SLORES@umiami.miami.edu (Stanislaw L. Olejniczak) (12/05/89)
WARNING: This message may inflame some - please read the whole of the
message, and in particular the next to the last paragraph, before
feeling justified to torch me.
In article <6891@wsucsa.uucp>, hammer@wsucsa.uucp (Tim .D. Hammer) writes:
>
> Download to the VAX??? You are most definitely missing the ease of using
> VMS. Using the LSE editor on the VAX is a dream, if you haven't tried it,
> you should.
I thought so too, and I still think so for _many_ but not all coding
tasks. I find LSE can get in the way, and when using a modem at 2400, it
can be murder.
I have found Brief editor to be excellent, perhaps in use better
than LSE. I also like relative friendliness of PCs - my own little
system. Also, until recently my employer did not have a decent speed
connection to a the machines we were using, and using any fse was a
_real_major_pain_; coding on PC and uploading was, however, feasible.
While I am on the subject, how about the votes for your most favorite
"programmer's editor" for PC.
My vote is for Brief. I have tried emacs-like things (JOVE was one), and
Multi-edit. Emacs I have found less friendly than it could be in PC
environment, and ME, while a great editor, has a BIG flaw for me:
inability to "smoothly" move between windows. This takes some explaining:
Lets say that you have opened five buffers with five different files:
f1...f5. These were opened _nonsequentially_ as follows:
f1 in full screen s1
f2 in full screen s2
f3 in full screen s3
f4 in (now) split screen s2 (s2 now has visible two "virtual"
screens/file windows, f2 and f4
f5 in (now) split screen s3 (s3 now has visible two "virtual" screens/file
windows f3 and f5.
Now a display the window containing f2 (and, in the accompanying window f4)
Now I would like to edit f4.
Instead of pressing a single key and an arrow pointer, I must either
display the buffer list and choose f4, _or_ sequentially go through f3
(that is change to screen s3) and then get to f4 on screen s2. Since I
may have four files on a screen at a given moment, and they are unlkely to
be sequentially loaded, this got to be a real big pain very soon. I
onlytried a demo, but after a weekend, I had _enough_. I called ME that
Monday, but was told there was no direct jumping around the _displayed_
windows. Other window operations in ME were similarily cumbersome
for me. If ME ever fixes it, it will be a powerful competitor to Brief.
Incidentally, ME's tech support did _not_ impress; Brief's was quite
friendly. Both have support BBSs. ME has a great demo - I will ask them
for permission to upload it to SIMTEL20 (Keith, any comments?). Brief has
a true blue 30 day return guarantee (P/H excluded!). Brief has come out
with a new update, which I do not (yet :) ) have. Both support
syntax/indenting styles for a number of languages, though ME supports many
more than Brief. Both support jumping to sourcee code lines for errors
generated by the compiler operating from within the editor (editor calls
compoiler, which generates an error message file, which the editor uses
for going to locations in the source code).
In Brief I find the outloading of Brief onto hard disk very helpful for
larger compiles, but God knows it's slow (my hard disk is no eagle). The
macro language could use improvement; ME's _seems_ powerful, but the demo
does not include docs on it, so I cannot say fershur. The indenting style
is very inflexible (two ways, choose one). Some of the macros from their
BBS proved to be (my fingers') life savers :-). Brief is not God's gift
to coding, but it is the best I could find.
Incidentally, I do not want to start "mine is better" flame war. Please
remember these are mine _own_,_prejudiced by use comments. I hope this
may bring to the attention of this readership some fine products, and let
those, who are not aware of these useful tools, read some users' comments.
If you have a favorite PC programmer's editor, I would appreciate an
opportunity for reading about your experiences with it.
If you have questions about my experiences with JOVE or Brief (or
WordPerfect 4.2, which I used for a while my employer was counting out $$$
for Brief) as source code editors, please feel free to write me.
----
Stan Olejniczak Internet: slores@umiami.miami.edu
University of Miami, FL USA UUCP: (temp void) gould!umbio!solejni
SLORES@UMIAMI.BITNET UUCP: (?) umigw!gables!slores
Voice: (305) 547-6571 FAX: (305) 548-4612
My opinions cannot possibly represent the views of anyone else!