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From: newman@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Bill Newman)
Subject: Re: Unix vs. Mainframe editors
Message-ID: <1991Mar21.145424.15222@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
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References: <1991Mar20.140959.2939@scrumpy@.bnr.ca> <22860@oolong.la.locus.com> <14222@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1991 14:54:24 GMT

In article <14222@life.ai.mit.edu> tmb@ai.mit.edu writes:
>In article <22860@oolong.la.locus.com>, jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen) writes:
>|> I, too, am a mainframe editor bigot, although ISPF was my first preference
>|> with XEDIT a very close second, since I had to use both TSO and VM in
>|> my previous life and ISPF was available in BOTH environments (uhoh, I
>|> can hear it now, this is the same reason that the vi bigots give for
>|> using vi... it is available on ALL unix systems)... 
>
>Just curious: what makes a "mainframe editor"? Since both "vi" and
>"emacs" also run on "mainframes", just the ability to run on a mainframe
>cannot be enough to be blessed with the predicate "mainframe editor".
>
>What features do ISPF and XEDIT give you that are so sorely lacking
>in Emacs?

I'd like it if some mainframers could explain what they like about XEDIT.
My editor experience has been TECO then DEC visual editors on PDP-11's and
VAXes, then WordStar on CP/M, then vi and jove (Jonathan's Own Version of EMACS),
on Unix, then XEDIT under CMS and WriteNow for the Mac.  I'm 
glad I have a visual editor, of course,
so TECO is at the bottom of my list of preferences, but 
XEDIT is pretty near.  

I know people
who are so used to XEDIT they don't pull out their hair any more, but
I have trouble understanding how anyone could prefer it.  How can you prefer
an editor that smiles when you run the cursor off the top of the screen
because it looks forward to seeing the expression on your face when it
doesn't move the text down, it just wraps the cursor back onto the bottom
of the page?  And it uses up lots of the screen for its command area and
menus and stuff, instead of just getting the hell out of the way so you
can see as much of your work as possible.  Maybe it's customizable, but
I don't want to have to dig through a manual larger than that for csh
to find out how to make it act like a reasonable editor.  Are there
design decisions made in emacs, edt, or even WordStar that strike
XEDIT users as obviously wrong?  Or is the problem that they don't
implement the XEDIT command language?

  Bill Newman
  newman@theory.tn.cornell.edu