Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2176 comp.editors:615 comp.cog-eng:994
Path: utzoo!utgpu!utfyzx!harrison
From: harrison@utfyzx.uucp (David Harrison)
Date: Mon Apr 3 10:24:54 EDT 1989
Message-ID: <1989Apr3.102454.26429@utfyzx.uucp>
Organization: Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.editors,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Advice sought on editors
Reply-To: harrison@utfyzx.UUCP (David Harrison)
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto

I am seeking advice about editors for a particular application:
  1. Undergraduate Physics Laboratory students, many computer naive,
     some cyberphobes.
  2. 1500 users, so all instruction in how to use the editor must
     happen on-line.
  3. Students should be able to create a dataset or text file and
     start getting useful work out of our applications in minutes;
     spending an hour learning how to use an editor is inconsistent
     with our educational mandate.
  4. A variety of ASCII terminals.
  5. UNIX.
At present my students use a truly awful menu-driven line editor I
wrote.  We offer vi, emacs and ed for those that know how to use
them; hardly anybody does.

We do not have and don't anticipate ever having mice, bit-mapped screens,
pull-down menus, all of which would make my task much easier; the
reason for this is financial.

This Summer I may be writing a full-screen editor (or hacking on
vi and/or emacs and/or ...).  It seems clear that I need simplicity 
more than power; there are many powerful editors already.  Design 
issues include:
   (a) Dual mode ala vi, or single mode ala emacs.  The former seems
       to imply command windows to remind the users where they are, the 
       latter model implies control and escape sequences for commands.
   (b) The range of available commands.  A list might include:
	  help, insert, append, goto line #, goto string, delete char,
	  delete line, write and quit.
       More power implies harder-to-use, less power implies less power.  
       What should be in the list?
   (c) Most of our applications deal with columns of numbers, so the
       editor will probably have a mode in which that is all it accepts.
       If this were the only application a single-mode editor would
       allow the letters on a keyboard to be commands, but our students
       also do text for formal reports and having them use two different
       editors may just confuse them.
   (d) For data mode, I sort of like the look of screens where the cursor 
       begins right justified in the column, and as numbers are entered the
       display moves one column to the left; some of my colleagues dislike 
       that display, preferring a display that looks more like what is 
       happening as I enter *this* text with vi.
   (e) The old Wang editor was modelled on a typewriter (maybe the new ones
       are too, I haven't seen one).  But many students can't type, and
       the typewriter is getting to be a fairly obsolete pile of metal.
       I liked that editor but wonder if the model is useful today.
       And what can I use on a variety of terminals that will intuitively
       correspond to the knob on the roller of a typewriter?
   (f) Either BACKSPACE or DELETE will erase the character under the cursor:
       this is not negotiable!
   (g) I find that I can't remember function key assignments for any 
       application unless I use it every day.  So I tend to dislike the
       idea of using them for this editor.

Finally(!), I don't hang out in the PC world so if you know of a program
whose editor provides an interesting model I would appreciate hearing
about it; if it is a standard program I can get access to it to see for
myself, otherwise a description would be appreciated.  At the moment the 
latest release of the venerable Spreadsheet Calculator sc is influencing 
my thinking about editors very strongly.
-- 
David Harrison                            | "God does not play dice with
Dept. of Physics, Univ of Toronto         |  the universe." -- Einstein
UUCP: uunet!attcan!utgpu!utfyzx!harrison  | "Quit telling God what to
BITNET: HARRISON@UTORPHYS                 |  do." -- Neils Bohr