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GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

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Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#51

Post by bruce343434 »

red_trumpet wrote: post #30
DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #22

Highly reminiscent of #378: * nano? Real Programmers use emacs. * Hey. Real Programmers use vim. * Well, Real Programmers use ed. * No, Real Programmers use cat. * Real Programmers use a magnetized needle and a steady hand. * Excuse me, but Real Programmers use butterflies. They open their hands and let the delicate wings flap once. The disturbances ripple outward, changing the flow of the eddy currents in the upper…

You forgot the last panel: * Nice. 'Course there's an emacs command to do that. * Oh yeah! Good ol' `C-x M-c M-butterfly`... * Dammit, emacs! https://xkcd.com/378/

I have always thought that panel was deserving of treatment from the r/comedyamputation subreddit.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#52

Post by numpad0 »

dijit wrote: post #5

There was a time (2006?) when I was getting into linux. I was a big microsofty, due to comfort mostly, and I was shamed into trying Linux. Like most people I went Ubuntu first, but wifi drivers at the time were lacking, and nvidia of yore was certainly not better than nvidia of now. Suffice it to say: I spent a lot of time in the terminal trying to fix things. Nano was my tool of choice because: honestly the initial…

Couple weeks ago I learned hard way that : key just don’t work in certain combination of host locale and VNC client and client locale.

C-c didn’t work, Ctrl+Alt+F2 didn’t work, ssh didn’t work because sshd is not up yet, even VM power cycling button was stuck and didn’t work. Maybe a custom VNC client could have worked. I think I ended up rebooting the host once, just to get out of vi. Second time I just changed locales.

nano by default is good.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#53

Post by samwillis »

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #38
samwillis wrote: post #12

I've never learnt Vim or Emacs, have always used Nano when editing via the terminal. However I increasingly find myself firing up a VSCode remote session if I need to edit more than a single line. Remote VSCode is kind of magic, I'm increasingly working in (local) VMs via it. I have one project that is probably never going to never going to support ARM, and I'm close to needing to upgrade my MacBook. I really want an…

I don't understand something. In order to remote develop you've to install VSCode to the remote machine?

Sort of... VSCode will temporarily download and install its remote server on the remote machine, under your user home, when you connect to it. You don't have to do it yourself.

To connect it's just plain ssh, so as long as you can login you can use it remotely. As soon as you connect it gives you a file file browser to select the root for VSCodes built in file browser side bar.

My understanding is VSCode has a client/server architecture and so this was considered in its architectural design from the beginning. Along with file io, it's runs the language servers, git, terminal, and many other plugins remotely.

Not all your plugins will initially be installed on the remote, but it's just a case of going to the plugins panel and clicking one button to install and enable on the remote.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#54

Post by imiric »

It's neat to see that nano supports customization at this level, and I can see the appeal for quickly editing files (though there are superior tools for even that nowadays, as mentioned in this thread), or if you're just getting familiar with text-mode editing, but I couldn't take anyone seriously if they _prefer_ it for programming.

For one, the modal interface is so much superior to traditional key chords. It allows you to efficiently manipulate text and move the cursor, without twisting your hand in awkward positions, and remembering an endless amount of arbitrary chords. Emacs is the worst offender at this, and while it's my editor of choice, I couldn't imagine using it without evil-mode. Vim's default bindings are semantically significant, and naturally invite exploration. `c` is for `change`, `d` is for `delete`, `s` is for `substitute`, `w` is for `word`, etc. There are a limited amount of these that can be quickly learned, but the power comes when you combine them. *D*elete un*t*il the period becomes `dt.` *D*elete *i*nside parens becomes `di)`. Etc. Doing this without a modal interface becomes a chore of repeating key presses, or pressing some obscure combination of keys.

Also, nano lacks any sort of plugin system. This means there's no LSP integration, file system or project exploration, running actions on save, etc. I don't blame it; if it had all those things it probably wouldn't be called _nano_...

I'm a firm believer of using the tool you enjoy using, but it needs to be the right tool for the job. Use nano for its intended purpose, but if you edit text for a living, take the time to learn more advanced tools that will ultimately make your job easier.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#55

Post by p-e-w »

kator wrote: post #47
p-e-w wrote: post #39

There is a very simple, end-of-discussion type argument why shipping Vim as the default editor is a terrible idea: Because its user interface differs significantly from how every other program on the system works. You can have all kinds of fruitful or fruitless debates about whether there is some deeper sense in which Vim is a "superior" editor, but there is no sensible reason for it to be the default, ever. Conventi…

By that logic we should just make "ed" the default editor. It's more like every other line oriented CLI interface element in the system than Nano is.

Ed is indeed a good choice for a line editor. We're not talking about line editors, though, but about text editors. Ed is not useful for writing, because it does not have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have. For that, you need a text editor, and between Vim and Nano, only one behaves like most Unix software developed in the past three decades.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#56

Post by thanatropism »

kator wrote: post #47
p-e-w wrote: post #39

There is a very simple, end-of-discussion type argument why shipping Vim as the default editor is a terrible idea: Because its user interface differs significantly from how every other program on the system works. You can have all kinds of fruitful or fruitless debates about whether there is some deeper sense in which Vim is a "superior" editor, but there is no sensible reason for it to be the default, ever. Conventi…

By that logic we should just make "ed" the default editor. It's more like every other line oriented CLI interface element in the system than Nano is.

ed is worth learning. I think the very first thing I learned about computers as a child, at a weird person's behest, was EDLIN.EXE

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#58

Post by Havoc »

For people picking up linux for the first time that initial impression is crucial.

Dropping people like that into an editor that requires you to somehow know ":q!" is the answer is utterly insane. Same with beginner tutorials using vi.

It's straight up bad for linux adoption even if technically superior. Anyone that is a vi fan likely has the skillset to install it themselves - the reverse is not always true.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#59

Post by ajuc »

pavlov wrote: post #15

I’m forever stuck with 1980s Turbo Pascal as my heart’s secret place of text-mode editing comfort, and nano is probably the closest thing available by default in most Unixes.

mcedit was closer (and I still use it even though they stopped bundling it with most distributions for some reason).

I love mcedit feature that lets you pipe selected text through a custom bash script.

Re: GNU nano is my editor of choice (2021)

#60

Post by thanatropism »

torben-friis wrote: post #28
dijit wrote: post #5

There was a time (2006?) when I was getting into linux. I was a big microsofty, due to comfort mostly, and I was shamed into trying Linux. Like most people I went Ubuntu first, but wifi drivers at the time were lacking, and nvidia of yore was certainly not better than nvidia of now. Suffice it to say: I spent a lot of time in the terminal trying to fix things. Nano was my tool of choice because: honestly the initial…

Something that annoys me is that the only good thing about vim is the idea of composable modal actions. Don't get me wrong, that feature alone is powerful enough to choose vim as your editor of choice, but... There is no reason whatsoever why you couldn't have an editor with 2022's standards of UX and newbie friendliness that makes use of the same idea; it just hasn't happened. Even when modern editors adapt vim func…

It's janky, but does lapce fit your bill?
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