Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[john]

>>   I typed :set all and the screen FILLED up with options.  A whole screen of
>>   things to be set and unset.
>
> Tinkering. No one thinks big of you.

Options considered harmful. The ability to set up your applications the
way you like them is dangerously UNIX-like and must be avoided. The
Holy Code of the Sacred Developers contain the hard-coded Values that
lead to True Enlightenment.


John

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[john]

> you wouldn't put up with a car that had 1000 options that needed
> configuring before you could comfortably go down the road.  why
> put up with it in software?
>

So it's better to use an editor which *doesn't* allow you to configure
it at all than to use one which lets you set every detail? Last time
I checked, I could start up vi and get to work, without needing to
set 1000 options. I wouldn't do such a thing, because I use emacs,
but you get my drift. (vi isn't comfortable no matter how many
options you set)

To continue with the analogy--why are so many computer analogies
about cars, and why are they so bad?--vi is more like a car where
you can give yourself automatic windows at a whim, change the
body color, swap out seats, change the steering wheel to a fighter
jet stick, or hang fluffy dice in the windows. A more suitable
analogy for acme would be a seat in an airliner. You get a seat,
it's pretty comfortable, you can do a few things, but your
environment is irrevocably set as the inside of a 737, in a blue seat,
with a screaming kid next to you.
(does the screaming kid represent uriel? Let's not go too deep).

That said, I'm writing this email from acme. It grows on you. I'm pretty
happy with it in most cases. I just have a strong desire to be able to
customize *something*; maybe it gives me the illusion of power.

Sometimes (all times) it's more fun to troll than to work.


John

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[Russ Cox]

Vim ships with a file quotes.txt containing testimonials.  This is my favorite:

  I typed :set all and the screen FILLED up with options.  A whole screen of
  things to be set and unset.  I saw some of my old friends like wrapmargin,
  modelines and showmode, but the screen was FILLED with new friends!   I love
  them all!   I love VIM!   I'm so happy that I've found this editor!  I feel
  like how I once felt when I started using vi after a couple of years of using
  ed.  I never thought I'd forsake my beloved ed, but vi ... oh god, vi was
  great.  And now, VIM.  (Peter Jay Salzman, USA)

Russ

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[Tim Wiess]

> Vim ships with a file quotes.txt containing testimonials.  This is my favorite:
>
>   I typed :set all and the screen FILLED up with options.  A whole screen of
>   things to be set and unset.  I saw some of my old friends like wrapmargin,
>   modelines and showmode, but the screen was FILLED with new friends!   I love
>   them all!   I love VIM!   I'm so happy that I've found this editor!  I feel
>   like how I once felt when I started using vi after a couple of years of using
>   ed.  I never thought I'd forsake my beloved ed, but vi ... oh god, vi was
>   great.  And now, VIM.  (Peter Jay Salzman, USA)

    heh... nice.

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[Charles Forsyth]

>   I typed :set all and the screen FILLED up with options.  A whole screen of
>   things to be set and unset.

Tinkering. No one thinks big of you.

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[Markus Sonderegger]

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> Vim ships with a file quotes.txt containing testimonials.  This is my favorite:

>   I typed :set all and the screen FILLED up with options.  A whole screen of
>   things to be set and unset.  I saw some of my old friends like wrapmargin,
>   modelines and showmode, but the screen was FILLED with new friends!   I love
>   them all!   I love VIM!   I'm so happy that I've found this editor!  I feel
>   like how I once felt when I started using vi after a couple of years of using
>   ed.  I never thought I'd forsake my beloved ed, but vi ... oh god, vi was
>   great.  And now, VIM.  (Peter Jay Salzman, USA)

Haha, and after hours of configuring its nearly useable!

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From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@swtch.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:59:22 -0400
Message-ID: <20070627185931.C7F201E8C22@holo.morphisms.net>

Vim ships with a file quotes.txt containing testimonials.  This is my favorite:

  I typed :set all and the screen FILLED up with options.  A whole screen of
  things to be set and unset.  I saw some of my old friends like wrapmargin,
  modelines and showmode, but the screen was FILLED with new friends!   I love
  them all!   I love VIM!   I'm so happy that I've found this editor!  I feel
  like how I once felt when I started using vi after a couple of years of using
  ed.  I never thought I'd forsake my beloved ed, but vi ... oh god, vi was
  great.  And now, VIM.  (Peter Jay Salzman, USA)

Russ

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[erik quanstrom]

> The Holy Code of the Sacred Developers contain the hard-coded Values that
> lead to True Enlightenment.

you say this with sarcasm.  but i think there's some truth to it.
hard-coded Values are ones you don't need to think about.

my first reaction to russ' note was that vim hasn't so much provided
an editor, but an editor development platform for people who don't
want to start from scratch.

you wouldn't put up with a car that had 1000 options that needed
configuring before you could comfortably go down the road.  why
put up with it in software?

if you still really want it just the way you want it, write
your own.  fidding options doesn't count among the Holy Code,
as you likely want the one feature they don't have.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

[Kris Maglione]

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On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 05:56:46PM -0400, erik quanstrom wrote:
>my first reaction to russ' note was that vim hasn't so much provided
>an editor, but an editor development platform for people who don't
>want to start from scratch.

