xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (04/25/91)
Editor war! Editor war! Don't feel for a moment like like comp.unix.amiga doesn't have equal rights on taking something like this to comp.sys.amiga.advocacy!!!!! brsmith@cs.umn.edu (Brian R. Smith) writes: > No, popularity alone doesn't say much. But, vi comes with every unix > system, and MANY folks go through the trouble of replacing it with > emacs. GNU emacs is more powerful, more flexible, and has "Zippy the > Pinhead" quotes... Yep, and _lots_ of other garbage that needs yanking out for a decent run time size. Nice editor, if it would only stop there. > The standard emacs keys (the 8-10 keys for cursor movement, > delete-char, kill-line, etc.) are also found in the Athena string > widget, the Motif string widget, the Open Look string widget, > FrameMaker, tcsh, etc. I don't know if emacs is the cause of this > consistency, but it is convenient. Of course, that doesn't hold a candle to the fact that learning the vi keys by heart makes you a killer nethack player. ;-) > If you HAVE to learn either vi or emacs, I'd say go for emacs. I > haven't seen anything friendlier on a unix machine. Nope, learn them both. Emacs has feature power, view windowing, good reformating, superior shell execute and capture capabilities; vi has _much_ superior navigation capabilities and filter interfaces. Emacs is much better for code, vi is much better (teamed with some decent text filters) for text. For coming up quick to get a short job done, vi wins hands down; for an editor you can stay in all day, GNUemacs can't be beat. Neither one of them has a file/buffer access mechanism or multi-file _really_ fast simultaneous edit capability worth warm spit, though each lets you carry the same edit from file to file with some savings in keystrokes but still lots of tedium. Compared, that is, to a decent interactive editor that performs a text substitution or string search on all the files in all the directories pulled out by a pathname regular expression, or selected by a mouse sweep on a multiscreen file requestor, faster than you can see the affected file names fly by. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> -- Wishing wistfully that Stuart Mc<whatever> would port his editor "Hack" from '386 MS-DOS to Unix so we'd actually have a halfway acceptable large project source code editor in Unix boxes.
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (04/25/91)
cpetterb@glacier.sim.es.com (Cary Petterborg) writes: > g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University) > writes: >> Does anyone know of a "decent" program (ascii) editor for Unix (SYS V >> REV. 4). By "decent" I mean anything that is not vi or emacs or >> versions thereof! >> I have heard that there is a VMS-like EVE editor, a WordStar-like >> editor, a WordPerfice-like editor, etc. for Unix, but I haven't been >> able to trace them to any FTP site or commercial product. >> You may or may not suppose that I am a Unix fan, but I am sincerely >> interested in some kind of SCREEN-ORIENTED editor for Unix (on the >> Amiga) that does not fall into the vi/emacs like functionality (or >> non-functionality). Compared to the best programmer's editor I've seen (company proprietary on an MS-DOS '386 box, not for sale), nothing on Unix is even close. You best bet would be to chase down the folks who do Brief, and ask if they intend or have a Unix version. As the workstation market expands and comes down in price, and the installed base goes up, and the binary OS call standard spreads, the market becomes big enough for the shrink wrap product vendors to consider, so there may be something available by nwo. > You appear to want a word processor program not a program editor. If > you want a word processor, emacs may not be your cup of tea. Even as a > program editor you may not like emacs (I agree about vi). But DON'T > say that emacs is not a decent program editor. Emacs, by its proven > popularity is a decent program editor. Nonsense. Emacs may be a good editor (I like it) but that doesn't follow from your logic. The two driving forces in its widespread use are that it is public domain, and thus widely ported, and also thus free, and that there isn't much else around better. It's a big step up from vi for editing code, but it is a long, long way from "decent". 