Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!ncc!alberta!att-ih!chinet!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Editing large files
Message-ID: <1215@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 14 Mar 88 01:40:37 GMT
References: <1232@wjvax.UUCP> <340005@hpsrli.HP.COM>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 26

IN article <340005@hpsrli.HP.COM>, darrylo@hpsrli.HP.COM (Darryl Okahata) wrote:
>      You obviously don't have an 8088-based machine :-).  In my opinion, Brief
> is too slow on an 8088-based machine.  On a '286 or '386, I imagine it's more
> than adequately fast.  As far as fast editors go, both Qedit and PE II are
> much, much faster than Brief (but then they don't handle large files or
> regular expressions

Well, as Brief is meant as a programmer's editor, I doubt this a problem, given
that few indeed could justify the cost of a $200 editor and not a $700 286 box.

I used PE before switching to Brief and really didn't notice any problem
with speed.  In fact, I recall PE as being slower (but I routinely edit 300K+
files).  Brief also supports a full undo facility, not to mention complete
programmability...

> -- speaking of which, has anyone managed to redefine the special
> regular expression characters used by Brief?  Having to use non-standard
> regular expression characters is a pain in the #$^%?!).

Well, you can modify the F5 and F6 find and search&replace front ends to
change the pattern entered from whatever into their scheme: there is a one to
one correspondence for most of the applicable changes.  This kind of thing
is the reason so much of Brief is in the macros you have source for...
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen    ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!james     "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746