Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mtxinu!unisoft!peritek!dig From: dig@peritek.UUCP (Dave Gotwisner) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor Message-ID: <561@peritek.UUCP> Date: 14 Mar 89 03:21:20 GMT References: <222@imspw6.UUCP> <9653@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <5552@brspyr1.BRS.Com> Organization: Peritek Corp., Oakland, CA Lines: 67 In article <5552@brspyr1.BRS.Com>, miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes: > In article <9653@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes: > > > [stuff deleted] > > Well, that's true; everybody has a right to their own opinions and tastes, BUT: > > You can use vi all you want, and it may work just fine for you. Fine; that's > your business. But you should be aware that while you are putt-putting along > in your Sopwith Pup, most of the rest of us have climbed into P-38 Lightnings. > You may be very comfortable with the Pup, but the real world has left you > behind. The Pup may serve you very well the rest of your days, but God help > you if you ever find yourself in serious financial competition with somebody > who uses up-to-date text editors. Fine, I will. One thing VI has that NO (I repeat NO) other editor has that I have used has is a way to help me fix my typos when my dyslexia pops up. Yes, I can do it in other editors with macros, but why, when xp works so well. For the bulk of what I do (writing programs, not documentation), an editor works a lot better for me than a word processor. I have used both. Corporate requirements require that our documentation be done with a specific word processor, and I have no complaints for that, word processors are for word processing, food processors are for food processing, and editors are for editing what is already written (which is a lot of what debugging is). Also, are you saying that you are more facile with a word processor that has the newest and greatest features, and hides the guts from the user than I am (who has been using the VI editing language (emphasis added) for 12 or so years)? On a fair day of programming, I can write and enter 500 - 600 lines of code. On a great day (the rare exception, when I have no customer calls and no flaming to do ;-) ) I have topped out at about 1200 lines. This includes getting the stuff to compile and 8 hour days. Would another word processor speed that up much? I doubt it. Oh, your complaint is that it is old.... Well, English has been around for how many hundreds of years? I guess it is time to invent a new/better language! VI, like the English language, have grown over the years, because there are features that are useful that people have seen have been omitted (I remember when macros were first added, for instance). Also, as far as put-putting in old technology... I used to know someone who drove a Shelby Cobra (60's technology, for sure). I bet you it could still probably blow the doors off of whatever new cars most of netdome drives. > > In the 1970s, vi was the greatest thing since hot fudge sundaes. But check > your calendars. The world moves on, and "it should stay that way" is an > attitude that blows away with the wind every decade or so. I'm sure that this > was the same argument used when transistors began to replace vacuum tubes: > "I like tubes, I'm comfortable with them, and I'm going to continue to use > them. It should stay that way." Guess what happened to all those vacuum tube > freaks? Again, the VI of the 70's is not the VI of today. The original VI fit in 64KB of memory (code+data), could it today? Could your word processor? If an editor or word processor came around today that took no time, whatsoever to learn, and was better than the editors I have on my machines, and was free, I would definitely use it, but since none I know of fits into this catagory, I will happily stick with VI. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dave Gotwisner UUCP: ...!unisoft!peritek!dig Peritek Corporation ...!vsi1!peritek!dig 5550 Redwood Road Oakland, CA 94619 Phone: 1-415-531-6500