Re: [9fans] samuel

["rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>]

> maybe the tail has started to wag the dog a little, and it's time to
> consider extending the toolkit?

Yesterday it was claimed that those who hadn't tried samuel shouldn't
make grandiose philosophical statements about it.  Well, I have tried
samuel and I didn't like it, partly because it didn't seem to help all
that much (because grep could do a lot of the work for you just fine);
partly because added a set of special-purpose features rather than a
general-purpose approach; partly because it cluttered up the menus to
have that extra functionality, making it less useful as an editor; and
partly because it just wasn't very well done.

You won't get me to say I don't like tools and don't want to add to
the the toolkit.  I will say, however, that I demand the tools be good
and that they should increase the set of problems to be solved or
significantly increase the ease with which they can be solved.

Samuel didn't make the grade.  If it had, I think it would still be
around.

-rob