Xref: utzoo alt.religion.computers:2541 comp.windows.ms.programmer:3243
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew
From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.ms.programmer
Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC
Message-ID: <2cew47w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Date: 21 Jun 91 15:32:36 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.002629.17528@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
Lines: 52

rogerhef@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Roger Heflin) writes:
> In <MWM.91Jun20110422@raven.pa.dec.com> mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Wi
> >Of course, if I have to use QB commands (if it's one of the
> >pain-in-the-ass mouse/function key editors, forget it) and can't
> >configure it to my habits, then it's going to be an incredible pain to
> >use. Given the choice, I'd rather teach an editor I know about a
> >new language than teach an editor I don't know how to look like an
> >editor I do know.
> 
> Ah, a completely closed mind.

I think you're the one with the closed mind.  Or at least, if not closed then
severely blinkered.

I regularly use five different sorts of computer system, with about eight
different varieties of editor.  There is no way I'm going to go through the
painful process of learning each editor's idiosyncratic set of control keys.

So I made up my own set of control keys.  They're more systematic than just
about any others I've seen; rather than "F6 = search" or "Ctrl-K Ctrl-K =
blocK end(K)", almost all of the commands are derived from the first letters
of the words.  So "Search Forward" is ^S^F.  "File Load" is ^F^L.  Single
ctrl-key strokes are reserved for things I use all the time, like block
operations -- where ^D = Delete, ^C = Copy, ^M = Move, and so on.

If an editor can't be re-bound to use my chosen set of keyboard controls,
then I use a different editor.  Simple as that.  Life's too short to learn
control keys.

I don't use the Microsoft integrated environment because the editor keys are
crap and some of them can't be reconfigured.  My editor can call the compiler
and debugger and make and do all the other useful things the integrated
environment can do anyway, plus a lot more besides.

> The integrated enviroment that you so had acts just like the rest of the
> windows enviroment.  You bitch about those "pain-in-the-ass mouse/function
> key editors", what editor are you using that doesn't use function keys?
> Emacs, the editor with many shift keys?  That is only easier to use after
> you have spent months learing the key sequences.  I can train someone to use
> the QB editor in a day, you cannot say that for your editor.

Actually, I can.  My girlfriend was editing multiple TeX documents in an
afternoon -- using *my* key bindings and *my* TeX macros, of course.  She's
not particularly computer-literate.

I wouldn't use Emacs with the standard key bindings either.  I re-configured
it.


mathew