[Sussex] Straw Poll

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

On 28 April 2003 at 14:51 Geoff Teale wrote:
> I plan to publish the result once people have stopped posting 
> answers - I'm not looking for difinitive usage stats, just
> wanted to get a rough idea. 

Fairy Nuff
 
> Really this is routed in the fact that I have had the
> opportunity (being in my last days here) to spend some serious
> time in Emacs (something I haven't been able to do for an age)
> and I was just recalling what a truely wonderful program it is
> (I use GNU Emacs as oppossed to XEmacs).  I was actually
> feeling vaguely emotional about the experience and the prospect
> of it becoming my main interface to the world in a couple of
> weeks time.  I was just wondering how people feel about these
> things and why they choose to use an editor.

Well my route to Emacs must be one of the oddest.  I had started
developing device drivers for Solaris 2.4 and the OBP (Sparc's 
Open Boot Prompt) used the EMacs keys for command editing.  Having
learned half the key strokes needed to get by in an editor at the
OBP prompt I thought it wasn't going to be that much effort to 
learn the rest of it. [Okay - so Sun was also using XEmacs as there
interface to the debugger - so I was getting exposure to it in a 
number of other ways - but it was the OBP that was the straw].

> I imagine that as a programmer you build up a deeper 
> relationship with your text editor than you average sys-admin.

This is very true.  It also has to be noted that there is a huge,
huge defence between a text editor and a word processor.  Although
they look the same at first glance (and to a PHB) the jobs they do
and how they do it is very, very different.  They way the "text" is
laid out is very different and the way one moved about the documents
is miles apart.

> I was expecting the following results:
> 
> Coders would mainly use emacs
> Sys-admins would mostly use vi

I also would predict the same result, and it follows my experience.
I use vi when I want to edit/view something quickly (config files,
source examples, logs, etc...).

When it comes to program creation I want the extra futures of
multiple buffers (on screen at the same time) - multi windows and the
like.  Yes I know vim has them but vim is broken in other way that an
old vi user like me just can't accept.  "cw" should not delete the word
and then put you in insert mode; it should put a "$" at the end of the
word, allow you to overtype the word then push the text after the
"$" to the right.  Yes, yes I know they are functionally the same, but
the visual clues are very different.  If you still don't understand 
my PoV then go back to using Word to write your program files :-)
 
> ... whether that holds true or not remains to be seen. 

I wait your results.

> vi seems to hold a lot of kudos considering that it is 
> fundementally akward to use.  

And on 28 April 2003 at 14:57 Geoff Teale also wrote:
> Thinking about this, it occurs to me that this is _why_ 
> people consider vi use to be an status thing.  In the old
> days vi used to be the first app you learnt to use, and
> operating vi correctly is a right of passage.  These days
> most distros drop you into a GUI environment from day one, 
> and even the likes of Debian and Gentoo default to GNU Nano
> instead of vi.  To think we are entering an age where
> there are thousands of Linux users who don't know their
> ESC-Z-Z from their :q!

I think you mean SHIFT-Z-Z - Go back to Emacs you young wipper-
snapper. :-) 

vi is not awkward it is efficient and clean.  Once you know you way
around vi it is very powerful.  There is a very good reason for
the lack of status information in vi.  When vi was first developed
lines to the Unix system were very slow (and some of the VPNs I 
used to day seam just as bad).  vi does the bear minimum, and thus
does not put an unnecessary load on the line between you're terminal
and the host.  Consider my example above of "cw".  When entering this
mode all vi has to do is:
   move cursor to end of word
   print "$"
   move cursor back
But vim has to:
   delete all the characters in the word
   move cursor to the bottom line of the terminal
   print "INSERT"
   move cursor back to starting point.
Even for a small change that's at least twice the number of control
characters and for no added benefit.  Emacs is much worse - the status
line has to be updated with every key press!

I can't speak for Gentoo, but Debian's reason for switching away from
vi as the base editor is simple.  vi is a bit big compared with the 
others, and as this editor has to be available on very simple install
media (read floppy) every byte saved is room for more in the kernel.

> ..but then perhaps that is a good thing.

It is not!  Many of these newer and so called fancier editors do not
provide the same power as good old vi.  Emacs' search and replace is
far less powerful then ex's and I have been known from time to time
to drop out of XEmacs and into vi to do some of the more complex
search and replaces.  And for those of you how are asking "Why is
he talking about ex in a vi rant?" it is because ex is the command
mode of vi as well as being an editor in its own right.

Sorry for the rant - but I haven't had a good rant on here for some
time now and then need overtook me. :-)

Steve