eNewsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: eric@fudge.uchicago.edu (Eric Fischer) Subject: The lost version of vi X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fudge.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test51 (15 Jan 97) Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:54:19 GMT Lines: 25 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.stanford.edu!uchinews2!uchinews!not-for-mail Every once in a while a thread pops up in this group about a long-lost version of vi which featured support for multiple windows and was destroyed in a disk crash. Thanks to Steve Kirkendall for pointing me to the interview with Bill Joy where he tells the story of what happened: I also wasn't very good at optimizing code when I wrote vi. I think the redisplay module of the editor is almost intractable. It does a really good job for what it does, but when you're writing programs as you're learning... That's why I stopped working on it. What actually happened was that I was in the process of adding multiwindows to vi when we installed our VAX, which would have been in December of '78. We didn't have any backups and the tape drive broke. I continued to work even without being able to do backups. And then the source code got scrunched and I didn't have a complete listing. I had almost rewritten all of the display code for windows, and that was when I gave up. After that, I went back to the previous version and just documented the code, finished the manual and closed it off. If that scrunch had not happened, vi would have multiple windows, and I might have put in some programmability -- but I don't know. This is from Jim Joyce's interview with Bill Joy in the August, 1984 issue of Unix Review, beginning on page 58. The quote appears on page 59. eric ###### Message-ID: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:54:16 -0400 From: Robert & Debbie Fetter X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.188.47.49 X-Trace: 28 Apr 1999 19:54:37 -0500, 204.188.47.49 Lines: 38 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!204.71.1.53!pull-feed.cwix.com!vangogh.loudoun.com!204.188.47.49 Eric Fischer wrote: > Every once in a while a thread pops up in this group about a long-lost > version of vi which featured support for multiple windows and was destroyed > in a disk crash. Thanks to Steve Kirkendall for pointing me to the interview > with Bill Joy where he tells the story of what happened: > > I also wasn't very good at optimizing code when I wrote vi. I think the > redisplay module of the editor is almost intractable. It does a really > good job for what it does, but when you're writing programs as you're > learning... That's why I stopped working on it. > > What actually happened was that I was in the process of adding > multiwindows to vi when we installed our VAX, which would have been in > December of '78. We didn't have any backups and the tape drive broke. > I continued to work even without being able to do backups. And then > the source code got scrunched and I didn't have a complete listing. I > had almost rewritten all of the display code for windows, and that was > when I gave up. After that, I went back to the previous version and > just documented the code, finished the manual and closed it off. If > that scrunch had not happened, vi would have multiple windows, and I > might have put in some programmability -- but I don't know. > > This is from Jim Joyce's interview with Bill Joy in the August, 1984 issue > of Unix Review, beginning on page 58. The quote appears on page 59. > > eric And, if this was being done 15 years ago, why isn't vi doing it now? Why? Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple platforms. And, very nicely, I might add. Yeah, this is a troll. (At least I'm honest.) ObFolkloreQuestion: When did the phrase "that's a BillJoy Solution (as in "you've just done a BillJoy") come into vogue? ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 00:18:59 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 925345139 205.166.146.8 (Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:18:59 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:18:59 CDT Lines: 21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!colt.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com>, Robert & Debbie Fetter wrote: > And, if this was being done 15 years ago, why isn't vi doing it now? Why? It is. nvi has windows. But mostly, because the feature turned out to be not all that important. >Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple platforms. And, >very nicely, I might add. Emacs has also evolved to break more standards in more ways than any other non-Microsoft program I can think of; it's held together with spit, duct tape, and collusion against defenseless compiler vendors. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: Luis Fernandes Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 29 Apr 1999 07:34:37 -0400 Organization: Ryerson Polytechnic University Lines: 23 Sender: elf@gemini Message-ID: References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sulfur.ee.ryerson.ca X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.6.42/Emacs 19.34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!195.211.211.32.MISMATCH!newscore.gigabell.net!newscore.ipf.de!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.enteract.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!130.185.14.36!torn!news.ryerson.ca!not-for-mail >>>>> "seebs" == Peter Seebach writes: seebs> In article <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com>, Robert & seebs> Debbie Fetter wrote: >> And, if this was being done 15 years ago, why isn't vi doing >> it now? Why? seebs> It is. nvi has windows. seebs> But mostly, because the feature turned out to be not all seebs> that important. >> Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple >> platforms. And, very nicely, I might add. seebs> Emacs has also evolved to break more standards in more seebs> ways than any other non-Microsoft program I can think of; seebs> it's held together with spit, duct tape, and collusion seebs> against defenseless compiler vendors. ... *AND* it emulates vi. M-x viper RET ###### From: Tim Shoppa Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:09:21 -0400 Organization: Trailing Edge Technology Lines: 24 Message-ID: <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: trailing-edge.wdn.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03Gold (X11; I; OpenVMS V7.0 DEC 3000 Model 300L) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.ecrc.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!netaxs.newsread.com!usenet Markus Wandel wrote: > > In article <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com>, > Robert & Debbie Fetter wrote: > > > > And, if this was being done 15 years ago, why isn't vi doing it now? Why? > >Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple platforms. And, > >very nicely, I might add. > > Ahem! Emacs has evolved to bog down any computer you can throw at it, > regardless how modern. I've got a 450MHz PC running Linux and guess what, > Emacs is slow and cumbersome! EMACS = "Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping". (OK, it was Eight when I first heard it a few years ago, but Eighty is more appropriate today.) > vi does an adequate job of editing files and it has done it exactly the same > way in the dozen years I've used to do practically all my editing. What's > so wrong with that? I've seen many folks pronounce "vi" as "six", for that matter... Tim. ###### From: cpierce1@ford.com (Clinton Pierce) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:50:59 GMT Organization: Hardly Lines: 17 Message-ID: <372bdb9d.268499201@news.ford.com> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 19.88.81.187 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-fra.pop.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!europa.netcrusader.net!141.211.144.13!cliffs.rs.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!news On Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:54:16 -0400, Robert & Debbie Fetter wrote: >Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple platforms. And, >very nicely, I might add. Emacs has evolved tentacles, glow-in-the-dark eyes on stalks, tail fins, chrome bumpers, a full endocrine system, telepathy, altruism, feathers, webbed feet, radiation sheidling, a nictitating membrane and valved nostrils. When Darwin finally catches up, there'll be hell to pay. -- Clinton A. Pierce "If you rush a Miracle Man, you get rotten clintp@geeksalad.org Miracles." -- Miracle Max, The Princess Bride http://www.geeksalad.org ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <372bdb9d.268499201@news.ford.com> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 15 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 19:24:32 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 925500272 205.166.146.8 (Fri, 30 Apr 1999 14:24:32 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 14:24:32 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <372bdb9d.268499201@news.ford.com>, Clinton Pierce wrote: >Emacs has evolved tentacles, glow-in-the-dark eyes on stalks, tail fins, >chrome bumpers, a full endocrine system, telepathy, altruism, feathers, >webbed feet, radiation sheidling, a nictitating membrane and valved >nostrils. It is no coincidence that they've got a kitchen sink icon. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: mwandel@nortel.ca (Markus Wandel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 30 Apr 1999 19:31:01 GMT Organization: Nortel Lines: 27 Message-ID: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: wcars0mc.ca.nortel.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!newscore.gigabell.net!newscore.ipf.de!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!zcarh46f.bnr.ca!bcarh8ac.ca.nortel.com!bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com!not-for-mail In article <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com>, Robert & Debbie Fetter wrote: > > And, if this was being done 15 years ago, why isn't vi doing it now? Why? >Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple platforms. And, >very nicely, I might add. Ahem! Emacs has evolved to bog down any computer you can throw at it, regardless how modern. I've got a 450MHz PC running Linux and guess what, Emacs is slow and cumbersome! vi does an adequate job of editing files and it has done it exactly the same way in the dozen years I've used to do practically all my editing. What's so wrong with that? And "vi compatibility" is a joke. Long-time vi users are used to _exactly_ how vi is supposed to work. vim (the one on Linux) is pretty good but it has multi-level undo which is a great feature but it trips me all the time, I expect "u" a second time to _re_do the change, not undo the one before it! Someone was asking about pulldown windows in an X-version of vi. Give me a break! That's like a surround sound stereo in a rowboat, or cupholders in an F-16. Flame away. Markus ###### Sender: mattg@mattg.oz.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> From: Matt Grossman Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.39.144.164 X-Trace: news7.ispnews.com 925526143 216.39.144.164 (Fri, 30 Apr 1999 22:35:43 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 22:35:43 EDT Date: 30 Apr 1999 19:35:17 -0700 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.corridex.com!hub1.ispnews.com!news7.ispnews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Tim Shoppa writes: > Markus Wandel wrote: > > > > In article <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com>, > > Robert & Debbie Fetter wrote: > > > > > > And, if this was being done 15 years ago, why isn't vi doing it now? Why? > > >Emacs has evolved to full windowing support, on multiple platforms. And, > > >very nicely, I might add. Hmm...I don't know how many people use that stuff though. The only windowing features I use are cut and paste with the mouse. I turn off the menubar to fit more text on the screen. > > > > Ahem! Emacs has evolved to bog down any computer you can throw at it, > > regardless how modern. I've got a 450MHz PC running Linux and guess what, > > Emacs is slow and cumbersome! > > EMACS = "Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping". (OK, it > was Eight when I first heard it a few years ago, but Eighty is > more appropriate today.) mattg@mattg:~/new_html$ ps auxwww | grep emacs mattg 836 0.0 10.2 29000 12968 1 S 16:32 0:09 emacs mattg 837 0.0 0.4 2048 560 ? S 16:32 0:00 /usr/local/libexec/emacs/20.3/alphaev56-unknown-linux-gnu/emacsserver Even with massive Alpha binaries, not even close to 80 MB! :-) Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot of MS software. Matt Grossman mattg@oz.net http://www.oz.net/~mattg ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 18 Message-ID: <%WoW2.2102$WA4.407094@ptah.visi.com> Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 21:06:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 925506363 205.166.146.8 (Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:06:03 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:06:03 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!howland.erols.net!hub1.ispnews.com!