* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <CAC20D2PZBF=qo9EA2WyG-7oo0E1PqDifENMGXok-EEQYSzZZMw@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2025-07-15 19:10 ` Johan Helsingius via TUHS
[not found] ` <CAKr6gn0r=2XuFdJwWpX4PPnJ_z9cd7taiCDXEV=jXj-BuBmCng@mail.gmail.com>
0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Johan Helsingius via TUHS @ 2025-07-15 19:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs
On 10/07/2025 21:47, Clem Cole wrote:
> That was not true, as much as the community might have intervened if we
> thought somebody was a little out of line./i.e./, we might have been
> protective of him. Dennis was really too nice to have said anything.
I remember one of the EUUG conferences long, long ago, where a
bunch of us stood talking. One of us was wearing a T-shirt with
the famous "You are not expected to understand this" V6 code
on it. A young (Austrian, if I remember correctly) academic guy
came up to us and said "I understand what it does - do you?".
Dennis, who was wearing the shirt, just said "Yes, I wrote it"
with a light smile and the warm, friendly tone he so often had.
Julf
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <CAKr6gn0r=2XuFdJwWpX4PPnJ_z9cd7taiCDXEV=jXj-BuBmCng@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2025-07-16 0:01 ` Luther Johnson
2025-07-16 11:13 ` Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS
0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Luther Johnson @ 2025-07-16 0:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs
I just noticed that algorithm and logarithm just have a couple of
letters transposed from each other. So that's the kind of rabbit hole I
get lost in most days.
On 07/15/2025 04:39 PM, George Michaelson wrote:
> I've reached the stage of incompetency where if I can remember what a
> logarithm IS, It's a good day, and if I can remember why you use them
> it's a stellar day. I'd put it on a tee shirt but I have to work out
> which is the skinside and which is the outside first. Used to be the
> seams and fruit-of-the-loom/union-made label told you but now people
> wear seams as a badge of pride and labels are outré
>
> -G
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-16 0:01 ` Luther Johnson
@ 2025-07-16 11:13 ` Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS
2025-07-16 12:09 ` arnold
[not found] ` <11f46800-2fa5-4321-a45b-0473242e2510@gmail.com>
0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS @ 2025-07-16 11:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Ah, rabbit holes. Dangerous things. I went down the ed rabbit hole around a month ago and no sign of me finding my way back out any time soon.
I got obsessed with getting ed running on every device I have including my phones and then the big rabbit hole off that first one was learning how to use it properly and to the fullest of its abilities. That'll take a while.
My library of ed related publications is getting so big its likely what's blocking the exit to the rabbit hole. On the plus side it has sharpened my typing skills, improved my patience and I I've learned to work out for myself what I've done to cause ed to say ?, instead of just typing h+Enter.
As rabbit holes go, it's been stimulating so far and I could be stuck in worse places.
Have a safe one!
Cameron
-------- Original Message --------
On 16/07/2025 01:01, Luther Johnson <luther.johnson@makerlisp.com> wrote:
> I just noticed that algorithm and logarithm just have a couple of
> letters transposed from each other. So that's the kind of rabbit hole I
> get lost in most days.
>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
@ 2025-07-16 11:54 Norman Wilson
0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2025-07-16 11:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs
Cameron_M????e??l_Tyre_via_TUHS:
I got obsessed with getting ed running on every device I have including
my phones and then the big rabbit hole off that first one was learning
how to use it properly and to the fullest of its abilities.
==
Of course. ed(1) is the standard editor.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-16 11:13 ` Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS
@ 2025-07-16 12:09 ` arnold
[not found] ` <11f46800-2fa5-4321-a45b-0473242e2510@gmail.com>
1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: arnold @ 2025-07-16 12:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs, mulder.fox
IMHO, the best tutorials on ed are the chapters in "Software Tools"
and "Software Tools in Pascal" where Kernighan and Plauger write
a basic version of it. I recommend both books highly, despite
their age.
"Software Tools" literally changed my life. :-)
Arnold
Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:
> Ah, rabbit holes. Dangerous things. I went down the ed rabbit hole around
> a month ago and no sign of me finding my way back out any time soon.
