Re: Editor survival [Was: Recommended editor for novice programmers?]
On Fri 08 Sep 2017 at 03:19:49 (+0100), Nick Boyce wrote:
> You're absolutely right. I have sat next to seasoned vi users watching in awe as their fingers flew entering weird totally non-intuitive commands (to me) and achieving great edits in next to no time. Other colleagues lived inside emacs all day long, using it as a sort of OS with an editor attached. I used other editors to achieve the same goals, quite possibly taking more real time than the vi guys. Each to their own.
> Agreed .. or whatever terminal (emulation) you're actually using - in my case very often a real VT220/320/420, attached to a VMS, then TELNETed to a Un*x, where the available /etc/termcap|terminfo may or may not have been well crafted back at the factory. Sometimes an ICL mainframe VDU connected via an obscure 3rd-party emulation converter box to a DEC machine. Latterly it would be some 3rd-party terminal emulator on Windows 3.1/95. I still say ugh, though it may well not be vi's fault. The fact is that miraculously 'joe' seemed to be much more resilient and usable in these circumstances. As did emacs .. if you could afford to wait. I like an editor to appear within 1 second of me calling it (which rules out most GUI editors).
Just to point out there's a connection between these two paragraphs.
You shouldn't have to wait even a second for emacs to start if you
"live" in it, ie use the server-start command and keep a running
instance open. Then, instead of emacs, invoking emacsclient from the
shell and applications will be virtually instant.
Cheers,
David.
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