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com>, Markus Wandel wrote: >And "vi compatibility" is a joke. Long-time vi users are used to _exactly_ >how vi is supposed to work. vim (the one on Linux) is pretty good but it has >multi-level undo which is a great feature but it trips me all the time, I >expect "u" a second time to _re_do the change, not undo the one before it! Use 'nvi', it gets infinite undo "right". (u.... undoes last 5 changes. uk. undoes a change, moves up a line, and redoes the change. uuu undoes, redoes, and undoes again.) -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: David Scheidt Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 1 May 1999 03:29:01 GMT Organization: EnterAct L.L.C. Turbo-Elite News Server Lines: 23 Message-ID: <7gdsdt$s6h$1@eve.enteract.com> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.229.143.42 User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990216 ("Styrofoam") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/3.1-STABLE (i386)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.enteract.com!news.enteract.com!not-for-mail Matt Grossman wrote: : Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much : does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all : that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in : significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot : of MS software. But does it need all those resources, all the time? I am a recovered emacs user[1], and when I used emacs, I would have sessions running all the time, because it took forever to startup, and it was faster that way. With vi, I very rarely reuse an editor instance to look at unrelated files. So for long periods, I don't use any resources that I don't need. With that emacs session hanging out for months on end, I caused a lot of needless swaping. As for MS software not being bloated, have you read RISKS 20.35? (The most recent.) David -- dscheidt@enteract.com But I simply can't find it anywhere in me to imagine that someone might want to stick sharp pasta spikes down into his penis. -D.M. Procida ###### From: don@news.daedalus.co.nz (Don Stokes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 1 May 1999 04:22:45 GMT Organization: Daedalus Consulting Lines: 39 Message-ID: <925532564.493335@estelle.paradise.net.nz> References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: estelle.paradise.net.nz X-Trace: titan.xtra.co.nz 925532565 1638690 203.96.152.5 (1 May 1999 04:22:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@xtra.co.nz NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 May 1999 04:22:45 GMT Cache-Post-Path: estelle.paradise.net.nz!unknown@p16-cable.paradise.net.nz X-Cache: nntpcache 2.3.3b4 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!lsanca1-snf1!news.gtei.net!news.netgate.net.nz!news.xtra.co.nz!don In article , Matt Grossman wrote: >Tim Shoppa writes: >> EMACS = "Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping". (OK, it >> was Eight when I first heard it a few years ago, but Eighty is >> more appropriate today.) > >mattg@mattg:~/new_html$ ps auxwww | grep emacs >mattg 836 0.0 10.2 29000 12968 1 S 16:32 0:09 emacs >mattg 837 0.0 0.4 2048 560 ? S 16:32 0:00 /usr/local/libexec/emacs/20.3/alphaev56-unknown-linux-gnu/emacsserver > >Even with massive Alpha binaries, not even close to 80 MB! :-) The "eight" or "eighty" referred to the core on the host machine, not the size of emacs itself. That and "Emacs Makes All Computers Slow", refers to the fact that at 12 MB resident, an 80 MB computer won't support anywhere near as many Emacs users as it will users running editors and tools more with reasonable memory requirements. >Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much >does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all But you don't need all those things resident *at* *the* *same* *time*. I don't make my compiler, all my utilities etc resident while I'm editing, just as I don't leave my editor resident while I'm compiling. (Of course if it's *that* bloated it'll take too long to get its elephantine carcass into core to *not* leave it resident. Yeuchh!) Using 12 MB purely to edit a few little files is, shall we say, not something that impresses me. >that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in >significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot >of MS software. I think your need to even bring MS into the argument pretty much speaks for itself. -- Don Stokes, Networking Consultant http://www.daedalus.co.nz +64 25 739 724 ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Date: 01 May 1999 14:22:31 GMT Message-ID: <372b0e27$0$494@news.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-022.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 925568551 494 194.247.41.27 Lines: 10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail On 1999-04-29 seebs@plethora.net(PeterSeebach) said: :Emacs has also evolved to break more standards in more ways than any :other non-Microsoft program I can think of; it's held together with :spit, duct tape, and collusion against defenseless compiler vendors. So long as it compiles under GCC, what's the problem? ;> -- Communa (lisard@zetnet.co.uk) -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### Sender: mattg@mattg.oz.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> <925532564.493335@estelle.paradise.net.nz> From: Matt Grossman Message-ID: Lines: 77 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.39.144.164 X-Trace: news7.ispnews.com 925609718 216.39.144.164 (Sat, 01 May 1999 21:48:38 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 21:48:38 EDT Date: 01 May 1999 18:48:14 -0700 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hub1.ispnews.com!news7.ispnews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail don@news.daedalus.co.nz (Don Stokes) writes: > In article , Matt Grossman wrote: > >Tim Shoppa writes: > >> EMACS = "Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping". (OK, it > >> was Eight when I first heard it a few years ago, but Eighty is > >> more appropriate today.) > > > >mattg@mattg:~/new_html$ ps auxwww | grep emacs > >mattg 836 0.0 10.2 29000 12968 1 S 16:32 0:09 emacs > >mattg 837 0.0 0.4 2048 560 ? S 16:32 0:00 /usr/local/libexec/emacs/20.3/alphaev56-unknown-linux-gnu/emacsserver > > > >Even with massive Alpha binaries, not even close to 80 MB! :-) > > The "eight" or "eighty" referred to the core on the host machine, not > the size of emacs itself. That and "Emacs Makes All Computers Slow", > refers to the fact that at 12 MB resident, an 80 MB computer won't > support anywhere near as many Emacs users as it will users running > editors and tools more with reasonable memory requirements. > True. The thought of a MicroVAX with 10 users, all trying to use emacs, is pretty bad. Fortunately the only MicroVAX I encountered ran VMS and I didn't know about emacs then. A personal machine, however, only needs to support 1 user. I ran emacs and X comfortably, if slowly, on an 8MB 486. I willingly took the speed hit to have a more comfortable environment. Obviously what makes a more comfortable environment is a matter of taste. > >Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much > >does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all > > But you don't need all those things resident *at* *the* *same* *time*. I > don't make my compiler, all my utilities etc resident while I'm editing, > just as I don't leave my editor resident while I'm compiling. (Of course > if it's *that* bloated it'll take too long to get its elephantine carcass > into core to *not* leave it resident. Yeuchh!) Do you always make sure to "exec vi" so your shell isn't around taking up space while you are editing? :-) > Using 12 MB purely to edit a few little files is, shall we say, not > something that impresses me. Hmm...I always seem to be looking at three or four files at once, while running a shell and looking through *grep* or *compilation* buffers, checking a mail message, etc. That's at least 5 xterms, plus multiple vi instances, multiple shells and a mail reader. And X. I usually run emacs under X, but I don't need to. If I just have to edit /etc/fstab or something, I use vi. If I have to do real work, I use emacs. > >that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in > >significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot > >of MS software. > > I think your need to even bring MS into the argument pretty much speaks > for itself. I don't think all their stuff is bloated or slow, and some if it (eg Excel) seems to have a lot of useful features. Matter of opinion I guess. The biggest slug I've seen recently was Sun's HTML "help" system on an Ultra 5. Yet another valiant attempt to stem the tide of people using Unix systems. BTW, what's the plural of "vi"? I think of emacs as its own plural ("I'm running two emacs."). Matt Grossman mattg@oz.net http://www.oz.net/~mattg ###### Sender: mattg@mattg.oz.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> <7gdsdt$s6h$1@eve.enteract.com> From: Matt Grossman Message-ID: Lines: 20 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.39.144.164 X-Trace: news7.ispnews.com 925609823 216.39.144.164 (Sat, 01 May 1999 21:50:23 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 21:50:23 EDT Date: 01 May 1999 18:50:03 -0700 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newspeer.monmouth.com!hub1.ispnews.com!news7.ispnews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail David Scheidt writes: > Matt Grossman wrote: > : Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much > : does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all > : that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in > : significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot > : of MS software. > > As for MS software not being bloated, have you read RISKS 20.35? (The most > recent.) Touche. But I didn't say "all", I said "a lot". Matt Grossman mattg@oz.net http://www.oz.net/~mattg ###### From: martin@ibert.com (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 10:54:24 GMT Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 15 Message-ID: <372d2e6e.6995499@news.home.ibert.com> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: arezzo.home.ibert.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!home.ibert.com!news On 30 Apr 1999 19:35:17 -0700, Matt Grossman wrote: >Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much >does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all >that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in >significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot >of MS software. Personally, I'm an Emacs user myself. That said, while it may be true that Emacs does include lots and lots of features for the memory it eats, most people actually never use most of those features, so a lot of the memory used is actually wasted. -- >> Please visit http://www.ibert.com/ for contact information. << ----------------------------------------------------------------- Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed! ###### From: Luis Fernandes Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 03 May 1999 08:51:54 -0400 Organization: Ryerson Polytechnic University Lines: 8 Sender: elf@gemini Message-ID: References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> <925532564.493335@estelle.paradise.net.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: sulfur.ee.ryerson.ca X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.6.42/Emacs 19.34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!torn!news.ryerson.ca!not-for-mail >>>>> "mattg" == Matt Grossman writes: mattg> BTW, what's the plural of "vi"? I think of emacs as its mattg> own plural ("I'm running two emacs."). The plural of vi is 666; emacs does not have a plural because you only need but one emacs. You can make even it your login shell (it's been tried with xemacs, and it worked). ###### From: tph@longhorn.uucp (Tom Harrington) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 3 May 1999 15:12:43 GMT Organization: Mechanist Industries Lines: 22 Message-ID: <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> Reply-To: tph@rmi.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 19.53.90.53 X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu.MISMATCH!cliffs.rs.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!longhorn!tph Markus Wandel (mwandel@nortel.ca) wrote: : And "vi compatibility" is a joke. Long-time vi users are used to _exactly_ : how vi is supposed to work. vim (the one on Linux) is pretty good but it has : multi-level undo which is a great feature but it trips me all the time, I : expect "u" a second time to _re_do the change, not undo the one before it! Fortunately this has never been a problem for me, because I used emacs until vim cured me of it. BTW, "redo" is ^R in vim. : Someone was asking about pulldown windows in an X-version of vi. Give me a : break! That's like a surround sound stereo in a rowboat, or cupholders in : an F-16. "vim -g", or "gvim". Gives you vim in its own window, complete with a menu bar, scroll bar, basically the whole WIMP shebang. I don't expect that many users of emacs or vi/vim have much use for them, though. -- Tom Harrington --------- tph@rmii.com -------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph "I may be gibbering, but I don't feel I am wrong" --Mike Falkner Cookie's Revenge: ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/tph/cookie/cookies-revenge.sit.hqx ###### From: mwandel@nortel.ca (Markus Wandel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 3 May 1999 15:35:49 GMT Organization: Nortel Lines: 16 Message-ID: <7gkfol$s8r$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: wcars0mc.ca.nortel.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!howland.erols.net!torn!qcarh002.nortelnetworks.com!bcarh189.ca.nortel.com!bmerhc5e.ca.nortel.com!bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com!not-for-mail In article , Matt Grossman wrote: [about EMACS] >Seriously, the question shouldn't be "how big is it" but "how much >does it do with the space it uses". Emacs does an awful lot in all >that space. It's not clear if you could do what emacs does in >significantly less space. IMHO the same is true of X, and even a lot >of MS software. Emacs is like a 3-ton Cadillac with all the options, whereas vi is like a motor scooter. Trouble is, sometimes you want the motor scooter. vi is in the true Unix philosophy, a small tool to do a well-understood task, meant to work with other tools. Not replace them all. Markus ###### From: oexel@economatica.com.br (Otavio Exel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 4 May 1999 13:06:36 GMT Organization: Economatica Ltda Lines: 10 Message-ID: <559A1109AE6F9ADA.2FC71EF80F4AFD01.6808E9D3942B680B@library-proxy.airnews.net> X-Orig-Message-ID: References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> Reply-To: oexel@economatica.com.br Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library3 NNTP-Posting-Time: Tue May 4 08:06:37 1999 NNTP-Posting-Host: !