>
> I got obsessed with getting ed running on every device I have including my
> phones and then the big rabbit hole off that first one was learning how to
> use it properly and to the fullest of its abilities. That'll take a while.
>
> My library of ed related publications is getting so big its likely
> what's blocking the exit to the rabbit hole. On the plus side it has
> sharpened my typing skills, improved my patience and I I've learned to
> work out for myself what I've done to cause ed to say ?, instead of just
> typing h+Enter.
>
> As rabbit holes go, it's been stimulating so far and I could be stuck
> in worse places.
>
> Have a safe one!
>
> Cameron
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On 16/07/2025 01:01, Luther Johnson <luther.johnson@makerlisp.com> wrote:
>
> > I just noticed that algorithm and logarithm just have a couple of
> > letters transposed from each other. So that's the kind of rabbit hole I
> > get lost in most days.
> >
>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <EE165F02-C802-43AA-9330-7088342A371A@iitbombay.org>
@ 2025-07-18 1:09 ` Larry McVoy
[not found] ` <878B2F53-F2DE-42FC-99F9-A317EA11FBED@iitbombay.org>
2025-07-18 5:04 ` Noel Hunt
0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2025-07-18 1:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Bakul Shah; +Cc: Will Senn, tuhs
Not really the same. :sp splits your window in half and puts you in
two different windows on the same file. Each window, in vim, is full
on vi, you can do :e fillename and now that window is on that file.
But that is far less useful than having two windows into the same
file where the mods to each window go to the same file. Think
looking at code that has the structs at the top of the file and you
need to wack a struck and wack the code that uses that struct.
Quite pleasant.
I'm not sure but maybe xvi is where I saw this first and I only saw
because I wacked xvi to use \0 and \n as end of line because that way
I could change it to mmap the input file and it didn't have to parse
it into internal malloced lines. Which was a huge win on 4MB Suns,
I could xvi a "huge" (for then) log file. I was a performance guy,
I've xvi-ed a lot of big log files.
But I think xvi could split. And once I could do that I never looked
back, all the emacs people were like "can you have multiple windows"
and I was "yup" and it is still simple, still vi.
Says the person who forced himself to live in emacs for a year and
still hated it. Not trying to start an editor war, more saying, my
brain works well with vi, doesn't work well with emacs, emacs is
fine for people who's brain works that way.
Same with nvi vs vim. My brain works pretty well with vim, I don't
use 90 to 99% of what it does past basic vi, but the parts I do use I
really like. I do delete the system .vimrc or whatever it is that does
color highlighting, I hate that crap.
I like the split windows, I like that I can tell my kid to do
vim file
:sp
:help
and he figures it out from there.
I also like that I've been carrying around this .exrc for close to 40 years
and it just works:
map # :.,$
map @ :1,.
map , !}fmt
map g \x17
map! \x01 \x14
set redraw ai aw terse
set sections=uhshSHNH
set paragraphs=PSPETSTEFSFEKSKECSCERSREDSDEIPNPLPPPTLABAIAELIB1B2HH
set ts=8 sw=4
set shell=/bin/sh
set showmode
set textwidth=1000
set vb
I think the # and @ came from the BDS C editor, "," came from watching
Udi Manber do that and I went WTF? ^A is because I set sw to 4, a lot of
the rest is troff.
40 years later, it still works, credit to vim for maintaining backwards
compat while moving the vi editor forward. No offense to Keith but nvi
didn't really move vi forward much, that I know of, it made it sort of
bug for bug compat with Joys vi. Which I never understood, was Joys
vi not open sourced? I always wondered why Keith did all that work and
then left it in the 1980s.
On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 05:33:35PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote:
> :E [filename] in nvi does the same (or similar; I rarely use vim).
> Though IMHO the Rand Editor did a better job of multiple windows.
>
>
> > On Jul 17, 2025, at 1:03???PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> >
> > :sp[lit]
> >
> > is enough to keep me in vim. That's a killer feature.
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 12:06:03PM -0500, Will Senn wrote:
> >> I heart ed and it's cousin, vi. After poring through the v6 manual and
> >> tutorial, I started loving ed. I ditched vim a while back and embraced nvi
> >> (berkeley's modern basic vi/ex). Very simple, very basic, extremely
> >> powerful, none of the bloat - basically heirloom with a few refinements.