1) There are whole categories of desirable features either missing or so obscure as to be unanvailable; like decent, easy to type, text chunk, rather than file or window oriented, navigation commands; like useful file requestors; like buffer selection without retyping the buffer name every time. 2) There are lots of completely counterintuitive, grotesquely bad and hideously inconvenient design flaws that are grandfathered in and will never get fixed, like: sabotaging users whose destructive backspace key is not DEL but ^H by using that for the hard wired (and nearly impossible to remap at edit time) "help" key, and the counterintuitive and frustrating near miss on being character oriented, as when a newline gets ignored as a self-insert when a blank line already follows it. 3) It's scripting and macro command language is wonderfully obscure and only loveable by people heavily into AI or text processing programming; most Emacs users haven't a clue about Lisp, which means for most people the macro facility is unavailable. 4) The learning curve is much too steep. You can sit down with a good shrink wrap, menu oriented editor for microcomputers and everything is a mouse selection or two away, available for instant use; it can take months to even _find_ the emacs online help, much less be comfortable with using it. There are good and sufficient reasons that lots of people detest emacs. > In an insane society the sane man must appear insane. > Unless the world is insane, you are wrong. Maybe it is just your > ignorance about emacs that is the problem. There speaks a man who has never used a _really_ good editor. > Are you really a professor? Yes, George is really a professor, and he's almost as old as I am, and a lot more useful to the world. > A statement as you made seems awfully narrow minded. Not nearly as much so as yours. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
cpetterb@glacier.sim.es.com (Cary Petterborg) (04/25/91)
I should have known when I posted my original reply that there would be a flame fest. I have been hearing enough grumbling from the engineers here about Emacs until they learn it that I felt somehow compelled to respond. BTW, all the engineers here in my department were told to use Emacs. All those who have really tried to use it have found that they REALLY like it for program development. Where I worked before, the company president liked an editor we no longer supported. We made emacs work just like his favorite editor. As time went on, he abandoned his emulator mode and started using the standard emacs stuff, with some of his own modifications that he developed on his own. He was on a dumb ASCII terminal and hardly ever left Emacs because it gave him almost every- thing he wanted. To this day he swears by Emacs for program development. He even uses it for word processing, as I do. 'nough said. In article <1991Apr25.083732.6664@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: > > You appear to want a word processor program not a program editor. If > > you want a word processor, emacs may not be your cup of tea. Even as a > > program editor you may not like emacs (I agree about vi). But DON'T > > say that emacs is not a decent program editor. Emacs, by its proven > > popularity is a decent program editor. > > Nonsense. Emacs may be a good editor (I like it) but that doesn't follow > from your logic. The two driving forces in its widespread use are that > it is public domain, and thus widely ported, and also thus free, and > that there isn't much else around better. Not even commercial software. Isn't it interesting that Emacs is even sold by some commercial software companies. Not GNU Emacs, which is in most cases superior, but Emacs nonetheless. If they are making a profit, it must be good enough for people to pay good money for it. > It's a big step up from vi for editing code, but it is a long, long way > from "decent". If you JUST want to edit, maybe not, for you and some others. > 1) There are whole categories of desirable features either missing or so > obscure as to be unanvailable; like decent, easy to type, text chunk, > rather than file or window oriented, navigation commands; like useful > file requestors; like buffer selection without retyping the buffer name > every time. I don't know what system you are working on, but all currently opened buffers are only a <shift><ctrl>mouse-click away on mine. Very fast and very easy! As for loading of files into buffers (not already loaded into a buffer), they are only a <shift>mouse-click away, and I can navigate with my mouse through the directory hierarchy. If you want to know what to do to get this in your system, I will be glad to tell you. > 2) There are lots of completely counterintuitive, grotesquely bad and > hideously inconvenient design flaws that are grandfathered in and will > never get fixed, like: My, my... > sabotaging users whose destructive backspace key is not DEL but ^H by > using