`g?f1k-X5q33ohFV&20CMOYM (Encoded at Airnews!) X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!uio.no!uninett.no!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.airnews.net!cabal10.airnews.net!cabal1.airnews.net!news-f.iadfw.net!oexel Tim Shoppa wrote: > > EMACS = "Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping". (OK, it > was Eight when I first heard it a few years ago, but Eighty is > more appropriate today.) while "Esc-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift" is eternal! -- Otavio Exel /<\oo/>\ oexel@economatica.com.br ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 6 May 1999 23:06:12 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 20 Message-ID: <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!nntp.primenet.com!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!newshub1.wanet.net!gondor!rohan!stremler Tom Harrington (tph@longhorn.uucp) wrote: > "vim -g", or "gvim". Gives you vim in its own window, complete with > a menu bar, scroll bar, basically the whole WIMP shebang. I don't expect > that many users of emacs or vi/vim have much use for them, though. The advantage is that when you're on a box that doesn't have a nice color X-term, gvim gives you something that makes syntax-hilighting look relatively pleasant. Now, if we wrote in a language like Prime's CPL, where the keywords are easily distinguished from variables, we would not need all this fancy color, and 80 x 25 monochrome would be good enough. -- Stewart Stremler stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- But fear not. Because not only do we not know what he's talking about, it obvious that we shouldn't care, either. -- Paul Tomblin ###### From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Ant=F3nio?= Vasconcelos Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 02:59:22 +0100 Organization: EUnet Portugal customers news server Lines: 8 Message-ID: <373248FA.4F44121E@mail.eunet.pt> References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 193.126.5.158 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!EU.net!Portugal.EU.net!not-for-mail Tom Harrington wrote: > Fortunately this has never been a problem for me, because I used emacs > until vim cured me of it. BTW, "redo" is ^R in vim. Thanks... Been cought in UU more than once... ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 19 Message-ID: <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:39:01 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926102341 205.166.146.8 (Fri, 07 May 1999 13:39:01 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 13:39:01 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu>, Stewart Stremler wrote: >The advantage is that when you're on a box that doesn't have a nice >color X-term, gvim gives you something that makes syntax-hilighting >look relatively pleasant. YMMV. I still can't stand syntax-highlighting. I want it about as much as I want a newsreader that puts prepositions in green and verbs in blue, nouns in red, and punctuation in the color of the next word before or after it depending. I really like non-highlit code. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### Message-ID: <3730CF70.3673B5AB@gazonk.del> Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 19:08:32 -0400 From: "Foobar T. Clown" Organization: Blurp X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <37279FA7.12B3AD22@loudoun.com> <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <3729D5B1.59958709@trailing-edge.com> <559A1109AE6F9ADA.2FC71EF80F4AFD01.6808E9D3942B680B@library-proxy.airnews.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.133.110.49 X-Trace: 5 May 1999 19:10:58 -0500, 198.133.110.49 Lines: 18 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-ber1.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!news1.mid-ga.com!xenon!ix.netcom.com!zeus.nomos.com!198.133.110.49 Otavio Exel wrote: > > Tim Shoppa wrote: > > EMACS = "Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping".... > > while "Esc-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift" is eternal! Euphoric Man And Computer Symbiosis P.S., I have never seen a keyboard that had both a Meta key and an Alt key. Is there such a thing? (I mean one where the key caps actually say "Meta" and "Alt.") The last keyboard I ever used that was really well suited for EMACS was on a Symbolics 3600. It had "Control," "Meta," "Super," "Hyper," "Shift," "Top," and "Greek." ###### From: Greg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 07 May 1999 15:51:47 -0400 Lines: 33 Sender: gregm@europa Message-ID: References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> X-Trace: dmB+dr0NoyF2JG7elsfxm/9i47MN1ZsLlVLWNyYW/vI= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 May 1999 20:43:46 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!feeder.qis.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail I want an editor which will highlight the bugs... Gregm > Peter Seebach (seebs@plethora.net) wrote: > > > YMMV. I still can't stand syntax-highlighting. I want it about as much > > as I want a newsreader that puts prepositions in green and verbs in blue, > > nouns in red, and punctuation in the color of the next word before or > > after it depending. > > Depends on the task... for some prose, that would be useful; especially > if the writer had the same sort of color-scheme in place while writing > it. Well, no. Then you'd get brick-text with 'pictures' [tie to the > Naked ASCII ladies thread?] and even less sense. > > > I really like non-highlit code. > > Some days I leave it off; some days it's quite nice -- if the colors are > set up; many color combinations are atrocious (and what constitutes useful > seems to vary day-by-day). Most of the time the color scheme I use makes > comments a dark-blue, and on a black background, it's easy for the eye > to ignore the comments... I suppose an editor with the ability to "fold" > the text would take care of that. > > Since much of syntax-hilighting is merely keyword-marking, what do you > think about other mechanisms to mark keywords? That is, how do you > react to > > &if [foo > bar] &then &print "Hello" &else &exit 1 ###### Date: 07 May 99 17:33:10 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7gvn1v$r4o$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: <678.796T547T10534024@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 18 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com X-Trace: 7 May 1999 17:41:56 -0800, news.skybus.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newshub.northeast.verio.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.228.179.2!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news-in-west1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.106 In article <7gvn1v$r4o$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes: >In article , Greg wrote: > >>I want an editor which will highlight the bugs... > >That's easy! Or did you want an editor which will highlight _only_ >the bugs? Then that's not so easy. That reminds me of a Paul Bunyan tale. Someone in the camp (the cook, I believe) had a magic eraser which would wipe from the page only those figures which were wrong. He got rid of it, though, because it kept leaving him a blank sheet of paper... -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 7 May 1999 20:28:37 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 34 Message-ID: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler Peter Seebach (seebs@plethora.net) wrote: > YMMV. I still can't stand syntax-highlighting. I want it about as much > as I want a newsreader that puts prepositions in green and verbs in blue, > nouns in red, and punctuation in the color of the next word before or > after it depending. Depends on the task... for some prose, that would be useful; especially if the writer had the same sort of color-scheme in place while writing it. Well, no. Then you'd get brick-text with 'pictures' [tie to the Naked ASCII ladies thread?] and even less sense. > I really like non-highlit code. Some days I leave it off; some days it's quite nice -- if the colors are set up; many color combinations are atrocious (and what constitutes useful seems to vary day-by-day). Most of the time the color scheme I use makes comments a dark-blue, and on a black background, it's easy for the eye to ignore the comments... I suppose an editor with the ability to "fold" the text would take care of that. Since much of syntax-hilighting is merely keyword-marking, what do you think about other mechanisms to mark keywords? That is, how do you react to &if [foo > bar] &then &print "Hello" &else &exit 1 ? -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Death cannot stop True Love. All it can do | stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu is delay it for awhile." | Stewart Stremler -The Man In Black (_The Princess Bride_) | ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 7 May 1999 21:47:43 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 10 Message-ID: <7gvn1v$r4o$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul10.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 926113663 27800 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!nntp.primenet.com!newsfeed.enteract.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article , Greg wrote: >I want an editor which will highlight the bugs... > >Gregm That's easy! Or did you want an editor which will highlight _only_ the bugs? Then that's not so easy. -- Derek ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 38 Message-ID: <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 22:27:12 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926116032 205.166.146.8 (Fri, 07 May 1999 17:27:12 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 17:27:12 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu>, Stewart Stremler wrote: >Depends on the task... for some prose, that would be useful; especially >if the writer had the same sort of color-scheme in place while writing >it. Well, no. Then you'd get brick-text with 'pictures' [tie to the >Naked ASCII ladies thread?] and even less sense. Uh-huh. >Some days I leave it off; some days it's quite nice -- if the colors are >set up; many color combinations are atrocious (and what constitutes useful >seems to vary day-by-day). Most of the time the color scheme I use makes >comments a dark-blue, and on a black background, it's easy for the eye >to ignore the comments... I suppose an editor with the ability to "fold" >the text would take care of that. Oh, that's interesting. I would never have thought to use it to ignore comments. :) >Since much of syntax-hilighting is merely keyword-marking, what do you >think about other mechanisms to mark keywords? That is, how do you >react to > &if [foo > bar] &then &print "Hello" &else &exit 1 Ugh. Horrible. perl got that right; don't mark keywords, mark created things. I'm okay with C, just because the set of keywords is tolerably small, and mostly I punctuate anyway. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 11 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 22:27:33 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926116053 205.166.146.8 (Fri, 07 May 1999 17:27:33 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 17:27:33 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.ecrc.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , Greg wrote: >I want an editor which will highlight the bugs... I've noticed that code I know is buggy always looks red. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 8 May 1999 00:55:11 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 54 Message-ID: <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler Peter Seebach (seebs@plethora.net) wrote: > Oh, that's interesting. I would never have thought to use it to ignore > comments. :) Touche'. Well, not the comments per se... (although, ignoring JavaDoc is not a bad thing. Mixing html and code is nice *after* the fact, but not during development...and waiting to the end to add the Javadoc simply sucks. I much prefer to document as I go along. Plus the $Log$ stuff isn't useful, most of the time.) I have a habit of copying a chunk of code, putting /* before and */ after, and then making my change. Then I can keep an eye on the "original" code as I make changes. "Hiding the comments" means that I can follow actual code, and ignore the old stuff; at least until I can cvs in the new [working] code, when I go back and delete all the dead stuff. > > &if [foo > bar] &then &print "Hello" &else &exit 1 > Ugh. Horrible. YMMV... Apparently getting away from that sort of think was a primary motivator for Rexx; however, Rexx was even uglier. > perl got that right; don't mark keywords, mark created things. One or the other; it makes little difference so long as it's easy to distinguish between keywords and variables. However, I don't think that perl necessarily 'got it right' -- programs tend to turn into gibberish after a month of not looking at the source (perhaps it's a quantum effect). > I'm okay with C, just because the set of keywords is tolerably small, Yup. > and mostly I punctuate anyway. Howso? Do you mean most of your data is on the heap, so you're referring to &p and *q in the code? -- Stewart Stremler stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- design, n.: What you regret not doing later on. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 97 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 08 May 1999 06:11:44 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926143904 205.166.146.8 (Sat, 08 May 1999 01:11:44 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 08 May 1999 01:11:44 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu>, Stewart Stremler wrote: >Peter Seebach (seebs@plethora.net) wrote: >> Oh, that's interesting. I would never have thought to use it to ignore >> comments. :) >Touche'. I didn't mean that as a derogatory remark; it's actually very clever. Often, I want to review a piece of code, and the best way to do that is not to read the comments. ;-) >I have a habit of copying a chunk of code, putting /* before and */ after, >and then making my change. Then I can keep an eye on the "original" code >as I make changes. Eeww. '#if 0' exists for a reason. >Apparently getting away from that sort of think was a primary motivator >for Rexx; however, Rexx was even uglier. Heh. My exposure to it was mostly ARexx. I *wish* anyone else had done that job half as well. >One or the other; it makes little difference so long as it's easy >to distinguish between keywords and variables. However, I don't think >that perl necessarily 'got it right' -- programs tend to turn into >gibberish after a month of not looking at the source (perhaps it's a >quantum effect). I've seen stable and readable perl. Mostly, you have to get good about using the squiggles whenever they're appropriate, not just when you have to. >> and mostly I punctuate anyway. >Howso? >Do you mean most of your data is on the heap, so you're referring to >&p and *q in the code? No, although I do a lot of that. I mean that, for instance, I don't use the crud to write if (a and b) and I mostly try to use layout to communicate my intent. Also, I choose names carefully; none of this pseudo-Hungarian crud MS would foist on the world. Syntax coloring helps a lot more on while(*pszTheString=*pszTheOtherString) { ++pszTheString, ++pszTheOtherString; } Than it does on while (*s++ = *t++) ; Well chosen names (especially "commonly used names in a given chunk of code probably want to be one letter") and good layout go a *long* way. I've never gotten the fascination with long names for commonly used objects. When was the last time you saw Proof: For every pair of elements eElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH, and fElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH, we know that eElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH oOperationPlus fElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH is a member of gGroupG, because gGroupG is closed under oOperationPlus, and likewise, we know that eElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH oOperationPlus fElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH is a member of gGroupH, because gGroupH is closed undeer oOperationPlus; therefore, the result is a member of gGroupIntersectiongGroupGandgGroupH, thus, gGroupIntersectiongGroupGandgGroupH is closed under oOperationPlus. in a math book? Much easier: For every pair of elements e, f such that e 3 G^H and f 3 G^H, we know that e+f is a member of G, because G is closed under addition, and that e+f is also a member of H, because H is closed under addition - therefore, e+f is a member of G^H, and G^H must be closed under addition as well. Even easier to read if you have the right squiggles. (Of course, you could argue that the use of /italics/ for variable names in mathematics undermines my argument - but I think that it's mostly necessary because English doesn't have well defined semantics for "the next thing you see is either a constant in one of two or three well-defined forms, or a named thing I have referred to by name earlier in this paragraph". If it did, I doubt we'd have bothered with the /italics/.) -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: "Adam Atkinson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 08 May 99 09:34:06 +0000 Organization: Collegio Pierpaoli, Montaguzzo Lines: 20 Message-ID: <888.797T341T5742854ghira@mistral.co.uk> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.184.228.192 X-Trace: starburst.uk.insnet.net 926152468 15546 195.184.228.192 (8 May 1999 08:34:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@starburst.uk.insnet.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 May 1999 08:34:28 GMT X-No-Ahbou: yes X-Newsreader: THOR 2.6 (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!insnet.net!not-for-mail On 08-May-99 06:11:44, Peter Seebach said: >(Of course, you could argue that the use of /italics/ for variable names in >mathematics undermines my argument - but I think that it's mostly necessary >because English doesn't have well defined semantics for "the next thing you >see is either a constant in one of two or three well-defined forms, or a >named thing I have referred to by name earlier in this paragraph". If it >did, I doubt we'd have bothered with the /italics/.) I find that algebra on usenet works sort of ok. I have a lot more trouble doing algebra in Italian newsgroups since "a", "e", "i" and "o" are all words in Italian. I can see why italics help there. English has "a" and "I" of course. "O" is a fairly rare exclamation, unlikely to turn up in a proof. -- Adam Atkinson (ghira@mistral.co.uk) ZOOGE ###### From: Terry Richards Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Sat, 08 May 1999 10:14:20 -0400 Organization: Terry Richards Software Message-ID: <373446BC.2575@idt.net> References: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> Reply-To: trs@idt.net NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-15.ts-1.hp.idt.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-IDT-v5 (WinNT; U) Lines: 12 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.idt.net!nntp.farm.idt.net!news lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > > [snip] > > Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would appear > to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the language is shite. VC6 has the same capability. I thought it was a "frill" when I first saw it but I'd really miss it if it went away now. -- Terry Richards ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 8 May 1999 11:22:21 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 158 Message-ID: <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler Peter Seebach (seebs@plethora.net) wrote: [snip] > I didn't mean that as a derogatory remark; it's actually very clever. Often, > I want to review a piece of code, and the best way to do that is not to read > the comments. ;-) Well, that's comforting. But it was nevertheless a wonderful zinger, intentional or not. :) > >I have a habit of copying a chunk of code, putting /* before and */ after, > >and then making my change. Then I can keep an eye on the "original" code > >as I make changes. > Eeww. '#if 0' exists for a reason. Java doesn't let me do that. And since it's all temporary, typing "O/*^[jo*/^[" is fewer keystrokes. Of course, if there are embedded /* */ comments, I'm SOL anyway (unless I'm in C, in which case the the preprocessor approach does come in handy). > >Apparently getting away from that sort of think was a primary motivator > >for Rexx; however, Rexx was even uglier. > Heh. My exposure to it was mostly ARexx. I *wish* anyone else had done > that job half as well. The abilities, or the syntax? ARexx did some cool stuff. But I never really used it as a macro facility on the Amiga; it was just too annoying to use. I got bit several times by namespace collisions. [snip] > I've seen stable and readable perl. Mostly, you have to get good about > using the squiggles whenever they're appropriate, not just when you have > to. It still seems APLish. I like *writing* perl; I hate reading it. TCL/TK, on the other hand, is quite nice, both ways. > >Do you mean most of your data is on the heap, so you're referring to > >&p and *q in the code? > No, although I do a lot of that. For preference, or does it just work out that way? > I mean that, for instance, I don't use the crud to write > if (a and b) > and I mostly try to use layout to communicate my intent. (....quick peek at iso646.h...) Ugh! You're right, that *is* ugly. I've been lucky; I've never seen that before. > Also, I choose names carefully; none of this pseudo-Hungarian crud MS > would foist on the world. Ugh again. MS "standards" suck. If I had to work in a shop that required such horrible conventions, I'd put a script around cvs to convert to[from] sane conventions on update[commit]. . . > Syntax coloring helps a lot more on > while(*pszTheString=*pszTheOtherString) { > ++pszTheString, ++pszTheOtherString; > } I don't know if syntax color could help that code at all. > Than it does on > while (*s++ = *t++) > ; Hm. Yah, there's not much *to* color there. [On another issue, I tend to write the above as while ( *s++ = *t++ ) { /* NOP */ } just because I don't like dangling semicolons. Is this another "Eww"?] > Well chosen names (especially "commonly used names in a given chunk of code > probably want to be one letter") and good layout go a *long* way. I tend to use one-letter variables only in particular, restricted circumstances. Things like i, j, and k for integer loop counters; p and q for generic pointers, s and t for [source & target] string pointers, c for a character... [and e for an Enumeration, x for an Exception, etc.] On the other hand, I'm not overly fond of minimal-length variables; it isn't that hard to learn how to touch-type, and the difference between two characters and six, or eight, is mostly one of readability. (Don't think about my trying to save a handful of keystrokes when commenting out code...) > I've never gotten the fascination with long names for commonly used objects. There should be a relationship between how commonly used objects are, what their lifespan is, and the name of the variable that references them. Short-term objects should have very short names; long-term, frequently used objects should have medium-length names (e.g. "config" is a better name for a LocalConfiguration object than, say, "c", as well as being miles better than localConfigurationInstance), and unused objects can have quite long names. > When was the last time you saw > Proof: For every pair of elements eElementOfgGroupGandgGroupH, and [snip] > gGroupIntersectiongGroupGandgGroupH is closed under oOperationPlus. > in a math book? Well... I've seen books where that would be an _improvement_. :-/ > Much easier: > For every pair of elements e, f such that e 3 G^H and f 3 G^H, we know > that e+f is a member of G, because G is closed under addition, and > that e+f is also a member of H, because H is closed under addition - > therefore, e+f is a member of G^H, and G^H must be closed under > addition as well. > Even easier to read if you have the right squiggles. Actually, these days I unconciously mentally translate math in books into TeX (I picked up _A Plain TeX Primer_ for $2 on a bargain table, and have played with it a bit...it's fun, but sometimes frustrating). Having the right squiggles proves to be a distraction. This, of course, does not (and is not an attempt to) invalidate your point. > (Of course, you could argue that the use of /italics/ for variable names in > mathematics undermines my argument - but I think that it's mostly necessary > because English doesn't have well defined semantics for "the next thing you > see is either a constant in one of two or three well-defined forms, or a > named thing I have referred to by name earlier in this paragraph". If it > did, I doubt we'd have bothered with the /italics/.) Oh, I dunno. Think about caps. We have this perfectly functional alphabet, made up of 26 alpha symbols, A..Z. Why do we need another 26 that are almost, but not quite the same, as the first 26? [Ha! Another cross-thread reference!] It's quite nice to have constants be DEFINED_IN_ALLCAPS while classes are DefinedInStudlyCaps, and methods in sortaStudlyCaps.... [Wait a minute. Taking the natural extension of this, we'd get something like choosing font and size in the code: int i; float f; double Q; ..etc. etc. Ugh. If you thought Hungarian notation was bad....] -- --Stewart Stremler--------------------------------stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu-- An Emacs reference mug is what I want. It would hold ten gallons of coffee. -- Steve VanDevender ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Date: 08 May 1999 12:46:00 GMT Lines: 29 Message-ID: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-065.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 926167560 496 194.247.41.81 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.icl.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail On 1999-05-07 seebs@plethora.net(PeterSeebach) said: :YMMV. I still can't stand syntax-highlighting. I want it about as :much as I want a newsreader that puts prepositions in green and :verbs in blue, nouns in red, and punctuation in the color of the :next word before or after it depending. :I really like non-highlit code. The problem with syntax highlighting, from my perspective, is that it solves the wrong problem. I like looking at emboldened keywords, in fact I prefer it to non highlit, but that's as far as I'll go. What is lacking, and what I would gladly embrace if someone showed it to me, is semantic highlighting. Tell me which names are scalars, which are objects, and which are functions. Tell me which are local, which are global, and which got passed in at the top. When I start to key in a method name, work out what I might be typing and offer to complete it for me. When I type a bracket, remind me what the function wants me to tell it, and keep reminding me until I type the close bracket. Give different levels of brace and bracket different colours. Simple syntax I really couldn't give a damn about. Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would appear to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the language is shite. -- Communa (lisard@zetnet.co.uk) -- you know soft spoken changes nothing Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Date: 08 May 1999 12:46:02 GMT Message-ID: <3734320a$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-065.