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Nano 5.7

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Re: Nano 5.7

#91

Post by garyrob »

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…

Personally I use jstar (a configuration of Joe) because in the 80's I used WordStar and I like using the same key combos. :)

But that's for small editing tasks. For coding I use VSCode or a JetBrains product.

Re: Nano 5.7

#92

Post by donio »

kstrauser wrote: post #75
bear8642 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you joke, but ed is great if have tiny change to make given compiler output simply just to how fast it loads

I got a local login on a machine so busted that I couldn't mount /usr, meaning I couldn't read /usr/share/terminfo, meaning no screen editors would work. I knew just enough ed that I was able to fix /etc/fstab and bring the system up. I wouldn't wanna use it every day, but it has its time and place.

"busybox vi" is another option in these situations when that's available. It will happily run in a blank chroot.

Everybody should know a little ed though, it's not that hard.

Re: Nano 5.7

#93

Post by ChrisClark »

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…

Yeah, for quick edits I prefer nano. Might just be because I grew up with edit on DOS, and Out of the vi, emacs and nano it was the closest and I just stuck with it.

Any programming I do is in Jetbrain IDEs.

But I saw a comment here long ago that says it's worth learning vim keybinds, even if you never use vim. Because you can be sure, no matter what IDE or editor you end up using, someone has created a vim keybinds plugin. You can have the same keybinds across everything.

I've never gotten around to learning though.

Re: Nano 5.7

#94

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

kstrauser wrote: post #75
bear8642 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you joke, but ed is great if have tiny change to make given compiler output simply just to how fast it loads

I got a local login on a machine so busted that I couldn't mount /usr, meaning I couldn't read /usr/share/terminfo, meaning no screen editors would work. I knew just enough ed that I was able to fix /etc/fstab and bring the system up. I wouldn't wanna use it every day, but it has its time and place.

Honestly at that point, unless your fstab is really big, I'd just `cat /etc/fstab` and then `cat >/etc/fstab <<EOF` and very carefully retype it (I mean take a backup first of course).

Re: Nano 5.7

#95

Post by Sunspark »

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…

Nano is now the default editor on Fedora since v33.

It makes sense. Modal editors have steep learning curves and were designed for an era of non-GUI interfaces running over teletypes. Everyone today knows how to use arrow keys to move around. Being dumped into vi, how many people will know how to go into the various modes to navigate and edit things?

I run OpenWRT on my router, nano is one of the first packages I install on it.

Re: Nano 5.7

#96

Post by unixhero »

garyrob wrote: post #91
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…

Personally I use jstar (a configuration of Joe) because in the 80's I used WordStar and I like using the same key combos. :) But that's for small editing tasks. For coding I use VSCode or a JetBrains product.

Check out jed!

Re: Nano 5.7

#97

Post by pierrec »

stinkytaco wrote: post #53
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'm curious what the intended audience for micro is? It seems like if you want extensibility you use vi or emacs. If you want a very quick and dirty program where you use the same 4 or 5 commands every time you open it, you use nano since it's already installed. I don't know a lot of people in the middle, personally, so I'm curious what people who are using micro like about it in particular.

I used it when my laptop died and I decided to do continue working on my project using termux on my (low end) smartphone. It played well with the touchscreen and made a nice temporary environment. Basic and almost zero learning curve, but extensible and customizable when I wanted it.

Re: Nano 5.7

#98

Post by CivBase »

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…

I've always been surprised by nano's ubiquity since it comes across to me as a very niche application. It's a highly-accessible, bare-bones text editor... for a terminal, where the overwhelming majority of users will be "power users" who will likely value the additional features made available by vim or emacs. It's not a bad tool. I just seems to be designed for a very small demographic.

Re: Nano 5.7

#99

Post by umvi »

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 I suspect I will have to soon enough. I hacked up (a very limited) utf-8 support for it a few years ago, but it's really showing its age, and showing all the signs of having been written in the 80's and the version I use was a fork that hasn't been maintained since the mid 90's.

> University of Helsinki used it because it worked on DOS, VAX/VMS and Unix, which is why I got introduced to it. And now my fingers are hardcoded for it. I really need to switch over to something that is actually maintained and does utf-8 properly. Probably 'nano'. But my hacked-up piece of historical garbage works just barely well enough that I've never been really forced to teach my old fingers new tricks.

[0] https://www.tag1consulting.com/blog/interview-linus-torvalds...

Re: Nano 5.7

#100

Post by mixmastamyk »

Nano was a good alternative on Unix-likes in the old days for config files and such, since very few alternatives existed. However, CUA keybindings were a sore point. It could be almost configured to use them, but dragging config files around to every box was a chore.

About tenish years ago, I found "ne" and it was a bit better, but not a slam dunk.

A few years ago, I found "micro". It is what I always wanted, the simplicity of a CUA editor on Unix that I've used from DOS edit, to Notepad(++), to current GUI editors and IDEs, etc. I'd like a menu widget also, but that's a nitpick really.

Anyway, since it is packaged in Debian/Ubuntu now I've little use for nano. I no longer tolerate programs with unique keybindings, sane standards are a must.

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