From: Weiqi Gao <weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: emcAsc
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 13:11:36 -0600
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Lars Eighner wrote:
> 
> I don't quite understand the problem here.  The point of djgpp is
> that you are on a DOS or Windows machine.  There must be a hundred
> DOS free or shareware editors that are much more powerful than
> either vim or emacs.  The vim or emacs discussion makes sense if
> you are stuck in a uniod environment where applications are
> are few and far between and they all assume you are on a VT100 mono
> terminal with no function keys (but connected to a Cray with
> unlimited resources).

Flame war! Flame war!! Flame war!!!  Let's have a flame war!  For the
last time in the twentieth century!!!!

Your DOS freeware/shareware editors are jokes.  They are written by
hungry grad students who want to 'figure out' how to do it.  As soon as
they are done with it, they move on to make their bit bucks being a
Windows consultant.  If you use any of them, you would be dead in the
water in about 18 months.

Plus, no serious software was ever written using one of those.

> Any editor that maps backspace to the help function
> (emacs) is simply out of place on a desktop with a 104+ keyboard.

Anyone who judges an editor by the second keystroke that they ever
issued (because their first letter was typed wrong!) in it simply don't
have any patience.  Had they been not so lazy, they would have the
chance to learn such nice functionalities as "indent the whole region",
and "comment out a whole region", "incremental search", "show revision
history", and "evaluate the preceding sexp".

> And a glorified line editor (like vim) is the sort of thing DOS
> left in the dust with the late and not-very-lamented edline.

And DOS replaced EDLIN with what?  EDIT.EXE! which saves all files with
the .TXT extension.  A clear sign that it's not intended for writing
programs!

> Emacs is an incredible resource hog because it was designed
> by grad students with access to mainframes.  Vim has the singular
> distinction of being the most counter-intuitive editor in
> existence.  Take your pick.  (If you really are stuck in
> a unoid environment, get joe which can be customized to
> behave like a real editor.)

The whole Microsoft thing was started by a under-grad drop-out who saw
"fools with money" and exploited the situation.  Intuition is learned,
and the vi interface is as intuitive and as simple as 'a b c ...'. 
Anyone who can't handle that has no business writing programs.

> If the applications existed for uniods, no one would run
> DOS, Windows, or djgpp.  But they don't, and just about all
> the development for uniods seems directed at pouring
> resources down the bottomless X-windows pit.

Do we really need to bring X Window System into this?

[All of the above was meant in the most humorous way.  No offenses to
anybody was implied.  And, oh, here's my smiley  =|8-:) , there, view it
both ways.]

-- 
Weiqi Gao
weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com