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 926167562 496 194.247.41.81 Lines: 8 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail On 1999-05-07 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: :&if [foo > bar] &then &print "Hello" &else &exit 1 Anti-Perl. -- Communa (lisard@zetnet.co.uk) -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 8 May 1999 17:39:09 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 45 Message-ID: <7h1srt$k8h$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > The problem with syntax highlighting, from my perspective, is that it > solves the wrong problem. I like looking at emboldened keywords, in fact > I prefer it to non highlit, but that's as far as I'll go. What is > lacking, and what I would gladly embrace if someone showed it to me, is > semantic highlighting. Yes. > Tell me which names are scalars, which are objects, and which are functions. Yes. > Tell me which are local, which are global, and which got passed in at the top. Yes. > When I start to key in a method name, work out what I might be typing > and offer to complete it for me. Ugh. No. > When I type a bracket, remind me what the function wants me to > tell it, and keep reminding me until I type the close bracket. Ugh. No. Also useless in languages that support polymorphism. > Give different levels of brace and bracket different colours. Nah. The % command, or its equivalent, is sufficient. > Simple syntax I really couldn't give a damn about. Fair 'nuff. > Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would appear > to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the language is shite. Well, all this *is* just eye candy, and therefore of minimal benefit... -- --Stewart Stremler--------------------------------stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu-- No, I contend that the goverment lies for different reasons than industry, and between the two sets of lies is often found the truth. -- Paul Tomblin (1998) ###### From: Greg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 08 May 1999 22:55:54 -0400 Lines: 27 Sender: gregm@europa Message-ID: References: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> <7h2sc9$u5a$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> X-Trace: v1e/rKky8rwa1KSPxrqI9WX0ybG7PF6bKVbQnzGLMjg= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 May 1999 03:47:54 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-fra.pop.de!news.ndh.net!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail > In article <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk>, wrote: > > [semantic highlighting] > >Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would appear > >to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the language is shite. > Are you sure? I have never met an editor I disliked more than the VB 5 editor. Sure it has all that nifty syntax helping, help stuff- but I find it incredibly distracting. Syntax coloring is helpful, but I would rather have a solid editor without than a lame one one with. Where are Narrowing, Outlining, regexps, multiple buffers, region commands, etc.. I fail to understand why the compiler blocks and always asks me if I want to overwrite the .exe- why can't I have a checkbox that lets me say ALWAYS OVERWRITE. Like I care that I'm overwriting the previous .exe. Please. But I agree the language is excreable. If you want a decent editor try vi or Emacs. Gregm ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 9 May 1999 02:36:57 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 24 Message-ID: <7h2sc9$u5a$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul6.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 926217417 30890 (None) 140.142.17.35 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk>, wrote: [semantic highlighting] >Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would appear >to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the language is shite. There may be a Deep Computer Science Truth (tm) lurking here. If you want to mark the semantic features of a language, then it's a lot easier if the language has weak semantics (i.e., can't do anything). It may be harder to create the same kind of semantic analyzer for C. Also, C (and especially C++) have rather tricky syntax, _and_ the syntax affects the semantics. (Of course, VB5 may also have tricky syntax and MS may have actually succeeded in analyzing it! But I would bet that VB5's syntax has a lot of special cases, but with each case being relatively simple and without any interaction between the cases. Think of QBasic.) Maybe you should look into some of the functional languages. I also know you like FORTH, but I'm not sure if semantic analysis is practical or even useful for FORTH. BTW, I've never used VB, so I may be just babbling. -- Derek ###### From: hwolfe@inetnebr.com Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> <7h1srt$k8h$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990413 ("Endemoniada") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.6 (sun4u)) Lines: 30 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 14:12:56 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.184.119.1 X-Trace: newsfeed.slurp.net 926259176 199.184.119.1 (Sun, 09 May 1999 09:12:56 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 09:12:56 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!news.idt.net!news.globix.net!uunet!nyc.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!in2.uu.net!newsfeed.slurp.net!not-for-mail Stewart Stremler wrote: : lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: :> The problem with syntax highlighting, from my perspective, is that it :> solves the wrong problem. I like looking at emboldened keywords, in fact :> I prefer it to non highlit, but that's as far as I'll go. What is :> lacking, and what I would gladly embrace if someone showed it to me, is :> semantic highlighting. : Yes. :> Tell me which names are scalars, which are objects, and which are functions. : Yes. :> Tell me which are local, which are global, and which got passed in at the top. : Yes. Both of these can be accomplished with good naming conventions. :> Simple syntax I really couldn't give a damn about. : Fair 'nuff. Prolly got to agree here. I used to work with Visual Age for Java, and it was annoying when I typed a variable name that started with a keyword. While it's not too bad for browsing code, it's not that great, IMO, for use while coding. -herb ###### From: gaukrogi@aston.ac.uk (Rofi) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 9 May 1999 15:30:56 GMT Organization: Aston University Lines: 27 Message-ID: <7h49ng$17d$1@whatsit.aston.ac.uk> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: niger.aston.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!server4.netnews.ja.net!server2.netnews.ja.net!aston!not-for-mail In article , seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes: > In article <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu>, > Stewart Stremler wrote: > >>I have a habit of copying a chunk of code, putting /* before and */ after, >>and then making my change. Then I can keep an eye on the "original" code >>as I make changes. Yep, saved my bacon lots of times. > > Eeww. '#if 0' exists for a reason. > Not in Ada95 (due to uni work) Not in VB (due to summer work :-( ) don't know about Java etc ... Rofi -- Ifor Gaukroger, Rofi, Eve ... If ? :wq ( d'oh not in vi :-) ) ###### From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990216 ("Styrofoam") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.36 (i586)) Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 07:54:06 +0100 Message-ID: Lines: 23 NNTP-Posting-Host: man-068.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 926321265 498 news@194.247.41.84 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!colt.net!ayres.ftech.net!news.ftech.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail Peter Seebach wrote: > YMMV. I still can't stand syntax-highlighting. I want it about as much > as I want a newsreader that puts prepositions in green and verbs in blue, > nouns in red, and punctuation in the color of the next word before or > after it depending. I was very, very sceptical about syntax-highlighting for a long time -- a cofirmed vi luddite for many years. But most of the other engineers at my current place of employment use either (ack spit) CodeWright or (ack spit) DevStudio, and since we work in pairs, one may as well get used to it. Somewhat to my surprise, I took to it. On a sufficiently high-res screen with the right choice of colours, it works for me (to the point where I've adopted syntax-colouring in vim). I think i'd rather have proper typography, but nobody's done a screen I think approximates the printed page well enough to be a good substitute yet... I find that syntax colouring helps me navigate, and to spot some classes of obvious syntax errors instantly. Whether this is quantifiable I don't know -- it *feels* faster to me, and certainly hasn't slowed me down :) pete -- pete@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk `there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas' HMHB ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 9 May 1999 20:04:30 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 44 Message-ID: <7h4poe$6s6$2@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk> <7h1srt$k8h$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler hwolfe@inetnebr.com wrote: > Stewart Stremler wrote: > : lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > :> Tell me which names are scalars, which are objects, and which are > :> functions. > : Yes. > :> Tell me which are local, which are global, and which got passed in at the > :> top. > : Yes. > Both of these can be accomplished with good naming conventions. That doesn't help when you're looking at someone else's code, and either they don't have a good convention, or the convention they use isn't the convention that YOU use (and perhaps their convention is totally stupid to your way of thinking). Some conventions -- the 'Hungarian' and variations -- are considered "good" conventions because they supposedly accomplish this. They aren't an improvement. Perhaps someone has a taxonomy of coding conventions that we could use to discuss the issue? > Prolly got to agree here. I used to work with Visual Age for Java, and it > was annoying when I typed a variable name that started with a keyword. That's why I dislike auto-complete... and coloring shouldn't happen until the word is complete (that is, you hit a delimiter). > While it's not too bad for browsing code, it's not that great, IMO, for > use while coding. Depends on how familiar you are with the language. All the world's not C, or Java, or .... -- --------------------------stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu---------------------------- "My tiger is deep His keen eyes are glinting! In somnolent sleep He dreams of a sprinting Dreaming of chases remembered! Sambar who'll soon be dismembered! -Calvin (_Calvin & Hobbes_) ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 39 Message-ID: <3aoZ2.2954$97.2411@stones> Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 22:41:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.56.120.132 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plus.net.uk X-Trace: stones 926289663 212.56.120.132 (Sun, 09 May 1999 23:41:03 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 23:41:03 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!landlord!stones.POSTED!not-for-mail On 1999-05-08 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: :> When I start to key in a method name, work out what I might be :>typing and offer to complete it for me. :Ugh. No. Your choice; I'd quite like it, especially when I'm dealing with code where the previous author has insisted upon using stupidly long names with Hungarian notation for everything (even database table names, which didn't quite fit with his stated aim of replacing the tables with views). :> When I type a bracket, remind me what the function wants me to :> tell it, and keep reminding me until I type the close bracket. :Ugh. No. Also useless in languages that support polymorphism. No, useless for languages that support function name overloading or weakly typed object systems. However, when it can be provided, it would be nice. :> Give different levels of brace and bracket different colours. :Nah. The % command, or its equivalent, is sufficient. If you're using vi. If vi isn't available... :> Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would :>appear to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the :>language is shite. :Well, all this *is* just eye candy, and therefore of minimal :benefit... Not for me. My memory is appalling; I frequently can't remember code I wrote even yesterday. The reminders would be very handy. -- Communa -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### From: Greg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 10 May 1999 07:00:11 -0400 Sender: gregm@europa Message-ID: References: <7gd0dl$lja$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> <7gkedb$9s13@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> X-Trace: xwT2aUeOmi0y/qyJVHw/hs3Up14r10jBPHq+CJI5qBE= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 10 May 1999 11:52:16 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Pete Fenelon writes: > I was very, very sceptical about syntax-highlighting for a long time -- a > cofirmed vi luddite for many years. But most of the other engineers at my > current place of employment use either (ack spit) CodeWright or (ack spit) > DevStudio, and since we work in pairs, one may as well get used to it. Somewhat > to my surprise, I took to it. On a sufficiently high-res screen with > the right choice of colours, it works for me (to the point where I've > adopted syntax-colouring in vim). I think i'd rather have proper typography, > but nobody's done a screen I think approximates the printed page well enough > to be a good substitute yet... > DevStudio isn't quite as egregious as VB5- its actually not so bad, but somewhat limited, yet it does have the essential minimums. However, going from it to Emacs is like moving from darkess to daylight. (except for the god-forsaken keymapping problems) Gregm ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 