> >>
> >>
> >> Will
> >>
> >> On 7/16/25 06:13, Cameron M????e??l Tyre via TUHS wrote:
> >>> Ah, rabbit holes. Dangerous things. I went down the ed rabbit hole around a month ago and no sign of me finding my way back out any time soon.
> >>>
> >>> I got obsessed with getting ed running on every device I have including my phones and then the big rabbit hole off that first one was learning how to use it properly and to the fullest of its abilities. That'll take a while.
> >>>
> >>> My library of ed related publications is getting so big its likely what's blocking the exit to the rabbit hole. On the plus side it has sharpened my typing skills, improved my patience and I I've learned to work out for myself what I've done to cause ed to say ?, instead of just typing h+Enter.
> >>>
> >>> As rabbit holes go, it's been stimulating so far and I could be stuck in worse places.
> >>>
> >>> Have a safe one!
> >>>
> >>> Cameron
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -------- Original Message --------
> >>> On 16/07/2025 01:01, Luther Johnson <luther.johnson@makerlisp.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I just noticed that algorithm and logarithm just have a couple of
> >>>> letters transposed from each other. So that's the kind of rabbit hole I
> >>>> get lost in most days.
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
--
---
Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <5wCXba6s3vZTN7uVsyRthHTn0yeKK0Cil7AUnz8USPWK2g_-qmyqwcgVM0NBhrltwTXcTlCagaCw91kqBruNyKOgFeMrTbXGNcBSPNj7OgY=@protonmail.com>
@ 2025-07-18 3:29 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 10:09 ` Larry McVoy
0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah via TUHS @ 2025-07-18 3:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: segaloco; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Jul 17, 2025, at 7:52 PM, segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:
>
>> If you just do ":E" it will put both windows on the current file,
>> exactly the same as vim. But both do it wrong (IMHO) as the second
>> window starts at the same place (e.g top of the file). In the Rand
>> Editor if the split is at line N, the bottom window shows lines N+1.
>> Exact same behavior for vertical split (the left and right side
>> windows show the same portions as before).
>>
>>> On Jul 17, 2025, at 6:09 PM, Larry McVoy lm@mcvoy.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Not really the same. :sp splits your window in half and puts you in
>>> two different windows on the same file. Each window, in vim, is full
>>> on vi, you can do :e fillename and now that window is on that file.
>
> Not historic but as of present I shunt windowing off to GNU screen and just have separate nvi sessions in each. This may speak to ignorance on my part regarding advantages of opening multiple files in the same session in any given vi. I keep vim around for when I need the value adds, but nvi is linked as ex/vi/view. I suppose it is nice to keep your window configuration tightly coupled, but I also frequently have vi in one pane and am using the others for od output and build/test cycle for disassembly projects.
Going via screen(1) can be more painful. If you want to copy some lines
from one file to another, you have to either create a temp file or
use the window systems's cut/paste buffer/clipboard. The latter can
actually works worse (if you have autoindent turned on for example).
Also the modal nature of vi/vim can wreak havoc (copied text can be
mistakenly interpreted as commands).
In vi you can yank lines in file1, paste in file2. And can share
options, tags etc. In the rand editor you can scroll two windows in
unison (handy if one shows column headings and the other some rows).
See acme for an example of a well designed multi window editor.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 1:09 ` Larry McVoy
[not found] ` <878B2F53-F2DE-42FC-99F9-A317EA11FBED@iitbombay.org>
@ 2025-07-18 5:04 ` Noel Hunt
2025-07-18 5:44 ` Rob Pike
1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Noel Hunt @ 2025-07-18 5:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Bakul Shah, Will Senn, tuhs
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 352 bytes --]
>
> But that is far less useful than having two windows into the same
> file where the mods to each window go to the same file. Think
> looking at code that has the structs at the top of the file and you
> need to wack a struck and wack the code that uses that struct.
> Quite pleasant.
You will find that this is exactly what 'Zerox' in acme does.
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 5:04 ` Noel Hunt
@ 2025-07-18 5:44 ` Rob Pike
0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2025-07-18 5:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Noel Hunt; +Cc: Bakul Shah, Will Senn, tuhs
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 509 bytes --]
Sam had it, acme took it (and much else) from Sam.
