Actually using Ed

Post by dalke » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 10:17 AM UTC

swa14 wrote: post #85

dalke wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only vi editor I used for more than a version commit was 'elvis' on Minux. Otherwise I'm an emacs user. (I know "q", "q!", "s", "dd", "i", "/", and "a". That's all I need for commits.) The reason I found it humorous is my difficulty in coming up with strong reasons for someone to start with ed and then transition to vi, while it's easy to come up with reasons to start with vi and then learn ed. And your best case…

Ah. I guess I didn't express myself very clearly. I'm not advocating starting with 'ed' and transitioning to 'vi'. I'm an emacs user myself. But as you know, emacs is not always installed by default (especially on remote server installations). 'vi' is always there, but I already know and prefer emacs. 'ed' is also always there, and catches some corner cases 'vi' doesn't. As a bonus to knowing 'ed' (in addition to a f…

"I know just enough vi to compile emacs" ;)

Post by mpd » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 10:29 PM UTC

Twisol wrote: post #78

mpd wrote: post #57

I was a MUD coder in a past life (and sort of am still); learning ed is essential for that environment. I'm glad I learned to use it, and gladder still I don't have to use it every day. It's great for quick fixes and one-offs, but having to engineer with it is rather unpalatable.

I'm curious, why is it essential? I'm a bit of a MUD enthusiast myself, and I've never had to use ed. On the other hand, my favorite MUD's long-form editor (like for newsposts and journal pages) has an ed-like design.

For making changes on the mud itself, there was no other way to write code unless you were an admin and had direct machine access.

There are some vi-like mud editors out there, but they were always wonky when I tried them, and caused more problems than they were worth (weird screen redraws, keys stopped working randomly, etc.). That said, I believe Dead Souls mudlib[1] may ship with one now, but I haven't looked at the lib in a few years, so I can't say for sure.

[1] http://dead-souls.net/

EDIT: link to dead souls FAQ entry on this topic: http://dead-souls.net/ds-admin-faq.html#144

Re: Actually using Ed

Re: Actually using Ed