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

[Bruce Richardson]

On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 09:58:09AM +0100, Harry wrote:
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> > Sed was originally called gres, the idea being that it would do a very
> > similar job to grep but with substitution.  Along the way, the developer
> > decided to add more functionality and he deliberately based the new
> > tool's command set on ed's commands because it had become so unversally
> > known; so he named the tool "sed" to reinforce that sense of
> > progression.
> > 
> > 
> Thanks for the explanation. So I sort of use sed all the time (with grep).

Not really, no.  You were more correct to say that sed is ed for
streams.  sed's *original* inspiration was the way in which grep focused
on one part of ed's functionality but then Lee McMahon realised that the
logical conclusion of that would be a whole series of specialised "gre*"
tools, each delivering a particular subset of ed's features, so he
expanded the purpose of gres and made sed.


-- 
Bruce

I object to intellect without discipline.  I object to power without
constructive purpose. -- Spock
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