that for the hard wired (and nearly impossible to remap at edit > time) "help" key, Easily changed in your .emacs file. Simple really. Add to your .emacs: (global-unset-key "\C-h") (global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char) Doesn't look nearly impossible to me. (Yes, I just tried this and it works beautifully.) > and the counterintuitive and frustrating near miss on being character > oriented, as when a newline gets ignored as a self-insert when a blank > line already follows it. Please explain. > > 3) It's scripting and macro command language is wonderfully obscure and > only loveable by people heavily into AI or text processing programming; > most Emacs users haven't a clue about Lisp, which means for most people > the macro facility is unavailable. Try asking in gnu.emacs.help, I'll bet someone will send you the necessary code to do the functionality you desire. I would suspect that a professor could even get a student to write the necessary code to do just about anything he wants. He's the one that started this, right? And aren't professors supposed to be fonts of knowledge about the subjects they teach students? ;-) (No reflection on you really Prof. Harrison. I know that professors are as specialized as MD's today. Gone are the days of the country doctor...) > 4) The learning curve is much too steep. You can sit down with a good > shrink wrap, menu oriented editor for microcomputers and everything is a > mouse selection or two away, available for instant use; it can take > months to even _find_ the emacs online help, much less be comfortable > with using it. Ever try the emacs on-line tutorial? Oh, I guess you haven't. > There are good and sufficient reasons that lots of people detest emacs. > > > In an insane society the sane man must appear insane. > > > Unless the world is insane, you are wrong. Maybe it is just your > > ignorance about emacs that is the problem. > > There speaks a man who has never used a _really_ good editor. There speaks a man who has never really used Emacs. > > Are you really a professor? > > Yes, George is really a professor, and he's almost as old as I am, and > a lot more useful to the world. No doubt. (;-) > > A statement as you made seems awfully narrow minded. > > Not nearly as much so as yours. No doubt. ( : - 0 ) > > Kent, the man from xanth. > <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> Sincerly, and hopefully with composure, Cary -- _______________ Cary Petterborg (801)582-5847 x6446 Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. Simulation Division SLC, UT 84108 UUCP: ...!uunet!sim.es.com!cpetterb *NET: cpetterb@glacier.sim.es.com
barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) (04/25/91)
In article <1991Apr25.022931.29753@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >Editor war! Editor war! >Emacs has.... >vi has.... Any A3000UX-ers using JOVE? This Emacs-style editor has been my favorite workhorse for 6 years. It's about the same size as vi on my system (120K; Emacs is 600K), so it starts up very fast, but it has much of the power/functionality of Emacs. I've tried several times to "move up" to Emacs, but I always return to JOVE. It's available by anonymous FTP from cs.rochester.edu, in the file /pub/jove.4.14.Z. (Don't use "jove.latest...", as it has bugs.) I once started porting JOVE to AmigaOS, but gave up because of excessive #ifdef-ing by previous porters. (Rendering the code very difficult to read.) Maybe I'll pick up the project again someday. Dan //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ | Dan Barrett, Department of Computer Science Johns Hopkins University | | INTERNET: barrett@cs.jhu.edu | | | COMPUSERVE: >internet:barrett@cs.jhu.edu | UUCP: barrett@jhunix.UUCP | \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (04/26/91)
In article <8140@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) writes:
Any A3000UX-ers using JOVE? This Emacs-style editor has been my
favorite workhorse for 6 years. It's about the same size as vi on my
system (120K; Emacs is 600K), so it starts up very fast, but it has much
of the power/functionality of Emacs.
Emacs starts up pretty fast on the NeXT. On a SparcStation, there
really isn't much of a perceivable difference b/w the time it takes vi
to startup and Emacs to startup. I have vi aliased to emacs -nw -q.
I've tried several times to "move up" to Emacs, but I always return
to JOVE. It's available by anonymous FTP from cs.rochester.edu, in the
file /pub/jove.4.14.Z. (Don't use "jove.latest...", as it has bugs.)
Jove is missing two key features(IMHO), an undo and an incremental search.
Skip Jove, go directly to Emacs.
