Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 09:29:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: ripper@eskimo.com (Ross Lippert) Cc: schweikh@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: misc/40843: ee should be default editor of root Message-ID: <200208121329.g7CDTil00879@clunix.cl.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: <200208121255.FAA05787@eskimo.com> from "Ross Lippert" at Aug 12, 2002 05:55:33 AM
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> > Then what was the point of ee? When ee came out, I was very pleased > that FreeBSD was moving in a direction in which I could teach someone > how to use it without having to teach vi along with it. It looked to > me like a good idea at the time to minimize the necessary overhead in > getting to know the system for the first time, and I expected the > change to propagate to all apps which invoked an editor, but it has > been a long while and nothing has come of it. Can you tell me why my > PR should not then be turned into "ee should be discarded since it is > not the default". > > When doing a sysinstall, ee is used to edit config files like > inetd.conf, and yet, once the install is done, if the user does vipw > or send-pr, they get plunked into vi. This is horribly inconsistent. I don't understand how this is inconsistent. Anyone using the system can use any editor available. The person writing sysinstall chose to use ee. You can choose to make ee your regular editor too if you like. If a person wants ee when they do vipw, then they can set their EDITOR variable to ee and it works. Probably send-pr works too, though I haven't tried it. > It is not that I want to start an editor war, but if an editor war > will lead to consistency, then an editor war there must be. I think > one or the other is just fine, with a slight pref for ee for the sake > of newbies, but a mixed system is not. One of the first things a newbie has to learn is that UNIX and FreeBSD has a lot of options that can be configured and some of those are done by setting shell/environment variables. > Either ee is sincerely adopted as THE default editor of FreeBSD, or we > should stop kidding ourselves and tell any newbie that we consider vi > to be an essential part of their BSD education (before ee existed, > learning vi was part of my FreeBSD education). I do not consider > either of these options unacceptable, but neither of them is being > followed consistently. I can't remember reading any newbie oriented documentation that does not point out how much vi is the omnipresent editor in UNIX. > It is less burdensome to have EDITOR=ee and have the expert user > switch it than demand that the newbie learn this. It places almost no > burden on the expert, but an explanation of environment variables and > their effects is a substantial burden on the newbie. It is an essential things for newbies to learn regardless of the choice of editor. > >vi has been the default editor for so many programs and so many years > >that it would be a POLA violation to change this for a BSD system that's > >up and running. > What is POLA? I do not recognize the acronym. The programs which require > an editor, like vipw, and send-pr (which one might expect a newbie to > fiddle with at some point, both respect the EDITOR variable. > > I do not see how changing the default .profile files on an install > would really affect a BSD system that's up and running. Nor, do I see > how this line of reasoning does not lead to the "abandon ee" > conclusion mentioned before. And I don't see how your arguments lead to requiiring a change of default editor. Just a speck of experience: here a different editor was put in place because it was assumed all the non computer sorts had to have an easier to use editor for their Email. Well, during several years of its existance the major bigest complaint is "that stupid editor." It sure is simple to use , but is generally perceived as not better. One cannot win in this. Oh well, ////jerry > > -r > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
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