Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 11:57:44 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> To: Daniela <dgw@liwest.at> Cc: Dave Vollenweider <metaridley@mchsi.com> Subject: Re: When Unix Stops Being Fun Message-ID: <20041005085744.GB1837@orion.daedalusnetworks.priv> In-Reply-To: <200410042154.52088.dgw@liwest.at> References: <20041002225028.05205e9a.metaridley@mchsi.com> <200410042154.52088.dgw@liwest.at>
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On 2004-10-04 21:54, Daniela <dgw@liwest.at> wrote:
> I developed a few rules and techniques for keeping the interest:
>
> 1. Avoid doing the same thing over and over again.
> 2. Do bigger projects as well as some playful experimenting.
> 3. Don't use closed-source (or commercial) software. I don't know how you
> react to it, but the "closed" look and feel really puts me off.
> 4. If it's running well, don't interrupt it. Unless you feel you're hitting
> the wall, don't take a break while solving a complex problem.
> 5. Keep one style for one session. If you're into multiple things that have to
> do with computers, don't mix them up. Especially don't mix high-level and
> low-level activities. For example, don't do Javascript programming (or
> webdesign in general), complex image editing or maybe even 3D modelling on
> the console with a CLI. On the other hand, don't do ASM programming in a
> graphical IDE, use vi instead. If you do the dirtiest lowest-level hacks,
> you may be well advised to even use TECO, or some other editor which is
> really hard to use.
I can almost agree with what's written above, except for one minor but
important detail. If you can use an editor that suits your needs both in
console and GUI environment, both for assembly, Perl, Python, Java, C, C++
and whatever else you find yourself writing, an editor that can easily be
adopted to editing plain text email messages, theses in LaTeX, or even to
browse the source code of an operating system... why would you want to
torture yourself with a strange, difficult to use editor?
All this that I described above, and even more, I can do in Emacs or vim.
Using the system vi(1) on Solaris isn't a problem either, but I don't push
myself to use *THAT* editor if I don't have to. I stopped using vi(1) on
Solaris when messages like this became annoying:
sun2# stty columns 190
sun2# \vi
Terminal too wide
:
These days my $EDITOR equals 'emacs' and all is done using exactly the same
interface, using the same keystrokes, the same macros and configuration
options (as opposed to, say, having to learn a dozen different editors,
one for each language and/or job).
- Giorgos
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