[H-GEN] Simple Linux editors

Tue Apr 9 04:14:19 EDT 2002

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On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 05:43:38AM +1000, Greg Black wrote:
> You're talking as if I said something to the contrary.  I did
> not.  I have been talking about circumstances where ed is the
> only available choice.  It's a situation that can and does
> happen.  If you don't want to be able to deal with that
> possibility, that's fine.  It's your choice.  I have been trying
> to help the people who don't want to be left high and dry in a
> particular situation.
> 
> Greg
          I must agree with Greg, even at home with OpenBSD
I have had to boot single user and use ed though I won't
pretend I knew the commands without opening a book.
          Here is something from David Leonard's site I hope
all will find funny.

  Ed, man! !man ed

From: patl at athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti)
Subject: The True Path (long)
Date: 11 Jul 91 03:17:31 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs,alt.slack

When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi
*and* Emacs are just too damn slow.  They print useless messages like,
'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'.  So I use the editor
that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

Ed, man!  !man ed

ED(1)               UNIX Programmer's Manual                ED(1)

NAME
     ed - text editor

SYNOPSIS
     ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
     Ed is the standard text editor.
---

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
alphabetically, but because it's the standard.  Everyone else loves ed
because it's ED!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair.  Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x  1 root          24 Oct 29  1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t  4 root     1310720 Jan  1  1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  5.89824e37 Oct 22  1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem$ ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage.  Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA!  ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED
AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES!  ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS
BODILY FLUIDS!!  ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR!  ED MAKES THE SUN
SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

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.

Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on.  If you
are an idiot, you should use Emacs.  If you are an Emacs, you should
not be vi.  If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION.  THE
SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE
FAITHLESS.  DO NOT GIVE IN!!!  THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

?

   Other humor in the GNU Humor Collection.

    Disclaimer

   The joke on this page was obtained from the FSF's email archives of
   the GNU Project.
   The Free Software Foundation claims no copyrights on this joke.
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   Updated: 8 Apr 2000 tower
     _________________________________________________________________

         Note the date on the original of this joke, this shows
         how long this discussion has been around but ed is still
         useful in some circumstances. I believe emacs was based
         on an editor called teco which made ed look friendly, did
         anyone here get to use it ?
                                           John Duncan

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