3:42 pm Apr 28, 1988 by mic@hpesrgd.HP.COM in snail:comp.editors */
GNU EMACS will meet your needs nicely.
/* End of text from snail:comp.editors */
"Nicely" depends on how much disk space/processor time you have floating
around. We put GNU-EMACS up on a 3b2/310, and it was basically unusable
because it was *SO* slow. It would take from 30 to 60 seconds to start up,
and that was for the basic version. I'd hate to see what would happen
if you had a lot of custom code files. Everything else was similarly
slow. Page plotting was a wait and see operation, and searching was
coffee break time. Just typing in text was painful, since it would lag
behind my typing as much as a line or so a lot of the time. Even on a Sun
3/50, I found that GNU-EMACS lags behind my typing enough to approximately
triple my error rate (since I lose key/screen correlation). I'd try it
out on the target system before I committed to using it. If you don't
type very fast, it might be ok.
Alan M. Carroll amc@woodshop.cs.uiuc.edu carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Grad Student (TA) / U of Ill - Urbana ...{ihnp4,convex}!uiucdcs!woodshop!amc
"Too many fools who don't think twice
Too many ways to pay the price" - AP & EWlimes@sun.uucp (Greg Limes) (05/06/88)
mic@hpersgd.HP.COM writes: >GNU EMACS will meet your needs nicely. carroll@snail.CS.UIUC.EDU responds: [summary: he put it on a 3b2, and it was unusable because it was *SO* slow; even on a Sun 3/50, the typein lag was bad] >triple my error rate (since I lose key/screen correlation). I'd try it >out on the target system before I committed to using it. If you don't >type very fast, it might be ok. ... or if you have a fast enough machine. I wonder about the loading on your 3/50, since I was running 18.44 on a 3/50 and noticed no problems. On a 3/60, GNU Emacs is huge but runs quickly. -- Greg Limes [limes@sun.com] Illigitimi Non Carborundum
carroll@snail.CS.UIUC.EDU (05/08/88)
EMACS is (in theory) a much better editor than VI. On most systems
now adays, you can press some other shift-like key to access the "escape"
codes (on Suns, the Left/Right keys, RT's the Alt key, etc.). So it's
not any worse than control codes. It is a much more powerful editor, and
very customizable, which is its best feature. You see, you can bind any
key to anything at all, which beats "map" right out. The reason I use VI
instead is that (as I said), I find EMACS intolerably slow, even on "fast"
machines. On my AT, I use Brief, truly the editor of the Gods, which is
basically an EMACS style editor that runs at a reasonable speed (e.g.,
not only does it keep up with my normal characters, but it keeps up
with everything - I can pound on PageDown, and it just rolls right along).
The other problem is that EMACS is large, in disk & memory. I work in the
instructional labs, so all our machines are the ones that no one else wanted.
On some of them, running EMACS chows enough memory to degrade the system
all by itself, before you actually *do* anything in it. Not to mention
filling the disk up (you try running a multi-user (5-9) system with UNIX
and a single 30 M disk). To be fair, EMACS was hardly the only thing we tossed
in search of disk space, but it was certainly high on the list.
Again, to be fair, if you have a big *fast* disk, and a *fast* machine, then
EMACS is cool. I don't so I don't use it. Important tip : try it out on a
configuration similar to the one you plan to use. See if it's fast
enough for you. Different people have different tolerances. Mine are small.
Your may not be.
Alan M. Carroll amc@woodshop.cs.uiuc.edu carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Grad Student (TA) / U of Ill - Urbana ...{ihnp4,convex}!uiucdcs!woodshop!amc
"Too many fools who don't think twice
Too many ways to pay the price" - AP & EW