-rob
On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 3:22 PM Noel Hunt <noel.hunt@gmail.com> wrote:
> But that is far less useful than having two windows into the same
>> file where the mods to each window go to the same file. Think
>> looking at code that has the structs at the top of the file and you
>> need to wack a struck and wack the code that uses that struct.
>> Quite pleasant.
>
>
> You will find that this is exactly what 'Zerox' in acme does.
>
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 3:29 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
@ 2025-07-18 10:09 ` Larry McVoy
2025-07-18 20:58 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
[not found] ` <9b4bd127-5c12-40bc-81b2-f535ece830ac@gmail.com>
0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2025-07-18 10:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Bakul Shah; +Cc: segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 08:29:21PM -0700, Bakul Shah via TUHS wrote:
> On Jul 17, 2025, at 7:52???PM, segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> >> If you just do ":E" it will put both windows on the current file,
> >> exactly the same as vim. But both do it wrong (IMHO) as the second
> >> window starts at the same place (e.g top of the file). In the Rand
> >> Editor if the split is at line N, the bottom window shows lines N+1.
> >> Exact same behavior for vertical split (the left and right side
> >> windows show the same portions as before).
> >>
> >>> On Jul 17, 2025, at 6:09???PM, Larry McVoy lm@mcvoy.com wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Not really the same. :sp splits your window in half and puts you in
> >>> two different windows on the same file. Each window, in vim, is full
> >>> on vi, you can do :e fillename and now that window is on that file.
> >
> > Not historic but as of present I shunt windowing off to GNU screen and just have separate nvi sessions in each. This may speak to ignorance on my part regarding advantages of opening multiple files in the same session in any given vi. I keep vim around for when I need the value adds, but nvi is linked as ex/vi/view. I suppose it is nice to keep your window configuration tightly coupled, but I also frequently have vi in one pane and am using the others for od output and build/test cycle for disassembly projects.
>
> Going via screen(1) can be more painful. If you want to copy some lines
> from one file to another, you have to either create a temp file or
> use the window systems's cut/paste buffer/clipboard. The latter can
> actually works worse (if you have autoindent turned on for example).
> Also the modal nature of vi/vim can wreak havoc (copied text can be
> mistakenly interpreted as commands).
>
> In vi you can yank lines in file1, paste in file2. And can share
> options, tags etc. In the rand editor you can scroll two windows in
> unison (handy if one shows column headings and the other some rows).
> See acme for an example of a well designed multi window editor.
I was going to respond to the screen stuff but Bakul beat me to it.
In vim, you just have a split view of the same file. Changes in
either window will show up in the other window. For example
vim foo.c # foo.c exists and has a 100 lines
:sp
now you have both windows looking at the same file
start changing something and it is done in both windows.
Screen is nowhere near that and using it to claim that nvi is fine
is missing the point by a country mile.
And I don't understand the dislike of vim. Sure, it's got a pile
of stuff that old time Unix people would dislike "cat came back
from BSD wagging it's tail" (or something that Rob said) but you
don't have to use any of that. For me, vim is a finger compat
vi clone that has some really really useful extensions, I use
:split
all the time. Saying you prefer nvi in the face of that is
something that makes no sense to me. I've used nvi, I get that
it is compat with Joys vi, but so what? vim is more useful and
it is also compat.
Time marches on, perhaps march with it?
--lm
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 10:09 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2025-07-18 20:58 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 21:32 ` Larry McVoy
[not found] ` <3F63CCF4-3053-4184-87A2-F709FD2C75CC@chopps.org>
[not found] ` <9b4bd127-5c12-40bc-81b2-f535ece830ac@gmail.com>
1 sibling, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah via TUHS @ 2025-07-18 20:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Jul 18, 2025, at 3:09 AM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> In vim, you just have a split view of the same file. Changes in
> either window will show up in the other window. For example
>
> vim foo.c # foo.c exists and has a 100 lines
> :sp
In nvi
:E
> now you have both windows looking at the same file
Ditto
> start changing something and it is done in both windows.
