Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:9741 comp.bugs.sys5:623
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!cmcl2!husc6!xait!mirror!frog!john
From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: vi `ei:' (`modeline')
Summary: Creeping Featurism
Keywords: vi passwd lookout
Message-ID: <1221@X.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 88 02:51:00 GMT
References: <3394@dunkshot.mips.COM> <1235@cbnews.ATT.COM> <13215@hqda-ai.ARPA> <7052@ki4pv.uucp>
Organization: Servants of the Great White Frog
Lines: 31

In article <7052@ki4pv.uucp>, tanner@ki4pv.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) writes:
> In article <176@csd-v.UUCP>, bak@csd-v.UUCP (Bruce A. Kern) writes:
> ) Just a note to report that the entire [modelines] feature seems to
> ) be absent in the Microport V/AT 2.3-U version of vi.
> 
> The same misfeature is present in most (all?) xenix releases.
> Talking to the vendors provides the information that "vi" is crippled
> that way for your own good.
> 
Another vendor that supplies this "crippled" vi is AT&T.  The System V
Release 2.0 source tape, straight from AT&T, which we have here does not
have this hell-spawned modelines feature.

First we have someone who claimed that files with lines longer than 512
characters are not "text" files because vi can't edit them.  Now we find that
password files containing users whose name ends in "ex" aren't "text" files
either.  Yet another feature added without any thought whatsoever.

Consider by contrast the various EMACSen (in particular GNU EMACS) which allow
you to set the major modes for editing with distinctive strings like
-*- Text -*- but DON'T try to interpret random nonsense as editor commands
just because you got the 1 in 3600 occurance of an encrypted password ending
in "ex" (for those VI-philes who are going to argue that you should just avoid
login names like w3mex or whatever it was)...
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

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