Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!steve
From: steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Aztec C/Shell DOES HAVE a 'vi' editor
Message-ID: <15490@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 14 Oct 88 19:51:34 GMT
References: <1988Oct10.145745.2790@mntgfx.mentor.com> <967@oswego.Oswego.EDU> <5606@hoptoad.uucp> <10402@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <15424@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <6412@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 32

In article <6412@ihlpf.ATT.COM> straka@ihlpf.UUCP (55223-Straka,R.J.) writes:
#>In article <15424@agate.BERKELEY.EDU| steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield) writes:
#>|In article <10402@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU| earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton) writes:
#>|#|In article <5606@hoptoad.uucp| tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
#>|#||What on Earth does vi give you that a good Mac editor doesn't?  
#>|#|Tags, automatic backup files.
#>|What Mac Editor has the complex search/replace patterns
#>|available in vi (by far its best feature)? If there is
#>|one, I'm ready for it. Right now I upload to UNIX if
#>|I want to do significant automatic editing of a file.
#>
#>Steve hit it right on the head.  It's not vi vs. whatever.  It's a general
#>editor capability question:
#>
#>I've never seen anything that comes even close to UNIX(R)'s regular
#>expression matching when it comes to complex search and replace algorithms.
#>
#>Why don't ALL editors and word processors have this (UNIX's) regular
#>expression matching?  I know it's complex to implement, but it's extremely
#>powerful, and if you're going to make a standard, you can't go too wrong with
#>it.
#>-- 
#>Rich Straka     ihnp4!ihlpf!straka
#>
#>Avoid BrainDamage: MSDOS - just say no!

While we're on the idea of standards and ideal resources,
does anyone know of something similar to SNOBOL for
powerful and flexible pattern matches and rearrangements.
I'd take it on either the Mac or in UNIX generally.
I haven't programmed in SNOBOL for over 15 years, but
I recall it as one of the strongest tools I ever had.