Date: 17 Nov 2001 18:38:58 -0800 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: DSL PPPoE with 2 NICs Message-ID: <d48zd46bwd.zd4@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <00bf01c16eeb$4cc84dd0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <002601c16e7f$19509d20$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <001101c16e98$1867ba60$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <3BF50ACB.F37844BE@resfeber.se> <004a01c16ea5$469bf650$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <20011116092426.H10055@sjt-u10.cisco.com> <00bf01c16eeb$4cc84dd0$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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"Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> writes: > I haven't seen a basic terminal in at least 15 years. That depends on what you think he meant by "basic terminal". I think his point was that you could run "vi" through anything that is or emulates a stand-alone low-speed serial terminal like the VT-100. For instance, "vi" probably would work via Microsoft terminal emulator (Hyper-something? you've seen that I suppose) where many other, especially GUI, editors would be totally useless. > I dunno. The arrow keys are pretty intuitive. Unfortunately they don't seem to > behave as intuition predicts under vi, although they do under joe. They do for me (vi that came with FreeBSD 4.4). In both insert and command modes. Or do you find it intuitive to move the cursor to parts of the file that don't exist or what? > Does it? Hmm ... I learned something new. I just use the mouse and click on > the menu item that interests me. It's easier than memorizing keystroke > sequences. I don't much care which editor you use, but it bothers me that you express such clearly erroneous reasons for your choice. Yes, learning and using mouse clicks is easier than learning and using keystrokes -- if each is done only once. But what we want you, as a new Unix user, to learn sooner, rather than later, is that for some of your software tools, it is easier in the long term (and sometimes even very short) to use the keys. A editor (for a frequently-edited file format) is one such tool. It is far faster (ie, easier) to use the keys (even an Emacs Esc-Meta-Alt-Ctrl-Shift thing) than a mouse in almost all cases. And, unless you are extraordinarily slow, the small amount of time it takes to memorize the keystrokes is well worth the time saved later. You need only memorize a small fraction of the available commands; as you indicated: you don't need most commands. If you later find that you need to do something often, you'll often discover an keystroke available for which you'll then recognize the value in memorizing it. It doesn't take long to memorize keystrokes and after you use it a few hundred times, your fingers won't soon forget, even if your concious mind does forget. I'll agree with you that mouse control is better for the vast majority of user-controlled functions that a user needs to operate, but key control is very much better for the vast majority of times functions are operated. Most functions are used too infrequently to waste time memorizing keystrokes (or even command or option names), but many functions are used too frequently to waste time reaching for and aiming a mouse. (Arm movement time is not the only problem.) Unix tools need to learn from Windows users (and some will, as time permits) and Windows users need to learn from Unix tools (and some will, as their open minds permit). > For the editing I want to do, I don't need a powerful tool, I need an intuitive > tool. Maybe so; we can't know your needs in the short term, but please learn from our experience that, if you're going to be editing text files for more than a dozen or so hours, what you call "powerful" is better than intuitive. By "better", I mean that it will save you time overall, learning time included. You don't have to learn all of the commands ever and you need only a few to begin. > Additionally, vi reeks of dumb terminals and thirty-year-old timesharing > environments. While some aspects of both remain applicable in the present day, > most do not. Again, "it reeks" is a very poor reason for selection. What aspects are no longer applicable? Text files are lines of characters just like those old environments were. There's good reason for a text file editor to reek of lines of characters. If that reminds you of the bad old days when the editors had limitations which they no longer do, then you need to get over it. Your thought processes are holding you back. BTW, I found "vi" on a VT-100 dumb (by some definitions) terminal to be a world of difference from my previous timesharing environments accessed via truly dumb terminals or cards (and even paper tapes and toggle switches in cruder environments). A much different and much improved stench. The big advance in editors was that between line-oriented ones and character-oriented ones and "vi" was definitely in the latter category though it could do both. That was only 22 years ago. > I'm not working on a teletype these days, so I don't need an > editor that can accommodate one. Teletype, no, but you are likely to find that knowledge of a VT-100 compatible editor is useful and saves your bacon when you don't have to stop and learn a new editor when you learn the value of a VT-100- compatible editor the hard way. I think I've confused two issues in the above. The VT-100-compatibility is a nice side-benefit of "vi" and reason enough for you to learn its very basic commands, but for an everyday editor, you might, as I do, prefer another editor with very good finger-friendly features like XEmacs. Both XEmacs and Emacs now have many GUI features which you should find are good enough for you while you learn some key banging. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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