[Gllug] ed vs emacs, was: OpenMoko Neo Freerunner

[Alain Williams]

On Sat, May 09, 2009 at 02:33:05PM +0100, Nix wrote:
> On 8 May 2009, Alain Williams spake thusly:

> > As a line editor: ed is very good.
> 
> As long as you want to edit a single line at a time, don't ever want to
> see lots of stuff at once, never want to deal with things except on a
> strictly line-by-line basis...

errrm: with vi/emacs/... you have your cursor on one character (ie one line)
at any one time.

You want to see multiple line in ed, how about:
	.-1,.+10p
Change multiple lines:
	1,$s/foo/bar/

> ... but I tend to edit much larger chunks than that at once, and without
> syntax highlighting and the ability to see many files simultaneously
> things get very difficult.

Different tools, different purposes.

> Emacs provides that. vim does. ed, not so much. I actually prefer to use
> sed -i in extremis: that's how nasty I think ed is.

I agree that I prefer emacs for everyday use to ed. But to say that
ed is nasty is just plain wrong. Try using for a week - and then comment.
But I suspect that your mind is made up.

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php
Past chairman of UKUUG: http://www.ukuug.org/
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
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