In nvi changes don't show up right away in the other window
but show up once you switch to it. So not as good as vim but
in practice it doesn't matter much since usually you show
*different* parts in two windows pointing at the same file.
> Screen is nowhere near that and using it to claim that nvi is fine
> is missing the point by a country mile.
>
> And I don't understand the dislike of vim.
It is more that some of us *prefer* nvi to vim. [I might've used
vim when it was first posted on Usenet but Braam refused to make
at least provide an option to make multiple undo/redo behavior
compatible to nvi. So it goes!]
I don't care what tools my team members use as long as they are
pulling their weight. Usually the best programmers already have
a set of tools they are comfortable with. I wouldn't want to mess
with that. [I have worked in teams where people were using nvi,
vim, acme, sam, emacs, ee, IDEs etc.]
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 20:58 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
@ 2025-07-18 21:32 ` Larry McVoy
2025-07-18 22:39 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 22:53 ` Jeff Johnson
[not found] ` <3F63CCF4-3053-4184-87A2-F709FD2C75CC@chopps.org>
1 sibling, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2025-07-18 21:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Bakul Shah; +Cc: segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 01:58:12PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote:
> On Jul 18, 2025, at 3:09???AM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> > In vim, you just have a split view of the same file. Changes in
> > either window will show up in the other window. For example
> >
> > vim foo.c # foo.c exists and has a 100 lines
> > :sp
>
> In nvi
> :E
>
> > now you have both windows looking at the same file
>
> Ditto
>
> > start changing something and it is done in both windows.
>
> In nvi changes don't show up right away in the other window
> but show up once you switch to it. So not as good as vim but
> in practice it doesn't matter much since usually you show
> *different* parts in two windows pointing at the same file.
Hmm, when I tried nvi I don't think it had :E or I missed it. I read
release notes so it's strange I didn't catch it. Or maybe it was added
later because Keith was pretty focussed on 100% vi compat and I never
saw :E in vi either.
Whatever, you are happy with nvi, I'm happy with vim, so be it. Though
I'm teaching my kid vim because I strongly suspect vim is much more
widely used. This is starting to feel like a BSD vs Linux argument and
we know how that turned out.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 21:32 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2025-07-18 22:39 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 22:53 ` Jeff Johnson
1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah via TUHS @ 2025-07-18 22:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Jul 18, 2025, at 2:32 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> Hmm, when I tried nvi I don't think it had :E or I missed it. I read
> release notes so it's strange I didn't catch it. Or maybe it was added
> later because Keith was pretty focussed on 100% vi compat and I never
> saw :E in vi either.
vi didn't have this feature (or multiple undo/redo). Looking at
nvi logs, split windows were added on April 5, 1993 by Bostic.
[Doesn't seem that long ago :-(]
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-18 21:32 ` Larry McVoy
2025-07-18 22:39 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
@ 2025-07-18 22:53 ` Jeff Johnson
1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Johnson @ 2025-07-18 22:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy, Bakul Shah; +Cc: segaloco, TUHS
Yes, the editors can be very much a religious thing. There are actually
three major actively maintained versions of nvi in current use:
- Nvi1 - https://repo.or.cz/nvi.git
- Nvi2 - https://github.com/lichray/nvi2
- OpenVi - https://github.com/johnsonjh/OpenVi
Not directly related to Nvi, but Elvis (https://github.com/mbert/elvis)
and Xvi (https://github.com/martinwguy/xvi) are also still maintained
and have die-hard users.
I actually know of several people who use Andy Valencia's Vim fork known
as "Vim57" (https://sources.vsta.org:7100/vim57/tree) which forked from,
you guessed it, Vim 5.7. His fork consists of simplifying the code and
mostly removing things, for those that like Vim but prefer speed and
minimalism.
I use OpenVi quite a bit, and if you took away everything else from
me, I'd be able to get along just fine, but I'm certainly a Vim user,
and I spend most of my day driving NeoVim now.
Teach your kid Vim! You can't go wrong knowing Vim, and that knowledge
makes it easy drive the other editors in the Vi family (Vile, etc.) if
he wants to.
