Re: [gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Leslie Turriff]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 5:28 AM, Stroller wrote:

>
> IIRC when I was at uni (c 2000) one of the TA's suggested Joe as an
> alternative to the traditional Unix editors. I have been making a little
> effort in the last year or two to come to grips with vi or vim, and am
> starting to prefer it, but ISTM that the problem with traditional Unix
> editors (i.e. vi & emacs) is that they depend upon learning obscure keyboard
> shortcuts. ISTM the problem with pcio / nano is that advanced users find it
> too simplistic.
>
> Stroller.
>
> I encourage anyone who, like me, struggles with those arcane and
nonintuitive keyboard codes to take a look at Blair Thompson's X2
Programmer's Editor , which, while it
does come configured with a plethora of such codes, allows them to be
redefined via a simple configuration file.  It has easily remembered
sequences for the most usual operations (mark line, mark block, move, copy)
and powerful command-mode commands which are not cluttered with the usual
escape sequence requirements.

Give it a try.

Leslie

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Daniel da Veiga]

2009/10/4 Jesús Guerrero :
> On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 01:22:47 + (UTC), Grant Edwards
>  wrote:
>> On 2009-10-03, Stroller  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2 Oct 2009, at 17:16, Grant Edwards wrote:
 ...
 I don't like nano much either -- I find it rather clumsy, but
 at least it seems to be "safe".  It doesn't trash my file every
 30 seconds when I start typing content while in command mode.
 Honestly -- I've used vi infrequently but regularly (probably
 several times a month) for decades, and my brain just doesn't
 work the way vi does.
>>>
>>> What editor do you prefer, then?
>>
>> I'm an emacs guy.  I've been using emacs (or various clones
>> such as jove and jed) for 25 years now.
>>
>>> IIRC when I was at uni (c 2000) one of the TA's suggested Joe
>>> as an alternative to the traditional Unix editors. I have been
>>> making a little effort in the last year or two to come to
>>> grips with vi or vim, and am starting to prefer it, but ISTM
>>> that the problem with traditional Unix editors (i.e. vi &
>>> emacs) is that they depend upon learning obscure keyboard
>>> shortcuts.
>>
>> I don't have any problem learning keystrokes.  I do have
>> problems with vi's modality.
>
> That's just one of the things I dislike about vi and all the vi clones out
> there. To me it is like the difference between edit to live and live to
> edit. It's a good editor and I respect people who like and use vi, but I
> refuse to use it unless there's absolutely no other option.
>

I've been using vi (or vim, where available) for a few years, and I
really like some of the features. What I like most is the double mode
(command and edit). I find it really easy to use and saves me a lot of
time. But I'm pretty sure that's just because I didn't bother learning
any other editor (like emacs), and vi can be found at almost ALL linux
distros I've come across in the last few years...

It's a matter of taste. Some may argue about that (completely
pointless), and that just proves that's useless. You like it, you use
it, advocate it, but never impose it.

-- 
Daniel da Veiga

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Jesús Guerrero]

On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 01:22:47 + (UTC), Grant Edwards
 wrote:
> On 2009-10-03, Stroller  wrote:
>>
>> On 2 Oct 2009, at 17:16, Grant Edwards wrote:
>>> ...
>>> I don't like nano much either -- I find it rather clumsy, but
>>> at least it seems to be "safe".  It doesn't trash my file every
>>> 30 seconds when I start typing content while in command mode.
>>> Honestly -- I've used vi infrequently but regularly (probably
>>> several times a month) for decades, and my brain just doesn't
>>> work the way vi does.
>>
>> What editor do you prefer, then?
> 
> I'm an emacs guy.  I've been using emacs (or various clones
> such as jove and jed) for 25 years now.
> 
>> IIRC when I was at uni (c 2000) one of the TA's suggested Joe
>> as an alternative to the traditional Unix editors. I have been
>> making a little effort in the last year or two to come to
>> grips with vi or vim, and am starting to prefer it, but ISTM
>> that the problem with traditional Unix editors (i.e. vi &
>> emacs) is that they depend upon learning obscure keyboard
>> shortcuts.
> 
> I don't have any problem learning keystrokes.  I do have
> problems with vi's modality.

That's just one of the things I dislike about vi and all the vi clones out
there. To me it is like the difference between edit to live and live to
edit. It's a good editor and I respect people who like and use vi, but I
refuse to use it unless there's absolutely no other option.