-Mikejgay@digi.lonestar.org (john gay) (04/26/91)
From article <1991Apr25.083732.6664@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, by xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan): > > cpetterb@glacier.sim.es.com (Cary Petterborg) writes: > >> g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University) >> writes: > >>> Does anyone know of a "decent" program (ascii) editor for Unix (SYS V >>> REV. 4). By "decent" I mean anything that is not vi or emacs or >>> versions thereof! > > You best bet would be to chase down the folks who do Brief, and ask if > they intend or have a Unix version. As the workstation market expands Their is a Unix Brief clone called Crisp (used to be called grief, but I think there were some complaints from the makers/publishers of brief). Crisp is freeware and source is available somewhere, although I do not know where for certain, rumor has it that the source is available on simtel20 someplace. It is also on uunet archives in /usr/spool/ftp/comp.sources.misc/volume7/crisp1.9 version 1.9 is the latest (that I know of). There is also a mail list for brief/grief/crisp users for more info mail to owner-crisp-list@uunet.uu.net. I use brief at home and like it quite a lot. I don't know anything about crisp bin/sources or the archives. I have been meaning to pull off the source for a while and start using it here at work - but that has been several months and it hasn't happened yet so I kinda doubt it will. Because of this intent I have been saving stuff about crisp. The above is pretty muchly a summary of what I have. I don't have any answers past these. john gay.
dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor) (04/27/91)
In <1991Apr25.022931.29753@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >Nope, learn them both. Emacs has feature power, view windowing, good >much better for code, vi is much better (teamed with some decent text BUT, I can run the vi funtionality in emacs, if I'm perverse enough ;-). Have you ever noticed that even MICROEMACS has the ability to run ANY unix filter program on a buffer? Even "sed" and "awk" scripts. IMHO, having been forced to use "vi", at places that wouldn't let me install microemacs, and used "real" emacs whenever that was available, I'll take emacs, micro or full, every time. >Neither one of them has a file/buffer access mechanism or multi-file >_really_ fast simultaneous edit capability worth warm spit, though each Hey, a TECO fan! Is the AmigaDOS version any good? Is there a version for V.4? Dan Taylor
dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor) (04/27/91)
In <1991Apr25.083732.6664@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >The two driving forces in its widespread use are that it is public domain... No, the biggest driving force is that LOTS OF PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIKE TO USE IT. >1) There are whole categories of desirable features either missing or so >obscure as to be unanvailable; like decent, easy to type, text chunk, >rather than file or window oriented, navigation commands; The "electric" modes are oriented to the type of text being edited. If you want wordprocessing modes, make a few functions, or macros. There can be no "missing" features, when you can create anything you want. I've used "text chunk"-oriented editors, and have disliked them all. >like useful file requestors; like buffer selection without retyping >the buffer name every time. Make macros. Bind them to keys. > sabotaging users whose destructive backspace key is not DEL but ^H by > using that for the hard wired (and nearly impossible to remap at edit > time) "help" key, I've remapped it every time, easily. By the way, that is not an original feature of emacs, but was put in later to make it easier to find. I hate it, and it ain't in mine. > and the counterintuitive and frustrating near miss on being character > oriented, as when a newline gets ignored as a self-insert when a blank > line already follows it. Actually that "feature" is new, and a BUG. Older versions of emacs don't have that stupidity, and neither does the one on my system, since the source is available to all. >3) It's scripting and macro command language is wonderfully obscure and >only loveable by people heavily into AI or text processing programming; >most Emacs users haven't a clue about Lisp, which means for most people >the macro facility is unavailable. There are TWO macro capabilities, mlisp and "do what I type now, next time I ask for it". The latter can be saved to a name, bound to a key, so that multiple macros can be on-line at any time. They can be saved in the startup file, too. >4) The learning curve is much too steep. You can sit down with a good >shrink wrap, menu oriented editor for microcomputers and everything is a >mouse selection or two away, available for instant use; it can take >months to even _find_ the emacs online help, much less be comfortable >with using it. This, I'll buy. However, if the editor doesn't do much, then there isn't much to learn, is there? I've been through way too many (well, one was too many) PC "editors" that have WordStar keymappings. I've tried the "vi" clones, but you can guess my opinion of those. I've tried to use wordprocessors as text editors, but none of them do what I want, the way I want to do it. I do use them for "wordprocessing", but NOT program entry. I use Emacs, full or micro, every time. Dan Taylor