Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 17:53:18 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: "Julian Stacey <jhs@freebsd.org>" <jhs@vector.eikon.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@freefall.FreeBSD.org>, CVS-commiters@freefall.FreeBSD.org, cvs-usrbin@freefall.FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/ee - Imported sources Message-ID: <12720.809916798@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 31 Aug 1995 03:00:44 %2B0200." <199508310100.DAA02282@vector.eikon.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
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> There are other vi like editors around much smaller than vi > I used to use elvis & stevie on minix & dos (& ported one to a few OS's) > I recall .exe's of about 50 to 100K; a dos vi.exe is still 96K, runs on a > DOS 8086. Show me an editor that's implemented as one 110K source file and I'll be impressed.. :-) Seriously, that's also not the point. I looked long and hard for a "minimal" editor that ALSO documented itself (BIG difference from stevie and elvis - both still just come up and look at you with no hint as to what to do next) and ee was the best I'd found so far.. When I added the code to 2.0.5 to edit /etc/exports because the user had selected "I'm an NFS server" and I knew that it wouldn't work without an /etc/exports, I knew that I was letting myself in for trouble by just tossing the poor sucker into vi and I was right. Oh, the hate mail I got for that! "WHAT were you THINKING? I've never used vi in my life and couldn't even figure out how to get OUT of the damn thing!" was basically the general sentiment. And they were absolutely right. I'd be pretty pissed off if somebody dropped me into their `foobolix' editor with EBCDIC command characters and the hardwired expectation of an IBM 3101 terminal. Oh sure, it might be *totally standard* in IBM shops the world wide, used by tens of thousands of users, but I still wouldn't know the first thing about it and would rather resent someone else's expectation that I should. ee, on the other hand, devotes some screen real-estate to describing the command set and has a little popup menu for configuring it and getting help that is easily used with the arrow keys. Just what the doctor ordered, and it's even got I18N support so that we can translate its internal messages for those who both don't know the editor AND don't speak english. It just doesn't get much better than that for editors comprising one C file. > We are a BSD OS, not a DOS Weenie OS, if the user doesnt understand VI, > that's his problem not ours, clueless DOSers are of debatable benefit, > `Least suprise' requires we offer a vi like interface. Needless to say, this is complete and utter elitist rubbish and I'm certainly very glad that you're not in charge of writing our user interfaces or documentation! :-) Jordan
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