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Date:      Thu, 2 Apr 2009 19:17:38 +0200
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
Cc:        Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Why??  (prog question)
Message-ID:  <20090402191738.a6ef3872.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <200904021603.n32G31dX028569@lurza.secnetix.de>
References:  <20090401223940.949ab0ee.freebsd@edvax.de> <200904021603.n32G31dX028569@lurza.secnetix.de>

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On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 18:03:01 +0200 (CEST), Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de> wrote:
> Uhm.  I wouldn't call joe "old fashioned".  It has a long
> history, but it's not older than, say, BSD.  Would you call
> BSD old fashioned?

IF I do, you may throw an AS/400 at my head. :-) Allthough
BSD has a history dating many decades back into past, I
would call it one of the most modern operating systems.

And for joe, this editor is very rich on features, lightweight
in regards of libraries and dependencies, easy to use and
well documented - and still powerful. I'd call this modern.



> I have once written a small shell script that does a
> somewhat better job:
> 
> http://www.secnetix.de/olli/scripts/reindent
> 
> For example, it can be used to change the indentation
> on stdio.h from 8 to 4 without destroying the alignment
> of comments and other things:
> 
> $ reindent 8 4 /usr/include/stdio.h | less

Wow, it doesn't destroy the comment "column"! That's a great tool,
just "installed" it in ~/bin/. :-)



> I don't know mcedit, [...]

It handles a space as a space, no matter if it's intended to be
an indentation character or not. Moving the cursor +1 requires
1 keypress, and for 4 spaces (as 1 level indent) 4 keypresses.
Okay, maybe that's what one could consider old-fashioned.



> [...] but joe _does_ support transparent
> handling of indentation with spaces.  I use it all the
> time.  I don't have to perform more keypresses if a
> file uses spaces instead of tab characters.

I should use joe more again, at least because I noticed that
it has decent code highlighting.



> In fact, I think that joe is no less (nor more) serious
> than vi and emacs.

I share this opinion.



>  > Well, joe was my first Linux and then FreeBSD editor, and it
>  > got a lot of new features (such as code highlighting). If
>  > you are familiar with TP / WS key codes (^KB ^KK ^KM ^KE
>  > ^KX ^TZ and so forth), it's a real powerful editor.
> 
> Yes, it is, and the keyboard functions are fully
> customizable.  My own ~/.joerc is 25 KByte, and it
> doesn't have much in common anymore with the old
> TP / WS editors.  Things have evolved.  :)

Well, ^KX has developed into a saying equivalent to "thank
you and goodbye" among my friends. :-)

What I really like about joe is the ability to adjust the
edit buffer in BOTH directions (^KB, ^KK) and EDIT it while
the highlighting is active.

Another strength is that you can use joe over a line that
has problems with control characters, and still use all its
functionality (okay, vi can do so, too).

I don't know much about Emacs (in fact, nothing except that
it exists), its magic didn't open up to me yet.



>  > Finally, I'd like to add that I've not always been such
>  > a "tabbing nazi". In KC-BASIC, my first programming language,
>  > I didn't use indentation (allthough it was completely
>  > possible)
> 
> Well, I didn't indent in Commodore-BASIC either (used
> it on PET-2001, VIC-20, C64), but that language wasn't
> very structured anyway.  It didn't even support real
> functions or procedures, just "GOSUB" subroutines.
> And of course, limited memory is an issue:  When you
> have only 3.5 KB RAM (VIC-20), saving a few spaces
> can make a huge difference.

Efficient programming (read: memory-efficient coding) is a
term dated back into these days; not common anymore among
programmers. :-)



> Eventually a bought a 40 KB RAM extension for my VIC-20;
> I had to spend 200 DM at that time (and that was after
> it had gotten cheap).  Today, 1 GB RAM is about 10 Euro.
> Ugh.

As you said earlier: Things have evolved. :-)



PS. Please keep me in CC because I'm not on -chat.


-- 
Polytropon
>From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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