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From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Advice sought on editors
Message-ID: <82400036@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 8 Apr 89 16:35:00 GMT
References: <102454@<1989Apr3>
Lines: 20
Nf-ID: #R:<1989Apr3:102454:p.cs.uiuc.edu:82400036:000:916
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Apr  8 11:35:00 1989


Learning an editor is like learning to hold a pencil.  Once you know
how, you don't want to learn a new way.

Can you offer GNU emacs in all your courses?  It is available on many
UNIX machines, and has been ported to many types of computers.  If you
want to hack, you can add some extremely nice features, like function
indenting / compile keys, paragraph justification / spelling checking,
etc, to help out the students.  I really appreciate the way emacs will
match parenthesis for you, when you're typing in a complicated
expression.  This will help your students focus on what they're doing,
not on silly typing mistakes.

On the other hand, VI is available on nearly every computer system.
It's free, and you get what you pay for 8-).


Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies