[H-GEN] RE: Simple Editors

[Frank Brand]

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This whole issue demonstrates a dichotomy within Humbug that is often
glossed over (i'll say dichotomy coz I know how to spell it - I think - but
substitute trichotomy or whatever you think). Some of the influentual Humbug
people are sysadmins with enormous skills in that area but not so great in
other areas. As was stated in the posts by Rob Kearney and Greg Black
"different worlds". Others are more user oriented rather than system
oriented...they may know a lot more about what some application programmes
can do than some of the highly skilled sysadmins here (and I don't really
have any doubts that a lot of Humbug guys could compete anywhere in the
world). When I was discussing using a Linux box to replace Windows boxes on
the desktop it surprised me how little some people I held in extremely high
regard actually knew about the use of some of the programmes they were
championing. (to digress I built the box at my own expense and took it to
the company, noting it was a more reliable, safer, better system etc etc and
they said they didn't want to know, didn't even want to look at what it
could do...thats choice I suppose).

To those people the choice of editor is almost irrelevant (Sandra, Tony). To
them it was irrelevant because they used text editors so infrequently that
they forget the commands...I can use Vi but never get further than reading
the command structure in emacs because I just know that Ctrl-x-p-q is never
going to be remembered  in six months time. Command liners never accept that
lots of people (the majority, no the vast majority I suspect) prefer GUI's
because it gives them clues as to what can be done and how to do it without
some convoluted command with even more convoluted arguments and even more
convluted option (WTF is the difference between an option and an argument
and a parameter I hear you say? Isnt GUI wonderful *wink*). I have used Vi
from the command line to edit files on web pages...telnet to UQ, go to the
directory, run Vi, edit. However, I do prefer a GUI editor. My choice, that
is what people say is one advantage of UNIX/Linux...many ways to do it...but
when you exercise your right to use your way you get flamed by command
liners/emacs-vi ppl/konqueror-netscape-mozilla etc biggots/Slackware
biggots/Red Hat biggots/Debian biggots/Mandrake biggots  etcetc biggots.

The following is not a flame of backups or anything anyone has said. It is
purely an illustration of the fact that there are different perspectives.

There are horses for courses. Let me give you an example. Jason has pretty
serious and unbending views on backups...I agree with what he says totally
but if I rolled up to a small business with 5 or 10 staff and two computers
and suggested that they need duplicated SCSI tape drives and other
associated gear that might cost $4,000 to $5,000 I would be asked whether
something a lot less costly might work. Thus, I use hard drives or zip
drives or something for back up in those circumstances... its better to have
some backup than none at all. A full on solution might be great for a
company - large or small - that is prepared to accept the cost and
discipline involved (and its not just the cost...the discpline is as
important...inculcating backup mentality into indigenous New Guineans was
not easy either) but when the cost becomes an issue flexibilty is needed.
Thus I have one company happily doing back-ups to a hard drive in another
machine and this has saved the day on numerous occasions and they would not
see that they need anything else maybe...again their dollars, their choice
(just in case anyone is wondering this is not the same crew who had the
drive that died... that lot actually had both a CD burner and Zip drive in
the box but just didn't have the discipline to backup...couldn't bring
myself to admit that to you).

It would be a bloody rare day when more than 10% of my time is spent on a
text editor but I don't really want to convince anyone that they should use
any particular editor or anything else. Just remember there are other
perspectives.

Frank Brand





>Naturally to any innocent bystanders this is all slightly absurd, and the
>comment is often heard "Does it really matter?".  They are routinely
>surprised by the unanticipated response "YES!".
>
>It would be a rare day I would spend less then 80% of my time editing
>plain text files in a text editor.  It is not uncommon for me to spend an
>entire day doing nothing but occasionally using a shell to select the next
>file to edit.



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