--
Jeffrey H. Johnson
trnsz@pobox.com
> Though I'm teaching my kid vim because I strongly suspect vim is much
> more widely used. This is starting to feel like a BSD vs Linux argument
> and we know how that turned out.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <20250718235927.GA15357@mcvoy.com>
@ 2025-07-19 1:05 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah via TUHS @ 2025-07-19 1:05 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Christian Hopps, segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Jul 18, 2025, at 4:59 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> I sort of get "." to repeat the undo but does nvi have a way to redo the
> changes you originally did? I've used that to try and track down what
> change I did that caused things to break, being able to go back and forth
> is useful in a long debugging session.
Let us say you want do undo last 4 changes. You type u...
Now you want to redo 3 of them. You type u..
Basically the second u undoes the undo, and . means repeat!
IIRC, in vi you could only undo one change. To redo you
use u again. vim broke that. nvi extended it compatibly.
[This may be a Europe/USA thing. In US a "toggle" button
seems quite acceptable but perhaps the EU bought into "human
factors design" which says to *not* use the same control for
/opposite/ functions as it can likely increase confusion.
Note: I may be completely wrong here but this was my guess!]
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <DD5D8D30-FDBD-4742-813C-A7F60D7253DA@typewritten.org>
@ 2025-07-19 14:17 ` James Cloos
2025-07-19 18:07 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: James Cloos @ 2025-07-19 14:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: r.stricklin; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
>>>>> "rs" == r stricklin <bear@typewritten.org> writes:
rs> I ended up adding ‘elvis-tiny’ to
rs> it, which is pretty much entirely self-contained. Entirely adequate
rs> for purpose, perfect on maintainability requirements.
busybox vi is also a good choice for tight systems. especially when
using bb for other applications, of course.
i often keep a `ln -s busybox /bin/vi` around when i want something
small and quick.
(and vimdiff for gentoo's etc-update.)
(but emacs for most editing. :)
-JimC
--
James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>
OpenPGP: https://jhcloos.com/0x997A9F17ED7DAEA6.asc
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
2025-07-19 14:17 ` James Cloos
@ 2025-07-19 18:07 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <393d865b-00db-4064-a84a-3adca8d9554f@app.fastmail.com>
0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Steffen Nurpmeso @ 2025-07-19 18:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
James Cloos wrote in
<m3o6tgs1rw.fsf@lugabout.jhcloos.org>:
|>>>>> "rs" == r stricklin <bear@typewritten.org> writes:
|
|rs> I ended up adding ‘elvis-tiny’ to
|rs> it, which is pretty much entirely self-contained. Entirely adequate
|rs> for purpose, perfect on maintainability requirements.
|
|busybox vi is also a good choice for tight systems. especially when
|using bb for other applications, of course.
it is (too, for me) super-tight.
|i often keep a `ln -s busybox /bin/vi` around when i want something
|small and quick.
|
|(and vimdiff for gentoo's etc-update.)
|
|(but emacs for most editing. :)
For years and years i want to go to Thomas Dickey's vile, but just
cannot get there.
"Problem with" nvi and nvi2 is they do not compile out of the box
of their repository, and nvi2 does not go at all here because it
does not include the Berkeley DBv1, and Linux does not have it,
nvi just includes the few kilobyte.
(Btw OpenBSD has the usr.bin/mg, an emacs-style thing, but pretty
small. I do not know wether someone somewhere has the small make
compatibility shim to make it a portable thing.)
--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
|
|During summer's humble, here's David Leonard's grumble
|
|The black bear, The black bear,
|blithely holds his own holds himself at leisure
|beating it, up and down tossing over his ups and downs with pleasure
|
|Farewell, dear collar bear
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <393d865b-00db-4064-a84a-3adca8d9554f@app.fastmail.com>
@ 2025-07-19 18:55 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <4d7ab3f8-8c3e-4589-a6f1-5108fac2507a@app.fastmail.com>
0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Steffen Nurpmeso @ 2025-07-19 18:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jeff Johnson; +Cc: TUHS
Jeff Johnson wrote in
<393d865b-00db-4064-a84a-3adca8d9554f@app.fastmail.com>:
|You should try OpenVi - which is easy to build and includes the OpenBSD’s \
|db and regex dependencies in the tree - https://github.com/johnsonjh/OpenVi
Compiles etc just fine and fast, but has no split/close (i do use
that), and also no UTF-8/Unicode (i am German) -- multibyte in \x
notation is .. too hard.
It is actually larger than vim (as here):
# ll /bin/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1763568 Jun 8 00:23 /bin/vi*
# ll /tmp/x/OpenVi/bin/vi
-rwxr-x--- 1 steffen steffen 2248288 Jul 19 20:50 /tmp/x/OpenVi/bin/vi*
# ldd /tmp/x/OpenVi/bin/vi
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffdf89e4000)
libncursesw.so.6 => /lib/libncursesw.so.6 (0x00007fd6111fb000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007fd61100b000)
/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fd6112d2000)
# ldd /bin/vi
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffe8dfa6000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00007f87feab2000)
libncursesw.so.6 => /lib/libncursesw.so.6 (0x00007f87fea3b000)
libacl.so.1 => /lib/libacl.so.1 (0x00007f87fea30000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f87fe840000)
/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f87fed4d000)
libattr.so.1 => /lib/libattr.so.1 (0x00007f87fe838000)
This is vim as CRUX-Linux builds it, out-of-the-box:
./configure \
--prefix=/usr \
--with-vim-name=vim \
--with-compiledby="$(crux | awk '{ print $1, $3 }')" \
--enable-multibyte \
--enable-cscope \
--enable-perlinterp=dynamic \
--enable-python3interp=dynamic \
--without-x \
--disable-gui \
--disable-gpm \
--disable-canberra \
--disable-nls
--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
|
|During summer's humble, here's David Leonard's grumble
|
|The black bear, The black bear,
|blithely holds his own holds himself at leisure
|beating it, up and down tossing over his ups and downs with pleasure
|
|Farewell, dear collar bear
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <4d7ab3f8-8c3e-4589-a6f1-5108fac2507a@app.fastmail.com>
@ 2025-07-19 19:47 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Steffen Nurpmeso @ 2025-07-19 19:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jeff Johnson; +Cc: TUHS
Jeff Johnson wrote in
<4d7ab3f8-8c3e-4589-a6f1-5108fac2507a@app.fastmail.com>:
|It’s only 142KB here - did you strip the binary?
No, did not strip; yes, vim is stripped; did not think about that,
i also only strip(1) on "make install", so.. bogus head.
|For split, use :E. The lack of multibyte is unfortunately something \
Ah, also. Ok.
|that can not be resolved easily without breaking compatibility with \
|the OpenBSD upstream - changes changes needed would be too extensive.
I see. But nice and easy compilation, out of the box!
|There is nvi2 for that that, but it might not be as easy build on Linux.
At least not from the repository checkout.
|--
|Jeffrey H. Johnson
|trnsz@pobox.com
--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
|
|During summer's humble, here's David Leonard's grumble
|
|The black bear, The black bear,
|blithely holds his own holds himself at leisure
|beating it, up and down tossing over his ups and downs with pleasure
|
|Farewell, dear collar bear
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <20250720075908.w6tetlcb3zhowbby@illithid>
@ 2025-07-20 11:38 ` Larry McVoy
[not found] ` <7a6615a5-ddda-469e-9323-a1159a25475c@case.edu>
1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2025-07-20 11:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 02:59:08AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2025-07-19T20:16:33-0500, Will Senn wrote:
> > I've thought about the "if you worked for me", dig and it kind of
> > stung.
>
> Manure often does.
>
> Larry came up in the soil from which grew tech bro culture.
>
> A preoccupation with managing the preferences of others, as with Steve
> Jobs's "thought leadership", is consistent with the authoritarian style
> he advocates.
Huh, you won't be surprised I have a different perspective. Allow me
to tell you how I describe managing engineers. Suppose we were artists,
there were 4 of us. Someone brought us a photograph and said "I want
a painting of that". OK, split it into quarters and go do it. What
do we get back?
Well, artist #1 likes oil paints so that's what s/he did.
Artist #2 likes charcoal so that's what they did.
Artist #3 likes pen and ink.
Artist #4 likes water color.
Is that a painting? Maybe if you like a mish mash of stuff that doesn't
go together. Most people would call it garbage and refuse to pay.
