I remember using ed. Via a 2400bps modem :-) I'm told the thing with emacs is that, if you like it, it can end up being almost your whole development environment, so you feel lost without it.
I ended up writing my own editor twice (once for TSO and 3278, again for Windoze). Both can run without line numbers and use F-keys to get things done, mostly matching the keys I used with the ISPF editor to insert, delete, split and join lines etc. Roops On Tue, 22 Aug 2023, 07:07 Tomasz Rola, <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 02:57:55PM +0000, Seymour J Metz wrote: > > > But I'll counter with, why should people need to learn -- what I'll > > > politely call -- a non-intuitive editor to do occasional simple edits > > > of text files? > > > > Understood, but vi and emacs are still on my list of software to learn. > > I found emacs to be quite easy to learn. One just starts it and needs > to actually read what the thing is saying (one of the most fruitful > half hours ever was, for me, reading emacs tutorial, about 29 years > ago). However, bear in mind, if you start using emacs, sooner or later > you will learn at least a bit of Emacs Lisp (Elisp). If nothing else, > customising (writing one's own .emacs file) is done in Elisp. No worry > though, they have a manual for the language, and when I was learning > this and that Lisp, their manual was quite nice to have for > clarification on various subjects. > > Actually, I did quite a lot of customising by finding interesting > pieces in other people's .emacs files and shamelessly copying. > > But one can also customise it using built in system for it - without > even knowing there is any Lisp involved (menu Options / Customise > Emacs is that, I think). Still, there is plenty of Lisp beneath for > those who want to look at it. > > But for many years before doing my own dot-emacs, I was just using > emacs as ordinary text editor, file browser, manpage reader, source > code viewer etc. Also, web browser. Just pay attention and do not do > all this in a single emacs process, just in case. > > -- > Regards, > Tomasz Rola > > -- > ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** > ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** > ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** > ** ** > ** Tomasz Rola mailto:[email protected] ** > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
