Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 14:59:12 +0100 (BST) From: " Stephen P. Butler" <stephen@dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk> To: Mike Eggleston <mikee@sys8.wfc.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: editors Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.960524141702.10185A-100000@platon> In-Reply-To: <9605241242.AA02226@sys8.wfc.com>
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On Fri, 24 May 1996, Mike Eggleston wrote: [Bits have been snipped to save bandwidth] > Frankly, I like vi and have since I figured out how it was designed. > There has never been a faster editor. I agree that it is cryptic and > I tell each individual that I train on Unix that it is cryptic, but I > help them get through it and to become productive with whatever they > need to do. I'm currently at a University in the computer science department so I get to see somewhere around 60 people new to Unix each year. Even the people who are clued up before they get here find vi completely unintuitive. The general concensus of people I know is that the limit of vi knowledge you need is how to do the absolute basic editing and saving of a file so you can get a proper editor working. To be honest, why should this have to be so hard? Everybody can use pico to edit a file. It's easy - you type pico <filename>, all the keys work like you expect so you can just edit the file easily, and it tells you that you type ^O to save the file and ^X to exit. Surely even a seasoned vi hacker can manage that or does using vi do something to your brain like inhaling too much mercury vapour does? I'm assuming that someone that can use vi almost certainly knows what they're doing since they've had to suffer it's ordeal of initiation - if they want to use vi they'll know how to set it up. > If it is an issue of providing another editor on the boot disk to make > things easier, why not simply provide an electronic cheat-sheet on vi > for people to download and maybe add an extra page on basic vi > commands in the little book that comes with the cd-rom jewel case? There's only so much space in the little book and it can be more profitably used than wasting a page on the cryptic commands for an editor? Besides, even with the cheat sheet, unless you're really familiar with vi, you still get screwed by the modal behaviour. > I do believe that it is a religious war rather than a technical one, > and I agree with Paul that adding something new to Unix is ok, but not > redefining Unix. True that bad things should be left in the past and > new things should be used, as necessary, which is why we have > X-Windows and so many other neat and fun things. Unix is the kernel. Everything else is just an application, vi included (even Emacs, my current favorite editor). An editor doesn't define Unix, neither do any of the other application software typically shipped with a Unix system. vi will still be there for the people who wish to use it. Maybe it should just be marked as a deprecated feature like old system calls. Hell, if someone can come up with an editor that does a lot of the things Emacs does, doesn't require 16 Megs of core, run like a slug and have a learning curve steeper than the north face of the Eiger, I'd drop it right now. > Maybe it would be a good thing to make the boot, config editor on a > minimal boot disk pico, but I wouldn't like it. It may be good for > new users/experimenters, but not for old geeks like me. Are you saying that you can't use pico just long enough for you get vi going? I'm not going to let you convince me you're that stupid! I know you can do it - just try! If you can honestly not use pico to edit a file, I'll send you a virtual can of beer! > Much of the acceptance of free unix systems relies on the old folks > accepting and using the system and it must be a system that they are > comfortable and familiar with. Otherwise, get an entirely different > os and don't call it Unix. In the short to medium term that may be correct. But the old folks who are looking for that comfortable system will know how sort things out the way they want them. The first thing I do when I start out on a new machine is copy over all my old dotfiles and stuff and make the new machine work the same way as the old one. I'm sure most other people do that too. Unfortunatly, in the long term, we're all going to be dead. The question of continued Unix development must rest with the new users who probably haven't even been born yet. Why should they continue to use Unix? Given that the rate of progress is so fast, why should they spend time mastering cryptic things just to become a Unix wizard when they could spend their time doing more productive things. Please note in the above I'm using pico as an example. I don't know what the best easy to use editor would be given the practical constraints, but I've never even read the man page for pico and I can use it so it ain't too difficult to learn. Even the people here with only 1 brain cell and no computer experience whatsoever can use pico after 30 seconds of hand holding to tell them about control keys are. How long does it take someone to learn vi? It took me about 15 mins to learn how to load a file, make a few simple changes to it and save it out again and I'm hardly an average computer user. Besides, I've got to carry that useless information in my head when it could be used for storing more useful things, like how do design a better optimising compiler or something. No doubt, someday I'll give up using Emacs - it's got too many stupid commands and keystroke combinations to remember. I'm comfortable with it now, but I can see a time when I'll give it up. When I were a lad, we had BBC micros with Wordwise. Then there was Wordstar, then Wordperfect. Now I use LaTeX. Sure, changing between each one was painful at the time, but I gained more than I lost in the long term. CS people need to be flexible because things change so fast, and we need to prevent artificial barriers being erected so we can do things that are worth doing as efficiently and painlessly as possible. S. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- |Stephen Butler |stephen@dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk | |Computer Science Undergraduate. | | |Royal Holloway, University of London.| | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------
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