[TUHS] Qed vs ed

[TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Will Senn]

Hi all,

So. On a lighter note. I was tooling around the web and came across a discussion of QED, the editor. It’s been resurrected in no small part based on discussions on this list (and members like Rob Pike). Anyhow, there’s a version that compiles in modern systems and that handles wide characters. My question for the group is this how different is QED from ed? I’ve read Dennis’ paper on the history of QED and it’s fascinating, but all I really got out of the discussion related to ed, was that QED was a precursor. I’m curious about functional parity or lack thereof, more than technical differences. In full disclosure, and at the risk of drawing fire from lovers of other editors, I have to confess a love of the original ed (and it’s decendent ed’s and vi).

Cheers,

Will



Sent from my iPhone

Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Will Senn]

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On 1/30/21 9:16 PM, Will Senn wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> So. On a lighter note. I was tooling around the web and came across a discussion of QED, the editor. It’s been resurrected in no small part based on discussions on this list (and members like Rob Pike). Anyhow, there’s a version that compiles in modern systems and that handles wide characters. My question for the group is this how different is QED from ed? I’ve read Dennis’ paper on the history of QED and it’s fascinating, but all I really got out of the discussion related to ed, was that QED was a precursor. I’m curious about functional parity or lack thereof, more than technical differences. In full disclosure, and at the risk of drawing fire from lovers of other editors, I have to confess a love of the original ed (and it’s decendent ed’s and vi).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Will
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
Here's the link to the article that kicked off this line of inquiry:

https://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2021/01/remembering-the-work-of-david-m-tilbrook-and-the-qed-editor.html

Does anyone know of any effort to show the family tree of editors, 
similar to what we have for unix and linux?

Will

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Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Will Senn]

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On 1/30/21 9:48 PM, Will Senn wrote:
> On 1/30/21 9:16 PM, Will Senn wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> So. On a lighter note. I was tooling around the web and came across a discussion of QED, the editor. It’s been resurrected in no small part based on discussions on this list (and members like Rob Pike). Anyhow, there’s a version that compiles in modern systems and that handles wide characters. My question for the group is this how different is QED from ed? I’ve read Dennis’ paper on the history of QED and it’s fascinating, but all I really got out of the discussion related to ed, was that QED was a precursor. I’m curious about functional parity or lack thereof, more than technical differences. In full disclosure, and at the risk of drawing fire from lovers of other editors, I have to confess a love of the original ed (and it’s decendent ed’s and vi).
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Will
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
> Here's the link to the article that kicked off this line of inquiry:
>
> https://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2021/01/remembering-the-work-of-david-m-tilbrook-and-the-qed-editor.html
>
> Does anyone know of any effort to show the family tree of editors, 
> similar to what we have for unix and linux?
>
> Will
Ah, heck - Dennis says QED influenced ed, but the first line of the 
description in QED (1) (Mar/82) is:

Qed is a multiple-file programmable text editor based on ed.

Which is it?

Will

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Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Al Kossow]

> https://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2021/01/remembering-the-work-of-david-m-tilbrook-and-the-qed-editor.html

references

https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/qed-archive/tree/master/sds-940

SDS 940 QED

"These files were supplied to me by Lars Brinkhoff (lars AT nocrew.org). I have no idea where he got them."

Me, assuming he pulled them from the SDS940 tapes I recovered and are on bitsavers

The .pdf scans are from me, so I assume the code came from bitsavers as well.

Shit like this pisses me off.

Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Al Kossow wrote:
> https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/qed-archive/tree/master/sds-940
>
> SDS 940 QED
>
> "These files were supplied to me by Lars Brinkhoff (lars AT
> nocrew.org). I have no idea where he got them."
>
> Me, assuming he pulled them from the SDS940 tapes I recovered and are
> on bitsavers
>
> The .pdf scans are from me, so I assume the code came from bitsavers as well.

I got everything in a zip file from Mark Emmer when I asked him about QED.

Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Rob Pike]

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The version of qed Leah refers to is not pure. It was created in the late
1970s by Tom Duff, Hugh Redelmeier, David Tilbrook and myself by hacking
the (already hacked) v6 ed we had at the University of Toronto, to restore
some of the programmability that had been removed when ed was created, and
to have fun. Mostly to have fun.

Tom Duff used a real QED (sic) on the GCOS at Waterloo and was a bit
conflicted about all this. For me the programmability was fun, and I wrote
the tutorial, but what ended up sticking with me was the ability to edit
multiple files simultaneously, something no other editor I had available
could do. I don't mean switching between files, I mean making things like
global substitutions across *.c. I'd start a session by typing qed *.[ch]
and go from there.

Our qed traveled with me from Caltech to Bell Labs, where I used it to
write jim, which I used to write sam, which I used to write Acme. I tried
vi when starting jim, but again the one file thing was too much to bear. I
also tried emacs, which could in principle handle multiple files but the
interface was cumbersome - it was much too hard to open a new file in a
subwindow - and without regular expressions I gave up after a day or two.
Also with a 2-d screen and a 1-d input device (no mouse), vi and emacs were
too remote, like giving directions to someone holding a map without being
able to point at the map. Describing where you want to point rather than
just pointing.

Anyway that was 40 or so years ago, and it's clear from the screens on
others' desks at work that my opinion on those matters is not widely shared.

I had a lot of fun hacking qed, mostly side-by-side with Tilbrook, who was
its biggest fan. He taught me a lot and I loved working with him.

-rob



On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 6:01 PM Lars Brinkhoff <lars@nocrew.org> wrote:

> Al Kossow wrote:
> > https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/qed-archive/tree/master/sds-940
> >
> > SDS 940 QED
> >
> > "These files were supplied to me by Lars Brinkhoff (lars AT
> > nocrew.org). I have no idea where he got them."
> >
> > Me, assuming he pulled them from the SDS940 tapes I recovered and are
> > on bitsavers
> >
> > The .pdf scans are from me, so I assume the code came from bitsavers as
> well.
>
> I got everything in a zip file from Mark Emmer when I asked him about QED.
>

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Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[Jaap Akkerhuis]

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> On Jan 31, 2021, at 9:29, Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I had a lot of fun hacking qed, mostly side-by-side with Tilbrook, who was its biggest fan. He taught me a lot and I loved working with him.

Woking with David was great and always inspiring. I used to have an early version of his QEF system which did QED on it. He never stopped tinkeing with that. Alas, the tape got lost in one of my relocations.

	jaap

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Re: [TUHS] Qed vs ed

[arnold]

Al,

I'm sorry you're pissed off.  I was simply being honest about the
provenance of what's in the archive.

Now that I know more, I will update the README files to give
you credit.

Arnold

Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

>
> > https://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2021/01/remembering-the-work-of-david-m-tilbrook-and-the-qed-editor.html
>
> references
>
> https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/qed-archive/tree/master/sds-940
>
> SDS 940 QED
>
> "These files were supplied to me by Lars Brinkhoff (lars AT nocrew.org). I have no idea where he got them."
>
> Me, assuming he pulled them from the SDS940 tapes I recovered and are on bitsavers
>
> The .pdf scans are from me, so I assume the code came from bitsavers as well.
>
> Shit like this pisses me off.