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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted,comp.editors,comp.emacs
Subject: Re: SUMMARY: Super-simple UNIX editor
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.192526.21975@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 19 Jun 91 19:25:26 GMT
References: <1991Jun18.065340.25187@yenta.alb.nm.us> <17174@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1991Jun19.013030.23227@cbfsb.att.com>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 34

In article <1991Jun19.013030.23227@cbfsb.att.com> Dan_Jacobson@ihlpz.ATT.COM writes:

>What impressed my a lot as a beginner was that nobody could take away
>all those megabytes of source code from me---so I knew I could take my
>GNU Emacs knowledge around with me and not worry too much about that
>big investment in learning going to waste... I'd just recompile on the
>next machine... anyway, this is one deep down long-term motivation...
>protecting ones' personal learning investment.

OK, nobody is going to argue that GNU Emacs is a poor choice for a
computer professional.  But.... If you ever had to work on a PC
or a machine as slow as the early 3B2's, or one that didn't have
a compiler and many megs of disk space available, even you might
reconsider.

>Others have felt the same way, so we have all joined together and
>added features, making the GNU Emacs world as rich as it is today.

But do you really think it is suitable for someone who only wants
to answer a mail message and has no intention of using any other
functionality?  Suppose you wanted to exchange email with some
member of your family that had no previous experience with computers.
Would you buy a computer capable of running GNU emacs and train
them on it or would you go with something a little less "rich"?

Has anyone seen the new screen editor that comes with MSDOS 5.0?
Without seeing it, I'll venture the opinion that it is the one
to emulate.  Regardless of features or lack thereof, within a
year or two more people will have it than any other screen editor
and if it has the few basic functions that people have been asking
for in this thread, unlike edlin it will actually be used.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us