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Where Vim Came From

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Re: Where Vim Came From

#2
>As far as I can gather, Intel HEX files are meant to make binary images less opaque

I know this is getting away from the main point of the article, but they're purpose is more to have a standard format that compilers can generate and eprom/device programmers could read without being concerned with the machine's endianness. Pretty much any embedded compiler can produce a .hex file, and pretty much any programmer will read one.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#4
Though e-lisp is great and I appreciate the power and regularity of Emacs, Vi(m)'s mode-full, default cmd-mode editing that doesn't require ctrl + meta + esc left_foot_pedal + wink-wink-nudge-nudge... seems so much nicer to me than insert-by-default editing - thank goodness there are vim plugins everywhere.

The TRS-80 Level II line editor was very much in the spirit of "em", along with other BASICs of the day.

And perhaps a nod to the even more cryptic Teco.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#5
I see MS-DOS is mentioned near the bottom, but the part I was most curious about was not.

When I got my dad's old Windows 3.1 laptop somewhere around 1999, I discovered DOS and started fiddling with it, eventually discovering the "edlin" editor. Everyone else though it was bizarre and hard to use, but I really liked it because I could look at different parts of a file at the same time.

The commands were similar to the example given here for ed, but the output much much easier to read. Does anyone know if it was another clone or just coincidence?

Re: Where Vim Came From

#6

Though e-lisp is great and I appreciate the power and regularity of Emacs, Vi(m)'s mode-full, default cmd-mode editing that doesn't require ctrl + meta + esc left_foot_pedal + wink-wink-nudge-nudge... seems so much nicer to me than insert-by-default editing - thank goodness there are vim plugins everywhere. The TRS-80 Level II line editor was very much in the spirit of "em", along with other BASICs of the day. And pe…

I'm always kind of curious about comments like this -- it seems everybody knows you have to play games of Twister and hit twelve control keys simultaneously to do even the most basic things in Emacs.

But... I use Emacs. I've been using it for almost twenty years. And I'm struggling to think of anything I use regularly the involves hitting more than two total keys simultaneously (keys pressed in sequence obviously don't work as an argument, since that's also how you edit in Vim). I think the only one is query-replace, because it involves hitting Shift to compose the M-% combination.

And I don't use a ton of custom keybindings, either. The only custom binding I use that's simpler than the default is goto-line, which I have bound to just M-g.

Do people genuinely run into cases where they frequently have to be hitting 3+ keys simultaneously to use Emacs? Or is this just one of those "everybody knows" things that's actually completely false?

Re: Where Vim Came From

#7
post #5

I see MS-DOS is mentioned near the bottom, but the part I was most curious about was not. When I got my dad's old Windows 3.1 laptop somewhere around 1999, I discovered DOS and started fiddling with it, eventually discovering the "edlin" editor. Everyone else though it was bizarre and hard to use, but I really liked it because I could look at different parts of a file at the same time. The commands were similar to th…

Ed, man! !man ed https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html

>When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a “viitor”. Not a “emacsitor”. Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

>TEXT EDITOR.

>When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their “edlin” on a Unix standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#8

>As far as I can gather, Intel HEX files are meant to make binary images less opaque I know this is getting away from the main point of the article, but they're purpose is more to have a standard format that compilers can generate and eprom/device programmers could read without being concerned with the machine's endianness. Pretty much any embedded compiler can produce a .hex file, and pretty much any programmer will…

It amused me that the hex file was described as esoteric given how prolific they are in the embeded world.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#9

Though e-lisp is great and I appreciate the power and regularity of Emacs, Vi(m)'s mode-full, default cmd-mode editing that doesn't require ctrl + meta + esc left_foot_pedal + wink-wink-nudge-nudge... seems so much nicer to me than insert-by-default editing - thank goodness there are vim plugins everywhere. The TRS-80 Level II line editor was very much in the spirit of "em", along with other BASICs of the day. And pe…

I'm always kind of curious about comments like this -- it seems everybody knows you have to play games of Twister and hit twelve control keys simultaneously to do even the most basic things in Emacs. But... I use Emacs. I've been using it for almost twenty years. And I'm struggling to think of anything I use regularly the involves hitting more than two total keys simultaneously (keys pressed in sequence obviously don…

The default undo binding in emacs (C-_) takes three keys (control, shift, hyphen). I use that quite a bit, but I don't find it burdensome. I also map control to the caps-lock key on my keyboard.
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