Path: utzoo!attcan!dptcdc!tmsoft!woods
From: woods@tmsoft.uucp (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor
Summary: MODES!
Message-ID: <1989Mar23.171746.25934@tmsoft.uucp>
Date: 23 Mar 89 17:17:46 GMT
References: <222@imspw6.UUCP> <252@torch.UUCP> <2112@mister-curious.sw.mcc.com> <167@isctsse.UUCP> <48@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <2036@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu> <3461@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> <22009@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: woods@tmsoft.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Organization: G.A.W. Consulting
Lines: 74

In article <22009@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) writes:
>But even emacs has modes.  Usually if you type Ascii printing characters
>they go into the file and if you type control characters or meta characters
>they are treated like commands, but ...

Yes, but this is always the case!  It doesn't change and behave
differently just because you move the cursor.  Control characters are
still ASCII.  Just because some ASCII characters are inserted, and
others cause something to happen, doesn't mean you have two different
modes.  I hope you meant this fececiously.

>	1) In emacs, there is mode which treats numbers as a count, not
>	   a character.  So if you substitute "2" for "l" in your above
>	   argument, it still exists.
>	2) In Emacs, there is a mode for putting control characters in as text.

I would consider these a case of entering a value when prompted, just
like entering a filename for the save-file command.  Nothing really
modal about that, especially if your "mini-buffer" is a full fledged
buffer supporting the complete set of commands.

>	3) In Emacs, usually the Ascii printing chacter that is typed
>	   is inserted, I presume that there is a replace mode as well.
>	   (I never found it, but I presume it exists, it was always
>	   painful having to explicitly delete characters).

Any *real* Emacs user would NEVER use over-write-mode!  :-)

>	4) There is control-S for search strings (like / for search strings
>	   in vi).  This is another mode.  Presumably, there is another
>	   emacs mode to do regular expression searching.

These are not different modes, but different commands which again
require arguments and prompt for them in the mini-buffer.

>	5) There are modes to send something to the shell, for mail, etc.

Now we're talking modes.  Some implemenations of emacs support such
things as dired and bufed which are modes, and in fact they don't edit
text on your screen at all, but "edit" directories or buffers.  Same
goes for the mail modes and news modes which manipulate messages.
Shell mode is really just a window behaving like a pseudo-terminal.

I've even seen 'vi' modes.  Of course there are also the "language"
specific modes which can do everything from assist pretty-printing to
syntax checking.

These are the real "modes" of emacs, and are actually applications
implemented within (on, above, whatever) the basic editor.  Again,
most of these "modes" only re-map command keys and change the behavior
of some commands.

>Show me an editor without modes and I'll show you a weak editor.

The key thing to remember about Emacs is that it "doesn't mode you
in".  You are never forced to do anything but what you want to do.  If
the command you execute promts for further input, such as a filename,
you can always abort the command with a single keystroke.  Most
emacs', including GNU-Emacs, even let you undo what you have done. 

I don't want to bash vi either.  I don't like vi for the simple fact
that I learned to use a different full screen version of ed (fred),
and then learne Gosling-Emacs and Multics-Emacs before I learned vi,
and as such find vi difficult to do anything complex with because I
can't remember that much about vi.

Now, before I begin talking about WYSIWYG and expounding upon the
virtues of post-edit document processors (such as troff or TEX), I'd
better shut up!  :-)
-- 
						Greg A. Woods.

woods@{{tmsoft,utgpu,gate,ontmoh}.UUCP,utorgpu.BITNET,gpu.utcs.Toronto.EDU}
1-416-443-1734 [h]	1-416-595-5425 [w]		Toronto, Ontario, Canada