-- 
Jesús Guerrero

[gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-10-03, Stroller  wrote:
>
> On 2 Oct 2009, at 17:16, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> ...
>> I don't like nano much either -- I find it rather clumsy, but
>> at least it seems to be "safe".  It doesn't trash my file every
>> 30 seconds when I start typing content while in command mode.
>> Honestly -- I've used vi infrequently but regularly (probably
>> several times a month) for decades, and my brain just doesn't
>> work the way vi does.
>
> What editor do you prefer, then?

I'm an emacs guy.  I've been using emacs (or various clones
such as jove and jed) for 25 years now.

> IIRC when I was at uni (c 2000) one of the TA's suggested Joe
> as an alternative to the traditional Unix editors. I have been
> making a little effort in the last year or two to come to
> grips with vi or vim, and am starting to prefer it, but ISTM
> that the problem with traditional Unix editors (i.e. vi &
> emacs) is that they depend upon learning obscure keyboard
> shortcuts.

I don't have any problem learning keystrokes.  I do have
problems with vi's modality.

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Mick]

On Saturday 03 October 2009, daid kahl wrote:

> From this basic stand-point, I haven't found anything vi can do that emacs
> can't and vice-versa.  But I just started forcing myself to use my editor
> of choice for everything, and then finding work-arounds (for example, in vi
>
> :set paste when you want to paste stuff from the main buffer (a la
>
> shift+insert in Konsole) without retarded indentation) and keeping a small
> notebook for the vi commands I "learned."

I was using this sooo much that I entered it in .vimrc like so:

set pastetoggle=

and then hit F11 whenever I want to paste something before I press Insert to 
edit a file.
-- 
Regards,
Mick


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[daid kahl]

> What editor do you prefer, then?
>
> I have been making a little effort in the last year or two to come to grips
> with vi or vim, and am starting to prefer it, but ISTM that the problem with
> traditional Unix editors (i.e. vi & emacs) is that they depend upon learning
> obscure keyboard shortcuts.


When I shifted to Linux full time a couple years ago, I decided to force
myself to learn vi.  I don't make any claims that it's better than emacs or
any other editors out there.  But for more advanced editors, I think it's
necessary that there will be some learning curve, and then the "best one" is
just what you bothered to learn.  Emacs looks great, but I don't have a clue
how to use it.  Sure, the shortcuts are obscure, but I think even with a
modern editor, shortcuts are obscure to the uninitiated.

>From this basic stand-point, I haven't found anything vi can do that emacs
can't and vice-versa.  But I just started forcing myself to use my editor of
choice for everything, and then finding work-arounds (for example, in vi
:set paste when you want to paste stuff from the main buffer (a la
shift+insert in Konsole) without retarded indentation) and keeping a small
notebook for the vi commands I "learned."

You can start making customized macros (I have one for printing the date,
for example, for log files), customized highlighting (find one online you
like the most and slowly tweak it), and nice default settings (like line
numbering auto-enabled, for example).

So, my advice would just be to make some kind of informed decision on which
editor to use, and stick through the learning curve.  It's much like choice
of linux distribution.  You can always change, but you ought to stay with
your initial choice long enough to be competent with it.

Besides, once you learn lots of obscure shortcuts, as one of my friends
said, "You can contort your hands in strange ways and make magic happen!"

~daid

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Albert Hopkins]

On Sat, 2009-10-03 at 11:28 +0100, Stroller wrote:
> I have this notion - can't be arsed to confirm this, disprove it or  
> find additional information with Google right now - that Joe was  
> developed to overcome this above problems.
> 

AFAIK Joe is similar to emacs (without the built-in lisp stuff) so most
of the keybindings will be the same.

Well there are a lot of editors made to "overcome" one or more
"problems" of the other. That's why app-editors is so full.  To me this
shows more that editors don't have lots os "problems", but people are
just picky about editors.

-a

[gentoo-user] Re: preferred editor

[Stroller]

On 2 Oct 2009, at 17:16, Grant Edwards wrote:

...
I don't like nano much either -- I find it rather clumsy, but
at least it seems to be "safe".  It doesn't trash my file every
30 seconds when I start typing content while in command mode.
Honestly -- I've used vi infrequently but regularly (probably
several times a month) for decades, and my brain just doesn't
work the way vi does.


What editor do you prefer, then?

IIRC when I was at uni (c 2000) one of the TA's suggested Joe as an  
alternative to the traditional Unix editors. I have been making a  
little effort in the last year or two to come to grips with vi or vim,  
and am starting to prefer it, but ISTM that the problem with  
traditional Unix editors (i.e. vi & emacs) is that they depend upon  
learning obscure keyboard shortcuts. ISTM the problem with pcio / nano  
is that advanced users find it too simplistic.


I have this notion - can't be arsed to confirm this, disprove it or  
find additional information with Google right now - that Joe was  
developed to overcome this above problems.


Stroller.