From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 10dbf692 for ; Thu, 9 Jan 2020 17:22:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C5F9E93D89; Fri, 10 Jan 2020 03:22:13 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA2CA93D07; Fri, 10 Jan 2020 03:21:52 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 321CC93D07; Fri, 10 Jan 2020 03:21:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from fourwinds.com (fourwinds.com [63.64.179.162]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BC3BF93D06 for ; Fri, 10 Jan 2020 03:21:49 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 009HLfsx503814 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT) for ; Thu, 9 Jan 2020 09:21:41 -0800 Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (jon@localhost) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id 009HLf2V503811 for ; Thu, 9 Jan 2020 09:21:41 -0800 Message-Id: <202001091721.009HLf2V503811@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Jon Steinhart To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society In-reply-to: References: <20200109012830.GC16808@mcvoy.com> <20200109020720.GG16808@mcvoy.com> <202001090423.0094NooZ379407@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Comments: In-reply-to Clem Cole message dated "Thu, 09 Jan 2020 10:54:44 -0500." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <503809.1578590500.1@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2020 09:21:40 -0800 X-JON-SPAM: local delivery Subject: Re: [TUHS] screen editors X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Clem Cole writes: > > Answering, but CCing COFF if folks want to continue. This is less about > UNIX and more about how we all got to where we are. > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 11:24 PM Jon Steinhart wrote: > > > Clem, this seems like an unusual position for you to take. vim is > > backwards > > compatible with vi (and also ed), so it added to an existing ecosystem. > > > No, really unusually when you think about it. vim is backward compatible > except when it's not (as Bakul points out) - which is my complaint. It's > *almost* compatible and those small differences are really annoying when > you expect one thing and get something else (*i.e.* the least astonishment > principle). > > ... OK, ok, the point that it's not 100% compatible wins the day. Couple more points and then it's time to move on. While I spend a lot of time railing against bad programming, the fact that vim is huge doesn't bother me too much because my machine has more memory that the machine on which I started using vi had disk. And just because it still blows my mind, my machine (on just one of the drives) has more disk than was available in the world when I started using vi. Good chance that my CPU has more cache memory than the PDP-11/70 on which I started using vi had main memory. So the size doesn't matter too much for me. One of the reasons that I chose vi over emacs was architectural. At a certain level, vi was a text editor and emacs was an operating system, and since I was running UNIX and was a UNIX philosophy person I just didn't want to be running an operating system on top of an operating system just to do text editing. It's for that reason that I hate the addition of multiple windows to vi. I already have a windowing system on my machine, and that's what I use for windows. To me, the correct thing to do is to open a new desktop window to edit a new file and start a new instance of vi, not to use vi to open another internal window. I guess that what I'm saying is that I think that rather than following the UNIX philosophy of having distinct tools and composing, much modern software tries to do too much stuff that's not unique to its domain. A strained analogy would be if every "little language" felt that it had to re-implement a big language too. Jon