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Nano 5.7

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Re: Nano 5.7

#111

Post by edflsafoiewq »

kstrauser wrote: post #81
valera_rozuvan wrote: post #5

I don't understand the people who dislike nano as an editor for the *nix system. After spending in it for like 30 minutes - it becomes an indispensable tool for quickly touching up text files anywhere you go to! No matter where I SSH to (*nix systems) - I always had nano available.

Nano has/had some surprising defaults. Way back when, I was using nano to edit some file or another in /etc. When I wrote it out, it "helpfully" justified all the lines by inserting newlines to make them fit in 80 columns. My mentor looked at me disapprovingly, uninstalled nano, pointed me at `man vim`, and said "you're using this now. Thank me later." Thank you, mentor. I don't know if nano still has that as a defau…

That was fixed in 2019. Apparently the default hardwrapping was inherited from pico, which was for composing email.

https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?55067

Re: Nano 5.7

#112

Post by tpoacher »

kstrauser wrote: post #81
valera_rozuvan wrote: post #5

I don't understand the people who dislike nano as an editor for the *nix system. After spending in it for like 30 minutes - it becomes an indispensable tool for quickly touching up text files anywhere you go to! No matter where I SSH to (*nix systems) - I always had nano available.

Nano has/had some surprising defaults. Way back when, I was using nano to edit some file or another in /etc. When I wrote it out, it "helpfully" justified all the lines by inserting newlines to make them fit in 80 columns. My mentor looked at me disapprovingly, uninstalled nano, pointed me at `man vim`, and said "you're using this now. Thank me later." Thank you, mentor. I don't know if nano still has that as a defau…

Switching to vim because you don't want to press ^L (or set the respective configuration option in .nanorc) to toggle off hardwrapping is a bit overkill though ...

It's not like "out of the box" vim is different in this regard. Half the time spent by a typical vim user with vim is coming up with personalised configurations.

Surely if I said I'm ditching vim for nano because I wanted columns hardwrapped at 80 characters by default you'd look at me funny, right? xD

Re: Nano 5.7

#113

Post by nucleardog »

staticassertion wrote: post #13

Learning from this HN thread that apparently Nano gets hate. I've been programming for years, nano is still my go-to for "I'm in the terminal and I need to make a small modification". I use it daily.

That's what it's perfect for.

If you asked me, given no prior knowledge of any editor, whether I'd want to be dropped in nano or vim to make some random modifications somewhere it would be nano hands down. It's significantly easier to use and significantly more discoverable with the menu.

On the other hand vim is borderline a programming language for text.

It's kind of a slog at first. It's climbing a cliff to learn the basics, and that that point it's barely more productive than any other editor. Or maybe still less productive because a lot of simple operations are things you end up still having to go to Google for and spend some time reading through documentation.

But there's some point where you kind of get up that cliff and over the top of the mountain and it all sort of comes together on the downslope. Things start to become a bit more intuitive and become _easy_. You start to see the ways that a bunch of the little atomic bits you've learned can be chained together to create complex operations.

At that's the point where vim really shines. Once you hit that point it's kinda tough going back to anything else because it feels like working with one hand tied behind your back.

And that's all available... everywhere. Gui, terminal, local, remote, there's really no setup required beyond a `apt-get install vim` or `pkg install vim-console`.

But yeah, no hate on nano any more than I'd hate screwdrivers because drills exist. They're totally different tools.

Re: Nano 5.7

#114

Post by tpoacher »

earthboundkid wrote: post #49

CMD-F "micro" returned nothing, so here is a link to a modern nano replacement: https://micro-editor.github.io

I tried micro last time it was mentioned in a nano thread.

I really wanted to like it, and was actually excited to try it in principle, but in practice I tried hard to get into it for 3 days, and then got bored and reverted to nano.

Also, 'modern nano replacement' implies that nano is somehow antiquated. Not the case. (unless you're thinking of nano 2.9 which is what many linuxes unfortunately ship with by default instead of the latest shiny one ... no idea why).

It sounds the same to me as if you'd said that the pinephone is a modern Android replacement.

Re: Nano 5.7

#115

Post by tpoacher »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #85

Thank you Nano devs. I love it and continue to love it all these years later. I'm happy to get in the middle of any vi vs emacs fight with the battle cry of "Nano for life!". The looks on their face is always priceless.

+1. Especially when they realise you're being serious. \o/

Re: Nano 5.7

#116

Post by tpoacher »

nindalf wrote: post #12
philliphaydon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I LOVE Nano. I just can’t figure out vi/vim.

I think vim has a pretty good tutorial within it. If you ever give it another chance, try that tutorial.

Nano also has a pretty good tutorial within it. It's called "look at the bottom of the window".

Re: Nano 5.7

#117

Post by PandawanFr »

Avery3R wrote: post #107
Ekaros wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally prefer nano over vi, ed or emacs. But when I do some programming or bigger work I use proper IDE like Visual Studio Code or Eclipse. It's decent enough for times when you want to do something quick on cli. And then spend rest of the time with graphical IDEs...

I wouldn't call vs code an IDE, it's closer to a text editor

With all the extensions available, you can get pretty close to a full IDE

Re: Nano 5.7

#118

Post by tpoacher »

hajile wrote: post #73
mettamage wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to me, currently a vim user and irritated by nano. Back in the day when vim would open it felt more as if my whole computer broke and nothing in the universe made sense anymore. Nowadays with nano, I simply feel and think: ugghhh soo SLOW! I wonder how other people experience it :P

I find nano a bit frustrating to arrow around in. Maybe someone could add vim binding support...

I'm genuinely interested what you mean by this. What kind of navigating functions do you miss from vim when in nano? I'm almost 99% sure that they already exist (and if not, are perfectly scriptable to make).

Re: Nano 5.7

#119

Post by patrec »

293984j29384 wrote: post #6

I never understood the hate Nano gets from vi users. Nano does many things quicker and easier than vi. For example, search & replace. Would I code in Nano? No. Do I use Nano to edit configuration files and make other small edits? Absolutely.

> I never understood the hate Nano gets from vi users.

The reason I hate nano was that it's been forced upon me for in my view entirely misguided attempt to make the commandline more approachable. So that now instead of any competent unix person needing to have at least minimal skills with two arcane (but powerful) editors (vi - for editing, and emacs for shell keybindings at least), you now also need minimal skills with an essentially equally arcane but not at all powerful or, useful editor (once you have basic competence with either emacs or vi at least).

Wouldn't it have been much better to have provided a friendlier vi(m) config by default, given that this was already the default editor on any unix system before nano came along and there is actually some fair amount of benefit in learning it, because it's a powerful and widely supported set of keybindings (emacs and every major IDE have good vim emulation these days)?

Re: Nano 5.7

#120

Post by emondi »

umvi wrote: post #99
fouric wrote: post #31

As a vim and emacs user, I don't give nano any hate. I'm surprised when programmers use it, sure, but that's because if my profession was going to require editing text files for hours a day (which it does), I would be happy to trade a steeper learning curve now for a less unpleasant job experience later. I totally understand why non-programmers don't use it. If your job does not involve you editing text files for hou…

Linus Torvalds said he might switch to nano for his daily driver[0] >[Text editing is] all done in a traditional terminal, although I don't use 'vi'. I use this abomination called "micro-emacs", which has absolutely nothing to do with GNU emacs except that some of the key bindings are similar. I got used to it at the University of Helsinki when I was a wee lad, and I've not been able to wean myself from it, although…

Wouldn't modifying some GNU emacs shortcuts to his liking be easier than mantaining that editor?
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