35 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:03:13 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.56.120.188 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plus.net.uk X-Trace: wards 926377393 212.56.120.188 (Tue, 11 May 1999 00:03:13 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 00:03:13 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!landlord!wards.POSTED!not-for-mail On 1999-05-09 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: :That doesn't help when you're looking at someone else's code, and :either they don't have a good convention, or the convention they use :isn't the convention that YOU use (and perhaps their convention is :totally stupid to your way of thinking). It's nice when the convention is completely transparent, but I don't think there is a sensible way of marking out scalars, objects, functions, or other semantic things, simly by cunning name choices. You end up prefixing everything with some random collection of letters, and if your random letters for 'object' are someone else's random letters for 'scalar' then someone will get extremely confused. :Some conventions -- the 'Hungarian' and variations -- are :considered "good" conventions because they supposedly accomplish :this. They aren't an improvement. God, no. Especially when you have a typed language in the first place; if you can travel directly to the definition of your variable, and with C/vi/tags you can, there's little point in labelling the variable by using its attack transient to convey essentially useless information. :> Prolly got to agree here. I used to work with Visual Age for Java, :>and it was annoying when I typed a variable name that started :with a keyword. :That's why I dislike auto-complete... and coloring shouldn't happen :until the word is complete (that is, you hit a delimiter). I don't know. If you can parse what's going on, you can tell whether or not a keyword is expected (although assignment statements get sticky). -- Communa -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 50 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:03:16 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.56.120.188 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plus.net.uk X-Trace: wards 926377396 212.56.120.188 (Tue, 11 May 1999 00:03:16 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 00:03:16 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!landlord!wards.POSTED!not-for-mail On 1999-05-09 dpeschel@u.washington.edu(DerekPeschel) said: :In article <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk>, wrote: :>Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would :>appear to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the :>language is shite. :There may be a Deep Computer Science Truth (tm) lurking here. If :you want to mark the semantic features of a language, then it's a :lot easier if the language has weak semantics (i.e., can't do :anything). Yet C compilers continue to work, so it's not an impossible problem. It is a lot harder than simple syntax colouring, certainly, but if you have a parser around anyway, it makes sense to recycle it in your editor. (Perhaps it should be a separate factor.) :It may be harder to create the same kind of semantic analyzer for C. :Also, C (and especially C++) have rather tricky syntax, _and_ the :syntax affects the semantics. (Of course, VB5 may also have tricky :syntax and MS may have actually succeeded in analyzing it! But I :would bet that VB5's syntax has a lot of special cases, but with :each case being relatively simple and without any interaction :between the cases. Think of QBasic.) No, ta. :> Seriously, I think you're right; the whole point of Basic is that it is a very simple language to parse, with little generality and simple syntax. After all, people got BASIC interpreters into 3k, whereas I doubt anyone ever got a C parser into that space, although I think they got a B parser into it. And Microsoft's variant of Basic is pretty rigidly typed, but I don't believe it allows duplicate function names, despite that typing - so you can only have one method called DoIt per object, but several DoIts in general. :Maybe you should look into some of the functional languages. I :also know you like FORTH, but I'm not sure if semantic analysis is :practical or even useful for FORTH. In fact, it's damned handy, given that Forth semantics define every word to be exactly equivalent in meaning (call the routine known as XXX). In traditional implementations, all you need to do is map the CFA to a colour; modern ones aren't so different. F-PC does it in its decompiler, if not its editor. And in a complete inversion of the concept, Forth's inventor has made colour an integral part of the syntax for his latest version (http://www.ultratechnology.com/color4th.html and a couple of other pages at the same site). -- Communa -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 50 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:03:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.56.120.188 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plus.net.uk X-Trace: wards 926377398 212.56.120.188 (Tue, 11 May 1999 00:03:18 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 00:03:18 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!landlord!wards.POSTED!not-for-mail On 1999-05-08 nospam@erols.com said: :> In article <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk>, wrote: > :> [semantic highlighting] :> >Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would :> >appear to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the :> >language is shite. :Are you sure? I have never met an editor I disliked more than the :VB 5 editor. Pedant points. i. Why do I have to be sure about a preference just because you have a different one? ii. I didn't say I liked the VB5 editor, just that it came closest to an ideal. I'd much rather have the helpful stuff it pops up appearing somewhere where it doesn't get right in the way of what I'm trying to type... :Sure it has all that nifty syntax helping, help :stuff- but I find it incredibly distracting. :Syntax coloring is :helpful, but I would rather have a solid editor without than a lame :one one with. Where are Narrowing, Outlining, regexps, multiple :buffers, region commands, etc.. Outlining I don't use, I only use multiple buffers in vi because the default one is wiped when I type :n, and region commands I do miss, but I miss in every Windows editor. :I fail to understand why the compiler blocks and always asks me if I :want to overwrite the .exe- why can't I have a checkbox that lets me :say ALWAYS OVERWRITE. Like I care that I'm overwriting the previous :..exe. Please. That's not an editor issue... ;> :But I agree the language is excreable. :If you want a decent editor try vi or Emacs. I'm a regular vi user, but given that I seem to be in the company's Access 2 dustbin at the moment it's impractical to use any editor other than the built-in one. But I've used vi on VB5 source before now, and I may even have used Perl on it as well. I just wish vi had an extension language that let me add this stuff. (I know vim does have an extension language, vim fans.) -- Communa -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### From: Greg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 10 May 1999 23:36:28 -0400 Lines: 69 Sender: gregm@europa Message-ID: References: X-Trace: B0IzWz5/T1CUOrgexZv12L48luQWUf1+OdJ81uDBN9U= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 May 1999 03:32:23 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!207.172.3.37!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk writes: > On 1999-05-08 nospam@erols.com said: > :> In article <37343208$0$496@news.zetnet.co.uk>, :uk> wrote: > > :> [semantic highlighting] > :> >Sad to say, but the thing that comes closest to this ideal would > :> >appear to be the built-in editor for Visual Basic 5. And the > :> >language is shite. > :Are you sure? I have never met an editor I disliked more than the > :VB 5 editor. > > Pedant points. i. Why do I have to be sure about a preference just > because you have a different one? ii. I didn't say I liked the VB5 > editor, just that it came closest to an ideal. I'd much rather have the > helpful stuff it pops up appearing somewhere where it doesn't get right > in the way of what I'm trying to type... I did overstate my position- issues such as editor preference become religious topics once the basic requirements of an editor are met (about a half step above echo/sed/cat combinations). Please feel free to draw and quarter Emacs disciples, while the chosen of Emacs drench the streets with the blood of vi users. The people using Windows editors will be completely confused, as the continual GPFs prevent them from getting anything done... ;) > > :Sure it has all that nifty syntax helping, help > :stuff- but I find it incredibly distracting. > > :Syntax coloring is > :helpful, but I would rather have a solid editor without than a lame > :one one with. Where are Narrowing, Outlining, regexps, multiple > :buffers, region commands, etc.. > > Outlining I don't use, I only use multiple buffers in vi because the > default one is wiped when I type :n, and region commands I do miss, but > I miss in every Windows editor. Windows almost does it too. It provides a real nice marking facility, then blows it by not offering a full suite of "stuff" to apply. > > :I fail to understand why the compiler blocks and always asks me if I > :want to overwrite the .exe- why can't I have a checkbox that lets me > :say ALWAYS OVERWRITE. Like I care that I'm overwriting the previous > :..exe. Please. > > That's not an editor issue... ;> True. You'd think MS would have provided some options to mitigate this "feature"- after all they've released 3 versions of the language since V3... > > :But I agree the language is excreable. > > :If you want a decent editor try vi or Emacs. > > I'm a regular vi user, but given that I seem to be in the company's > Access 2 dustbin at the moment it's impractical to use any editor other > than the built-in one. But I've used vi on VB5 source before now, Thats such a pity too.. I do some VC++ 5 and assembly; I like the asm so much more because I can use Emacs- the VC editor is pretty basic. Syntax coloring and some fontlock stuff is about the best it does. Now if they only straightened out the Emacs keymaps... Gregm ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 23 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 01:17:59 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926385479 205.166.146.8 (Mon, 10 May 1999 20:17:59 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 20:17:59 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , wrote: >On 1999-05-09 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: > :Some conventions -- the 'Hungarian' and variations -- are > :considered "good" conventions because they supposedly accomplish > :this. They aren't an improvement. >God, no. Especially when you have a typed language in the first place; >if you can travel directly to the definition of your variable, and with >C/vi/tags you can, there's little point in labelling the variable by >using its attack transient to convey essentially useless information. Note that, as a side issue, this isn't really "Hungarian". It's "MS-Hungarian". There was supposedly a paper in which the inventor of Hungarian notation went through, point by point, showing how MS had missed every single one of the points his original work made about how to name variables. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 14 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 01:18:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926385520 205.166.146.8 (Mon, 10 May 1999 20:18:40 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 20:18:40 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , wrote: >I just wish vi had an extension language that let me add this stuff. (I >know vim does have an extension language, vim fans.) Use nvi; it lets you use perl or tcl. Or C, if you're buff. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 11 May 1999 07:15:02 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 21 Message-ID: <7h8ldm$9jb$2@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.nacamar.de!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail Peter Seebach wrote: :>Some days I leave it off; some days it's quite nice -- if the colors are :>set up; many color combinations are atrocious (and what constitutes useful :>seems to vary day-by-day). Most of the time the color scheme I use makes :>comments a dark-blue, and on a black background, it's easy for the eye :>to ignore the comments... I suppose an editor with the ability to "fold" :>the text would take care of that. : Oh, that's interesting. I would never have thought to use it to ignore : comments. :) Having been reading this thread, I am starting to think that it might be useful for hiding markups in any of a number of markup languages including HTML (which I get spammed with occasionally) and especially TeX, which I am using rather too much of right now (although this proves to be quite complicated... I do not want to ignore things like $\kappa$ which generate characters grrr). Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: alderson@netcom2.