My so called "authoritarian style" is nothing more than I was the leader,
I had to pick one style. And, yes, it means if you have N people working
you usually have N-1 pissed off people because they weren't getting to do
things their way. Letting them do things their way means there is no
overall picture you are driving towards.
And I'm not above being overridden. I personally hate GNU make for all
the similar reasons you are advocating for a smaller vi. But my team
convinced me it was less work to move to that than maintain all the
scripts we were using to use a simple make.
But yeah, when people work for me, I lead. I set the tone. It wasn't
tech bro nonsense, it was about herding people towards the same picture.
I wasn't trying to tell Will he can't use whatever editor he wants, I was
trying to tell Will I wouldn't tolerate this much back and forth about his
personal preferences distracting us from shipping product. My team had
emacs people and vi people, nobody cared so long as you got your job done.
What we didn't have is editor arguments clogging up our thinking.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)
[not found] ` <CAD2gp_QzayOgkMPtqxQfE4tNhA1nuG+gGUVxjfnV3QwNW9w_cA@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2025-07-26 10:20 ` Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS
0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS @ 2025-07-26 10:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: TUHS
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 147 bytes --]
If I can just get . into my muscle memory bank, then I'd stop having...
w
q
...at the end of most of my documents!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 214 bytes --]
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
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2025-07-16 11:54 [TUHS] Re: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference) Norman Wilson
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[not found] ` <20250710161943.GM14377@mcvoy.com>
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2025-07-15 19:10 ` Johan Helsingius via TUHS
[not found] ` <CAKr6gn0r=2XuFdJwWpX4PPnJ_z9cd7taiCDXEV=jXj-BuBmCng@mail.gmail.com>
2025-07-16 0:01 ` Luther Johnson
2025-07-16 11:13 ` Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS
2025-07-16 12:09 ` arnold
[not found] ` <11f46800-2fa5-4321-a45b-0473242e2510@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <20250717200332.GH27987@mcvoy.com>
[not found] ` <EE165F02-C802-43AA-9330-7088342A371A@iitbombay.org>
2025-07-18 1:09 ` Larry McVoy
[not found] ` <878B2F53-F2DE-42FC-99F9-A317EA11FBED@iitbombay.org>
[not found] ` <5wCXba6s3vZTN7uVsyRthHTn0yeKK0Cil7AUnz8USPWK2g_-qmyqwcgVM0NBhrltwTXcTlCagaCw91kqBruNyKOgFeMrTbXGNcBSPNj7OgY=@protonmail.com>
2025-07-18 3:29 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 10:09 ` Larry McVoy
2025-07-18 20:58 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 21:32 ` Larry McVoy
2025-07-18 22:39 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-07-18 22:53 ` Jeff Johnson
[not found] ` <3F63CCF4-3053-4184-87A2-F709FD2C75CC@chopps.org>
[not found] ` <20250718235927.GA15357@mcvoy.com>
2025-07-19 1:05 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
[not found] ` <9b4bd127-5c12-40bc-81b2-f535ece830ac@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <20250718125210.GL30582@mcvoy.com>
[not found] ` <4c86e5b1-d694-48ef-b4ed-b0a182ba98d4@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <20250718194349.GG8625@mcvoy.com>
[not found] ` <DD5D8D30-FDBD-4742-813C-A7F60D7253DA@typewritten.org>
2025-07-19 14:17 ` James Cloos
2025-07-19 18:07 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <393d865b-00db-4064-a84a-3adca8d9554f@app.fastmail.com>
2025-07-19 18:55 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <4d7ab3f8-8c3e-4589-a6f1-5108fac2507a@app.fastmail.com>
2025-07-19 19:47 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <6c1b72c2-97cc-480d-bf56-fcb1e1e5f726@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <20250720075908.w6tetlcb3zhowbby@illithid>
2025-07-20 11:38 ` Larry McVoy
[not found] ` <7a6615a5-ddda-469e-9323-a1159a25475c@case.edu>
[not found] ` <CAD2gp_QzayOgkMPtqxQfE4tNhA1nuG+gGUVxjfnV3QwNW9w_cA@mail.gmail.com>
2025-07-26 10:20 ` Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS
2025-07-18 5:04 ` Noel Hunt
2025-07-18 5:44 ` Rob Pike
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