You're thinking of Emacs. Vim, internally and externally, is a 
monolithic mess (I'm no Emacs appologist, by the way). It's got 
scripting languages and knobs and bells and whistles and chimes 
and thorns cyanide. But it's not a platform. It's an editor that 
you can try to mangle to behave in ways it normally wouldn't. 
Emacs, though, is an OS, which has some editor functionality. 
It's a platform on which to build an editor. It's also large, 
complex, and beyond my ability to wield.

-- 
Kris Maglione

Any line, however short, is still too long.

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[9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[pavlovetsky]

I would like to point the attention of the audience to the notion,
which Rob made back in 2003:

From: r...@mightycheese.com (Rob Pike)
Date: Sep 16 2003, 8:49 am
Subject: g++
To: comp.os.plan9


> This is an interesting point. Plan 9 esthetics are really nice. colors,
> fonts, and so on just "look good". Who did all that?

glad you like it.  really glad.  most people say something rude about
it.

i can take no credit for the fonts except for having the good luck to
know
chuck bigelow and kris holmes well enough to ask them to do a deal
with
bell labs and let us use their fonts.  the postscript fonts used in
the
manual,
which are related to the screen fonts (primarily those used in acme),
were
the first font designed specifically for unicode.  i also rather like
the screen
fonts, which were also maybe the first.

the clean appearance of the screen comes mostly from laziness, but the
color scheme is (obviously) deliberate. the intent was to build on an
observation by edwardtuftethat the human system likes nature and
nature
is full of pale colors, so something you're going to look at all day
might best
serve if it were also in relaxing shades.  renee french helped me with
the
specifics of the color scheme (she's a professional illustrator and my
color
vision is suspect), once i'd figured out how i wanted it to look.
there are
still some features of the color system that i put in that i think no
one has
ever noticed.  that's a good thing, in my opinion; the colors should
fade
away, if you'll pardon the expression.

having used other systems with different approaches to color screens,
most especially windows XP (extra pukey), i thinktuftewas right.

-rob

Re: [9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[Markus Sonderegger]

> glad you like it.  really glad.  most people say something rude about
> it.

when i saw Plan 9 for the first time, i also said rude things about it's UI and
colors. after i've used it some days, i loved it. especially my eyes love this
colors, they don't hurt anymore, even after hours of working.

> i thinktuftewas right

all people who designed this UI was right, it's a piece of art compared to other
UI's. and there's absolutely no need to configure anything, which is a really
nice fact.

Re: [9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[Jack Johnson]

On 6/28/07, pavlovetsky@gmail.com <pavlovetsky@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: r...@mightycheese.com (Rob Pike)
> Date: Sep 16 2003, 8:49 am
>
> the clean appearance of the screen comes mostly from laziness, but the
> color scheme is (obviously) deliberate. the intent was to build on an
> observation by edwardtuftethat the human system likes nature and
> nature
> is full of pale colors, so something you're going to look at all day
> might best
> serve if it were also in relaxing shades.  renee french helped me with
> the
> specifics of the color scheme (she's a professional illustrator and my
> color
> vision is suspect), once i'd figured out how i wanted it to look.
> there are
> still some features of the color system that i put in that i think no
> one has
> ever noticed.  that's a good thing, in my opinion; the colors should
> fade
> away, if you'll pardon the expression.

Rob and co. definitely did a stellar job on the color palette, though
you will see some knee-jerk reactions (something I may have been
guilty of in the past).

*If* someone wanted to keep the same strategy but monkey with the
palette, you could use this as a start:

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/01/colorful-beauty-in-nature-butterflies/

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[Markus Sonderegger]

ich das vorhin war zu optimistisch

Re: [9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[Markus Sonderegger]

sorry guys, the former mail wasn't intended for this list. i took the wrong address.

Re: [9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[john]

> On 6/28/07, pavlovetsky@gmail.com <pavlovetsky@gmail.com> wrote:
>> From: r...@mightycheese.com (Rob Pike)
>> Date: Sep 16 2003, 8:49 am
>>
>> the clean appearance of the screen comes mostly from laziness, but the
>> color scheme is (obviously) deliberate. the intent was to build on an
>> observation by edwardtuftethat the human system likes nature and
>> nature
>> is full of pale colors, so something you're going to look at all day
>> might best
>> serve if it were also in relaxing shades.  renee french helped me with
>> the
>> specifics of the color scheme (she's a professional illustrator and my
>> color
>> vision is suspect), once i'd figured out how i wanted it to look.
>> there are
>> still some features of the color system that i put in that i think no
>> one has
>> ever noticed.  that's a good thing, in my opinion; the colors should
>> fade
>> away, if you'll pardon the expression.
>
> Rob and co. definitely did a stellar job on the color palette, though
> you will see some knee-jerk reactions (something I may have been
> guilty of in the past).
>
> *If* someone wanted to keep the same strategy but monkey with the
> palette, you could use this as a start:
>
> http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/01/colorful-beauty-in-nature-butterflies/
>
> -Jack

It really is a very nice color set, and all around an excellent UI.
My criticisms are simply the products of various neuroses and such.

John

Re: [9fans] Re: Colors and other fun

[Jack Johnson]

On 6/28/07, Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com> wrote:
> > color scheme is (obviously) deliberate.
>
> *If* someone wanted to keep the same strategy but monkey with the
> palette, you could use this as a start:
>
> http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/01/colorful-beauty-in-nature-butterflies/

Another technique that could be interesting to use with screenshots to
develop a private, alternate palette:

http://www.unfocusedbrain.com/projects/match_color/

...though the Matisse (? I'm such a heathen) could make for a real migraine UI.

-J