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) Subject: Re: The lost version of vi In-Reply-To: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu's message of 8 May 1999 11:22:21 GMT Message-ID: Sender: alderson@netcom2.netcom.com Reply-To: alderson@netcom.com Organization: NETCOM On-line services References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 19:53:30 GMT Lines: 19 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!nntp.primenet.com!newsfeed.enteract.com!ix.netcom.com!netcom2!alderson In article <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) writes: >[Wait a minute. Taking the natural extension of this, we'd get something like >choosing font and size in the code: > int i; > float f; > double Q; >..etc. etc. Ugh. If you thought Hungarian notation was bad....] Take a look at the discussion of font-characteristic bits in the Common Lisp character set in the first edition of _Common Lisp: The Language_, and the revision notes on the topic in the second. Somebody woke up in time... -- Rich Alderson Last LOTS Tops-20 Systems Programmer, 1984-1991 Current maintainer, MIT TECO EMACS (v. 170) last name @ XKL dot COM Chief systems administrator, XKL LLC, 1998-now ###### Message-ID: <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del> Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 09:34:08 -0400 From: "Foobar T. Clown" Organization: Blurp X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.133.110.49 X-Trace: 10 May 1999 09:36:40 -0500, 198.133.110.49 Lines: 13 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!ix.netcom.com!zeus.nomos.com!198.133.110.49 Peter Seebach wrote: > Stewart Stremler wrote: > >Most of the time the color scheme I use makes comments a dark-blue, > >and on a black background, it's easy for the eye to ignore the > >comments... > > Oh, that's interesting. I would never have thought to use it to > ignore comments. :) You laugh, but just the other day, a programmer of my acquaintance -- a professional, mind you -- said that commenting code was a bad idea because somebody would inevitably change the code, and fail to keep the comments up to date. ###### From: Greg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 11 May 1999 21:42:33 -0400 Lines: 22 Sender: gregm@europa Message-ID: References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del> X-Trace: yJ9ZaeRlK+R+X2kp4EkeSrMUASW92Q7CXbypUPQyfhQ= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 May 1999 01:38:25 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!feeder.qis.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes: > In article <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del>, > Foobar T. Clown wrote: > >You laugh, but just the other day, a programmer of my acquaintance -- a > >professional, mind you -- said that commenting code was a bad idea > >because somebody would inevitably change the code, and fail to keep the > >comments up to date. > > I often agree. I'd guess that 80% of the comments I see in code are worse > than no comments. > I like the huge comment headers with all sorts of fields Calls, called by, written by, etc.., but NO detailed explaination of what the stilly function actually does, and no comments whatsoever in the subsequent 500 lines of code with all those lovely single letter global variables. All in the name of Coding Standards, Hear Hear!! Gregm ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 16 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 23:00:22 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 926463622 205.166.146.8 (Tue, 11 May 1999 18:00:22 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 18:00:22 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del>, Foobar T. Clown wrote: >You laugh, but just the other day, a programmer of my acquaintance -- a >professional, mind you -- said that commenting code was a bad idea >because somebody would inevitably change the code, and fail to keep the >comments up to date. I often agree. I'd guess that 80% of the comments I see in code are worse than no comments. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 04:18:28 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 20 Message-ID: <7hdjqk$8he$2@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!europa.netcrusader.net!209.150.97.11!feeder.qis.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail Peter Seebach wrote: : (Of course, you could argue that the use of /italics/ for variable names in : mathematics undermines my argument - but I think that it's mostly necessary : because English doesn't have well defined semantics for "the next thing you : see is either a constant in one of two or three well-defined forms, or a : named thing I have referred to by name earlier in this paragraph". If it : did, I doubt we'd have bothered with the /italics/.) Actually, it is always possible to say something like "the variable `x'" etc. But the main problem is that it is wordy---mathematicians have a tendency to be terse. There is also an inherent advantage of having the variable stand out from normal text---it is easier to draw attention to them. If you are trying to read a proof and you start wondering "now what is x again?" it is much easier to find an italicised x than a non-italicised version hiding somewhere in the text. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 04:21:34 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 18 Message-ID: <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail Stewart Stremler wrote: : [Wait a minute. Taking the natural extension of this, we'd get : something like choosing font and size in the code: : int i; : float f; : double Q; : ..etc. etc. Ugh. If you thought Hungarian notation was bad....] Too late... this has already happened, in mathematics at least :-). They ran out of italicised letters a long time ago, so instead of using multiple letters, they went for other fonts. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 06:18:11 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 36 Message-ID: <7hdqr3$cf0$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk wrote: : On 1999-05-09 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: : :That doesn't help when you're looking at someone else's code, and : :either they don't have a good convention, or the convention they use : :isn't the convention that YOU use (and perhaps their convention is : :totally stupid to your way of thinking). : It's nice when the convention is completely transparent, but I don't : think there is a sensible way of marking out scalars, objects, : functions, or other semantic things, simly by cunning name choices. You : end up prefixing everything with some random collection of letters, and : if your random letters for 'object' are someone else's random letters : for 'scalar' then someone will get extremely confused. Of course there are ways of differentiating between objects, scalars etc, just by cunning name choices. We do this in mathematics _all_ the time. In fact, you tend to get pretty good at it when you are forced to use 1 letter variables (albeit with about 5 fonts available---my thesis uses about 4 fonts and I am just about out of variables). Example: integers/natural numbers are usually m,n,i,j,k,l. If you need more, p,q,r,s. If you need more try something like m_1, m_2, etc. The important thing is to be consistent, thus the very FORTRAN-ish style of starting integer variables with I or J, or N. If you have a long long long list of variables---write the list down somewhere, especially the naming conventions. This will save a lot of pain. It is true that your naming convention will, in general, not make sense to anybody else merely upon inspection, but this will happen no matter what convention you use. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 06:27:10 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 23 Message-ID: <7hdrbu$cf0$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk wrote: : On 1999-05-09 dpeschel@u.washington.edu(DerekPeschel) said: : :There may be a Deep Computer Science Truth (tm) lurking here. If : :you want to mark the semantic features of a language, then it's a : :lot easier if the language has weak semantics (i.e., can't do : :anything). : Yet C compilers continue to work, so it's not an impossible problem. It : is a lot harder than simple syntax colouring, certainly, but if you have : a parser around anyway, it makes sense to recycle it in your editor. : (Perhaps it should be a separate factor.) TeX works too (it gives you nice looking mathematics anyway)... but it is _slow_. If you have to parse the whole program each time to get the syntax colouring, it would not be nearly as useful as if you did not, if only because of the time taken with _every_ modification. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 08:39:49 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 40 Message-ID: <7he34l$rsc$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <7hdrbu$cf0$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul3.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 926584789 28556 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.axxsys.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <7hdrbu$cf0$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au>, Kin Hoong CHUNG wrote: >communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk wrote: >: On 1999-05-09 dpeschel@u.washington.edu(DerekPeschel) said: >: :There may be a Deep Computer Science Truth (tm) lurking here. If >: :you want to mark the semantic features of a language, then it's a >: :lot easier if the language has weak semantics (i.e., can't do >: :anything). > >: Yet C compilers continue to work, so it's not an impossible problem. It >: is a lot harder than simple syntax colouring, certainly, but if you have >: a parser around anyway, it makes sense to recycle it in your editor. >: (Perhaps it should be a separate factor.) > >TeX works too (it gives you nice looking mathematics anyway)... >but it is _slow_. If you have to parse the whole program each time >to get the syntax colouring, it would not be nearly as useful as if >you did not, if only because of the time taken with _every_ modification. TeX is really not in the same league as C (or anything else for that matter) when you consider how working relates to syntax highlighting. TeX' syntax can change at any point in the input file (because of the magic of category codes) and its semantics are bizarre in a particularly fickle way. The fact that it works is almost irrelevant to this discussion. Communa meant that C compilers work more or less like syntax/semantic highlighting ought to be done anyway, and therefore syntax/semantic highlighting of C isn't that big of a deal. OK, the preprocessor causes problems. Also, a smart highlighting program would tweak the "compilation" process to speed things up (by only looking at part of the file, etc.) I don't think that optimization is possible with TeX. It may be (I forget if TeXtures for the Macintosh uses it, or even does highlighting) but it would require gruesome programming. In other words, I think I'm agreeing with you but I'm not sure why you made this point. Did you just want to torment the theory people? -- Derek ###### From: Ariel Scolnicov Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 11:15:34 +0300 Organization: NetVision Israel Lines: 49 Message-ID: References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: bioserv.compugen.co.il X-Trace: news.netvision.net.il 926583238 29556 194.90.227.153 (13 May 1999 08:13:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@netvision.net.il NNTP-Posting-Date: 13 May 1999 08:13:58 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.idt.net!iad-peer.news.verio.net!uunet!ffx.uu.net!in3.uu.net!news-feed.netvision.net.il!194.90.1.15.MISMATCH!news!not-for-mail Kin Hoong CHUNG writes: > Stewart Stremler wrote: > > : [Wait a minute. Taking the natural extension of this, we'd get > : something like choosing font and size in the code: > > : int i; > : float f; > : double Q; > > : ..etc. etc. Ugh. If you thought Hungarian notation was bad....] > > Too late... this has already happened, in mathematics at least :-). > They ran out of italicised letters a long time ago, so instead of > using multiple letters, they went for other fonts. Other fonts? It's worse than you think. You know the Z,R,C,N (among others) characters, with one of the lines doubled, used to denote the sets of integers, reals, complex #s and natural numbers? They're called "blackboard bold". (TeX) Legend has it that these letters used to be printed in bold in the books. Of course, you can't do bold on the blackboard, so you double one of the lines. Of course, this is by now the "standard", so typeset work has to use it. So you have a font which lets you set the handwritten approximation of set bold. I don't know if it's available in bold. It gets even worse. In Number Theory, they ran out of letters a while back. No problems -- just use gothic. Yes, not just in books, but also on the blackboard. Of course, people as ignorant as myself are unable to write gothic (and can barely read it). So, in notebooks and on the board, I used the style which I sincerely hope is unique to the Hebrew University: "triangular" (I learnt it from a TA). Just like roman characters, only you straighten out all the lines. So "p+q" looks like this: |\ /| |/ + \| | | I dread the day that the AMS will supply a set of triangular fonts for use with TeX; we shall all have to study Chinese. -- Ariel Scolnicov |"GCAAGAATTGAACTGTAG" |ariels@compugen.co.il Compugen Ltd. |Tel: +972-2-6795059 (Jerusalem) \ THIS SPACE TO LET 72 Pinhas Rosen St. |Tel: +972-3-7658520 (Main office)`-------------------- Tel-Aviv 69512, ISRAEL |Fax: +972-3-7658555 http://www.compugen.co.il/~ariels ###### From: hawk@eyry.econ.iastate.edu (Richard E. Hawkins Esq.) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 12:25:35 -0500 Organization: House of Hawkins Lines: 28 Message-ID: <7hf1uf$rbe$1@eyry.econ> References: <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: eyry.econ.iastate.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.cwix.com!128.223.220.30!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!not-for-mail In article <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au>, Kin Hoong CHUNG wrote: >Stewart Stremler wrote: > >: [Wait a minute. Taking the natural extension of this, we'd get >: something like choosing font and size in the code: > >: int i; >: float f; >: double Q; > >: ..etc. etc. Ugh. If you thought Hungarian notation was bad....] > >Too late... this has already happened, in mathematics at least :-). >They ran out of italicised letters a long time ago, so instead of >using multiple letters, they went for other fonts. When I started playing around with higher order tensors to avoid ugly kronecker products, I found that I needed another language--I'd used a, A, and alpha for related thigns. I got too busy (I was taking the phd core, plus the next year's econometrics), and never got around to hunting down the hebrew alphabet (heck, i knew aleph, which got me through the moment :) rick -- These opinions will not be those of ISU until it pays my retainer. ###### From: hawk@eyry.econ.iastate.edu (Richard E. Hawkins Esq.) