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Date:      Fri, 30 Jun 2000 14:20:56 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time)
From:      Dutch Collins <dutch@charm.net>
To:        lex manno <lexmanno@yahoo.com>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: vi? lynx? please!
Message-ID:  <Pine.WNT.4.21.0006301341330.-142373@muffy>
In-Reply-To: <20000630110757.17110.qmail@web5404.mail.yahoo.com>

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Having already vented some steam on a post trolling Beastie I can say,
"I will not flame you." That said,

On Fri, 30 Jun 2000, lex manno wrote:
> Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 04:07:57 -0700 (PDT)
> From: lex manno <lexmanno@yahoo.com>
> To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> Subject: vi? lynx? please!
> 
> hi there,
> 
> Well, I've been using FBSD for almost a year now and I
> was wondering. Isn't it about time to remove primitive
> stuff like vi and lynx from the o.s.? 

As the user interface of a system (any & all OS) gets more complex
they will be easier to use, A Good Thing (tm). However, a complex
system will fail in ways that make reconstruction difficult. A simple
example of one is X, another is MS-windows. I have had failures when
using X plus KDE that made using ee (ed) the only way out of the mess.

Never give up a tool because it is not the latest gee whizz tech.
Hint; try to read html documents after netscape on X fails and raw
html is not "your thing". Lynx on a terminal will save you.

> 
> I mean, when there are editors like Joe and Emacs and
> browsers like Netscape, why do we need to keep all
> these antiquated monsters?
> 
> For God's sake, let us modernize!
> 
> bye,
> lex

Modernize? Think for a minute about that. I use Netscape, I use
Emacs. Both have limits as I said above. A short story based on my
week of modern OS tools and user interface fun.

A few weeks back my 3.2-R box died. So I tried to be modern and used
an existing win98 box as a terminal to ssh into a BSDI box. Oops, no x
sessions allowed. Ok, I can browse with win-netscape, edit in emacs on
the BSDI box, check html in BSDI-Lynx; I was happy. The universe never
without a "funny bone" let Outlook and IRC be run on *my* 'smart
terminal' by a someone who 'clicks-and-drag'.

Well, I just got the thing fixed using; pc-pine, pc-lynx, pc-unix
utilities, and very little help from the 'modern' OS company or it's
tool kit, i.e., I had to use primitive tools.

Never, throw out a tool. You may need it someday. The trick is to know
which tools to keep.

-d ;I am sailing into, Oh. No. it's The Perfect Storm!!'

-- 




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