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 13 May 1999 12:32:42 -0500 Organization: House of Hawkins Lines: 22 Message-ID: <7hf2bq$rbv$1@eyry.econ> References: <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: eyry.econ.iastate.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!newscore.gigabell.net!newscore.ipf.de!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!not-for-mail In article , Ariel Scolnicov wrote: >They're called "blackboard bold". (TeX) Legend has it that these >letters used to be printed in bold in the books. Of course, you can't >do bold on the blackboard, so you double one of the lines. Of course, >this is by now the "standard", so typeset work has to use it. So you >have a font which lets you set the handwritten approximation of set >bold. I don't know if it's available in bold. Underlining is another fun one. Underlining was used by typewriters where italics were appropriate. I had a mac in law school, and turned in somethign with italics, and the writing instructor went nuts; she just couldn't understand that underlining wasn't something mystical from On High. She's the same one that returned a paper with "pv" all over it. I went in to ask what it meant, and she replied, "passive voice. You're not supposed to use it." "No, these are the past perfect." "Oh, I never could tell the difference." I could tell it would be a long year . . . -- These opinions will not be those of ISU until it pays my retainer. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi From: communa@euphrates.idps.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 15 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 21:01:21 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.56.120.163 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plus.net.uk X-Trace: wards 926629281 212.56.120.163 (Thu, 13 May 1999 22:01:21 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 22:01:21 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!landlord!wards.POSTED!not-for-mail On 1999-05-10 foobar@gazonk.del said: :You laugh, but just the other day, a programmer of my acquaintance :-- a professional, mind you -- said that commenting code was a bad :idea because somebody would inevitably change the code, and fail to :keep the comments up to date. You can, um, kind of see his point, can't you... ;> It does render comments something of a waste of space if they aren't kept current. I tend to take the approach of "if I can't understand this code, I'll chuck and rewrite it". -- Communa -- you know soft spoken changes nothing ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 14 May 1999 09:19:25 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 51 Message-ID: <7hgpqt$76i$2@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <7hdrbu$cf0$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <7he34l$rsc$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail Derek Peschel wrote: : In article <7hdrbu$cf0$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au>, : Kin Hoong CHUNG wrote: :> :>TeX works too (it gives you nice looking mathematics anyway)... :>but it is _slow_. If you have to parse the whole program each time :>to get the syntax colouring, it would not be nearly as useful as if :>you did not, if only because of the time taken with _every_ modification. : TeX is really not in the same league as C (or anything else for that matter) : when you consider how working relates to syntax highlighting. TeX' syntax : can change at any point in the input file (because of the magic of category : codes) and its semantics are bizarre in a particularly fickle way. Very true indeed. It does serve to highlight (yes yes, bad pun) the potential headache that the slowness of the process can cause. : The fact that it works is almost irrelevant to this discussion. Communa : meant that C compilers work more or less like syntax/semantic highlighting : ought to be done anyway, and therefore syntax/semantic highlighting of C : isn't that big of a deal. OK, the preprocessor causes problems. Also, a : smart highlighting program would tweak the "compilation" process to speed : things up (by only looking at part of the file, etc.) : I don't think that optimization is possible with TeX. It may be (I forget : if TeXtures for the Macintosh uses it, or even does highlighting) but it : would require gruesome programming. No it is mostly not possible. TeXtures, the last time I used it (quite a few years ago now) did it by repeatedly interpreting the whole document, and with the lousy memory management of TeX, it had a habit of crashing on smaller memory machines. : In other words, I think I'm agreeing with you but I'm not sure why you made : this point. To demonstrate an extreme case of the kinds of difficulty you can potentially encounter if you want to try some complicated syntax colouring rules---mainly the time it would require to do it, and that it may be counter-productive beyond a certain complexity. : Did you just want to torment the theory people? Hmm, now that you mention it, that might be an interesting idea :-p, but that was not my intention. I just wanted to provide a demonstration of what could happen if you tried to take things to extremes (dammit, I am a mathematician, so counter-examples are a normal part of my discussions). Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: Kin Hoong CHUNG Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 14 May 1999 09:25:00 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 34 Message-ID: <7hgq5c$76i$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.usyd.edu.au!unsw.edu.au!not-for-mail Ariel Scolnicov wrote: : Kin Hoong CHUNG writes: :> :> Too late... this has already happened, in mathematics at least :-). :> They ran out of italicised letters a long time ago, so instead of :> using multiple letters, they went for other fonts. : They're called "blackboard bold". (TeX) Legend has it that these : letters used to be printed in bold in the books. Of course, you can't Yes. I avoid black-board bold and stick to the traditional bold. : bold. I don't know if it's available in bold. *ARrrrrrgh* black-board bold in bold :-(. : It gets even worse. In Number Theory, they ran out of letters a while : back. No problems -- just use gothic. Yes, not just in books, but : also on the blackboard. Of course, people as ignorant as myself are : unable to write gothic (and can barely read it). So, in notebooks and Actually, the technical name for that font is fraktur (as in fractured font). Gothic is quite different, as is old German. But, yes, it takes practice to read. : I dread the day that the AMS will supply a set of triangular fonts for : use with TeX; we shall all have to study Chinese. They have not finished with Hebrew yet, so things are not completely desperate... yet. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Fri, 14 May 99 10:23:04 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 32 Message-ID: <7hh3s2$qqn$8@antiochus.ultra.net> References: <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <7hf2bq$rbv$1@eyry.econ> NNTP-Posting-Host: d8.dial-17.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 14 May 1999 12:10:42 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!news.ultranet.com!d8 In article <7hf2bq$rbv$1@eyry.econ>, hawk@eyry.econ.iastate.edu (Richard E. Hawkins Esq.) wrote: >In article , >Ariel Scolnicov wrote: > >>They're called "blackboard bold". (TeX) Legend has it that these >>letters used to be printed in bold in the books. Of course, you can't >>do bold on the blackboard, so you double one of the lines. Of course, >>this is by now the "standard", so typeset work has to use it. So you >>have a font which lets you set the handwritten approximation of set >>bold. I don't know if it's available in bold. > >Underlining is another fun one. Underlining was used by typewriters >where italics were appropriate. I had a mac in law school, and >turned in somethign with italics, and the writing instructor went >nuts; she just couldn't understand that underlining wasn't something >mystical from On High. She's the same one that returned a paper >with "pv" all over it. I went in to ask what it meant, and she >replied, "passive voice. You're not supposed to use it." > "No, these are the past perfect." > "Oh, I never could tell the difference." >I could tell it would be a long year . . . ROTFL. At least it was only a class. We had to deal with those kinds of critters when reviewing our technical manuals. Try to explain to an idiot that customers do not want to read central processing unit when CPU conveys the same meaning with less energy. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Dan Strychalski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: 16 May 1999 10:33:38 GMT Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc. Lines: 11 Message-ID: <7hm6u2$43b$1@news.seed.net.tw> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4 Originator: dski@ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!spring.edu.tw!feeder.seed.net.tw!news.seed.net.tw!!dski Ariel Scolnicov wrote -- > I dread the day that the AMS will supply a set of triangular fonts for > use with TeX; we shall all have to study Chinese. It's Korean that often has a triangular arrangement of elements. Some Chinese characters have three parts, but they're almost always written so the complete character is rectangular. Dan Strychalski dski at cameonet, cameo, com, tw (no _x_) Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China ###### From: martin@ibert.com (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 20:28:53 GMT Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 19 Message-ID: <37446ed9.14768083@news.home.ibert.com> References: <7gt794$3ag$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <9rGY2.4015$WA4.587599@ptah.visi.com> <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del> NNTP-Posting-Host: arezzo.home.ibert.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!home.ibert.com!news On Mon, 10 May 1999 09:34:08 -0400, "Foobar T. Clown" wrote: >You laugh, but just the other day, a programmer of my acquaintance -- a >professional, mind you -- said that commenting code was a bad idea >because somebody would inevitably change the code, and fail to keep the >comments up to date. That does happen, and it happens a lot. Good for you if you can watch the code evolve while the (practically [and indeed actually] useless) comments stay put with a revision control system like CVS. Good look if you can't. PS. I never believe what the comments say unless the actual code says the same. -- >> Please visit http://www.ibert.com/ for contact information. << ----------------------------------------------------------------- Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed! ###### From: martin@ibert.com (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 20:28:54 GMT Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 11 Message-ID: <37456f72.14920989@news.home.ibert.com> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <3736E050.84275B73@gazonk.del> NNTP-Posting-Host: arezzo.home.ibert.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!home.ibert.com!news On 11 May 1999 21:42:33 -0400, Greg wrote: >All in the name of Coding Standards, Hear Hear!! (listen to the silence) Coding standards are not the answer. Common sense is. -- >> Please visit http://www.ibert.com/ for contact information. << ----------------------------------------------------------------- Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed! ###### From: martin@ibert.com (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The lost version of vi Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 20:41:11 GMT Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 34 Message-ID: <374671d0.15527087@news.home.ibert.com> References: <7gvidl$cbt$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <4NJY2.4092$WA4.591605@ptah.visi.com> <7h021f$lfc$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7h16pd$8bb$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <7hdk0e$8he$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <7hgq5c$76i$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: arezzo.home.ibert.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!home.ibert.com!news On 14 May 1999 09:25:00 GMT, Kin Hoong CHUNG wrote: >Yes. I avoid black-board bold and stick to the traditional bold. I think black-board bold is a lot nicer to look at in a book because it doesn't disturb the grey/gray value of the page half as much as real bold does. >*ARrrrrrgh* black-board bold in bold :-(. I readily agree that this is perverse. >Actually, the technical name for that font is fraktur (as in fractured >font). Gothic is quite different, as is old German. But, yes, it takes >practice to read. In school we were the last ones to use hand-written German letters (Sütterlin [sp?] to be precise) to denote vectors. Printed books used printed German letters (Fraktur) for the same purpose. We also had those hideous roman letters with right-pointing arrows above them in some of the more modern (read: degenerated) text books. In my time (I was born in 1966) being able to fluently read (let alone write) German characters in the handwritten and printed form was very rare indeed. If you look at today's crop of Germany's Finest, they can't read, write, speak, or understand any language in any form of written representation. (Okay, rant over, back to your normal scheduled newsgroup.) -- >> Please visit http://www.ibert.com/ for contact information. << ----------------------------------------------------------------- Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed!