Suggested Alan Editor
Jova
I'm complete new to I.F. but I have been reading some stuff about
programming languages. I'm working with ALAN and TADS at the mo.
Everytime I compile an *.ALA file, it would list errors which i can fix
easily but I noticed that when you are handling over 400 hundred lines of
codes, it would be difficult trying to find the exact line. For example,
448. LOCATE OBJECT HERE
1
*1* 101 E: 'DOES' INSERTED
Above, it says I should insert DOES at line 448. I have Windows 98 and I
used Notepad to create and edit *.ALA source files. The problem with Notepad
is the text lines are not numbered therefore, it gets tiring trying to find
line 448.
I would like to create a basic text editor with numbered lines, for example
1. VERB 'look' DOES
2. LOOK.
3. END VERB.
4.
5. VERB 'quit' DOES
6. QUIT.
7. END VERB.
and so on
I feel I have to ask if I would be infringing copyright by creating a text
editor to work with ALAN.exe and ARUN.exe.
The application would have buttons which you can press for your *.ALA file
to compiled or run. I'm not creating an application to reverse engineer
ALAN.exe or ARUN.exe, or any other applications. Possibly, it will have some
other functions, search keywords, insert verbs, insert objects.
This application would be Freeware and I don't want gain anything from it
except a peace of mind when working on *.ALA files. It would only work on
Windows 95 and above operating systems. I would create the program with
Visual Basic 6.
The reason I'm posting this message is to find out if I went ahead with the
proposed application, would I fall foul of the law or the I.F. community,
which I don't want to happen. I like I.F. and I hope I could amke a
contribution to the I.F. community.
Cheers,
John
Gadget
<joh...@REMOVESPAMgreenbank79.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>The reason I'm posting this message is to find out if I went ahead with the
>proposed application, would I fall foul of the law or the I.F. community,
>which I don't want to happen. I like I.F. and I hope I could amke a
>contribution to the I.F. community.
>
>Cheers,
>John
>
>
I don't know the Alan license myself, but I would eat my hat if anyone
would mind... And yes, I do own a hat.
Sounds like a great programming project. Don't forget to upload it to
the if-archive when it's done. There might be more people interested
in your work.
Happy coding ;-)
-------------
It's a bird...
It's a plane...
No, it's... Gadget?
-------------------
To send mail remove SPAMBLOCK from adress.
Rikard Peterson
> ... I have Windows 98 and I used Notepad to create and edit *.ALA
> source files...
Just in case you didn't know: There exists several good free text
editors. And while Notepad has its merits, practically everything else
is better (i.e. has more features), and linenumbers is not uncommon. I
personally use Vim.
That said, if you want to create a new editor yourself, I'm not going
to stop you.
Rikard
Roger Firth
news:b0hc0v$nbs$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
You won't fall foul of 'the community' by seeking to make a
positive contribution. Having said that, you should start by
checking what's already available; there's little point in
reinventing yet another set of circular mobility objects. See:
http://www.firthworks.com/roger/editors/index.html
Cheers, Roger
--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
You'll find my Cloak of Darkness, Parsifal, Informary
and more at http://www.firthworks.com/roger/
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> Jova wrote in news:b0hc0v$nbs$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk:
>> ... I have Windows 98 and I used Notepad to create and edit *.ALA
>> source files...
> Just in case you didn't know: There exists several good free text
> editors. And while Notepad has its merits, practically everything else
> is better (i.e. has more features), and linenumbers is not uncommon. I
> personally use Vim.
I'd second the recommendation of Vim <http://www.vim.org/>, but it's
definitely an advanced programmer's editor, and while it has a good
built-in tutorial, it has a steep learning curve. For a somewhat
simpler editor on Windows, try JEdit <http://www.jedit.org/> or TextPad
<http://www.textpad.com/>. Notepad's a toy program.
> That said, if you want to create a new editor yourself, I'm not going
> to stop you.
I've written text editors before (my Mr.ED ("Mark's Reliable EDitor")
for the Atari 8-bits got a lot of shareware registrations back in the
day), and it's not *hard* initially, but it is tedious work.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in
order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond
the stars to eat our brains." -Charlie Stross, _The Concrete Jungle_
Nikos Chantziaras
> Jova wrote in
> news:b0hc0v$nbs$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk:
>
> > ... I have Windows 98 and I used Notepad to create and edit
> > *.ALA
> > source files...
>
> Just in case you didn't know: There exists several good free text
> editors. And while Notepad has its merits, practically everything else
> is better (i.e. has more features), and linenumbers is not uncommon. I
> personally use Vim.
Stay away from everything that has a "vi" of "emacs" in its name! These
programs were designed for brain-damaged computers that lacked things like
arrow keys, "Home", "Page Down", etc.
-- Niko
Travis Casey
> Rikard Peterson wrote:
>> Just in case you didn't know: There exists several good free text
>> editors. And while Notepad has its merits, practically everything else
>> is better (i.e. has more features), and linenumbers is not uncommon. I
>> personally use Vim.
>
> Stay away from everything that has a "vi" of "emacs" in its name! These
> programs were designed for brain-damaged computers that lacked things like
> arrow keys, "Home", "Page Down", etc.
More correctly, they were designed (at least vi was) before computers had
such things. But that's not a reason to avoid them in and of itself,
especially since the newer versions know about such keys -- in "vi" on my
Linux machine, page up and down move you up and down a screen, home takes
you to the start of the line, and all the arrow keys work just as you'd
expect...
Now, vi is a modal editor, and emacs has a massive overkill of features,
but those are different issues...
--
ZZzz |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efi...@earthlink.net>
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Clearly, you haven't used a current version of vi; maybe never, you
sound like you're just parroting traditional "unix-hater" myths. Vim
supports arrow keys for newbies, as do all other modern vi clones. But
you will find that you don't use them, after a while, because it's
faster to never move your fingers from the home keys.
XEmacs (and maybe Emacs) supports arrow keys, too, though I'm no fan
of Emacs. "Emacs is a great Lisp-based operating system, but it needs a
better editor."
Magnus Olsson
Jova <joh...@REMOVESPAMgreenbank79.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Above, it says I should insert DOES at line 448. I have Windows 98 and I
>used Notepad to create and edit *.ALA source files. The problem with Notepad
>is the text lines are not numbered therefore, it gets tiring trying to find
>line 448.
>
>I would like to create a basic text editor with numbered lines, for example
>
>1. VERB 'look' DOES
>2. LOOK.
>3. END VERB.
>4.
>5. VERB 'quit' DOES
>6. QUIT.
>7. END VERB.
>
>and so on
Writing a text editor is actually quite a major undertaking. If you'd
rather spend your time writing games than editors, you'll be glad to
hear that there are lots of editors that keep track of line numbers.
Most don't display them like in your example, but they still
keep track of them. Unfortunately, Notepad doesn't.
I know you've been warned off emacs :-), and it's perhaps not the
easiest editor in the world to use, but I'll use it as an example anyway:
it has a function called goto-line which moves the cursor to any line
you want. I've configured emacs on my machine so I only have to press
alt-g and then type 448 to go to line 448, for example.
>I feel I have to ask if I would be infringing copyright by creating a text
>editor to work with ALAN.exe and ARUN.exe.
Not at all. You wouldn't be modifying either alan.exe or arun.exe,
you'd just be calling them from isnide your editor.
>The application would have buttons which you can press for your *.ALA file
>to compiled or run.
Actually, emacs (and lots of other editors) can do this as well. I haven't
tried it with Alan, but for Inform there's something called the "Inform
Mode" that not only lets me compile my program at the press of a button,
but also autmoatically moves to the line referred to in the compiler's
error messages. And it also colours different keywords differently.
I'm not quite sure that there is an "Alan Mode" for emacs, but writing
one would be considerably less work than writing an entirely new editor.
>The reason I'm posting this message is to find out if I went ahead with the
>proposed application, would I fall foul of the law or the I.F. community,
>which I don't want to happen.
You wouldn't fall afoul with anybody. In fact, any contribution is
appreciated.
But you might prefer to use an existing editor, or to write a "mode"
for one, rather than writing a new editor from scratch. Or you might
not - it's a matter of taste and how much spare time you have.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se)
PGP Public Key available at http://www.df.lth.se/~mol
Ally
> I would like to create a basic text editor with numbered lines,
Displaying line numbers is a standard feature of any half-decent editor, as
is syntax colouring (it is _very_ easy to create your own syntax files for
ConTEXT or TextPad. (Even I made a few.))
> The application would have buttons which you can press for your *.ALA
> file to compiled or run.
Specifying hot-key combinations to compile a file or run the resulting
binary (or upload it to the IF-Archive, but let's not get carried away),
complete with user-specified command line options and console output
capturing, is another very standard feature.
> I'm not creating an application to reverse
> engineer ALAN.exe or ARUN.exe, or any other applications. Possibly, it
> will have some other functions, search keywords, insert verbs, insert
> objects.
Much of that should be doable with simple, uhm, "live-recorded" macros.
That, too, is something text editors usually provide.
As for vi and emacs and clones thereof, they have lots of other, more
advanced features such as code folding or multiple views on the same file.
On the other hand, not even the user-friendlier gVim or xemacs behave like
your average Windows application, whereas with TextPad, UltraEdit, ConTEXT
etc. you can start writing right away (because there's no built in mail
client or Tetris clone to distract you ;)
IMHO... Even if you do plan to write your own text editor, it'd be a good
idea to ditch the abomination that is Notepad as fast as you can. Anything
is better than Notepad.
You can find all of these editors through the editor comparison page Roger
Firth mentioned.
~Ally
Ally
> I know you've been warned off emacs :-), and it's perhaps not the
> easiest editor in the world to use, but I'll use it as an example
> anyway: it has a function called goto-line which moves the cursor to
> any line you want. I've configured emacs on my machine so I only have
> to press alt-g and then type 448 to go to line 448, for example.
Incidentally, TextPad will do the same if you press Ctrl-g (go to a line,
row, label, page or byte #, that is.) If you keep your eyes on the
keyboard, you won't even notice the dialogue box that'll pop up ;)
Similar with ConTEXT, and I'm sure most other usable editors.
Uhm. I think I'm just saying that to insult Notepad some more (apologies,
but I think I've been traumatized). I know emacs can do more than all the
editors I use combined.
> I'm not quite sure that there is an "Alan Mode" for emacs, but writing
> one would be considerably less work than writing an entirely new
> editor.
There's an ALAN mode for Imaginate, it seems. Maybe Imaginate is already
pretty close to what you (I mean Jova now) wants to create? Never used it
though.
~Ally
Magnus Olsson
Rikard Peterson
> In article <Xns930AA052C3C6...@62.153.159.134>,
> Ally <kitzapoo_R...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>Anything is better than Notepad.
>
> Even EDLIN? :-)
At least you get line numbers...
Ally
> In article <Xns930AA052C3C6...@62.153.159.134>,
> Ally <kitzapoo_R...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
>>Anything
>>is better than Notepad.
>
> Even EDLIN? :-)
Eeep.
Uhm.
*thinks*
YES!! Line numbers!
Nikos Chantziaras
> [...]
> Stay away from everything that has a "vi" of "emacs" in its name!
> These programs were designed for brain-damaged computers that
> lacked things like arrow keys, "Home", "Page Down", etc.
Looks like a troll, sounds like a troll, smells like a troll; is it a troll?
-- Niko
"Never respond to your own trolls!"
Joe Mason
> I wrote:
>> [...]
>> Stay away from everything that has a "vi" of "emacs" in its name!
>> These programs were designed for brain-damaged computers that
>> lacked things like arrow keys, "Home", "Page Down", etc.
>
> Looks like a troll, sounds like a troll, smells like a troll; is it a troll?
Um, I feel very awkward saying this now, but VIM supports Home and Page
Down and all those just fine. The only problem with vi is that every
once in a while you'll find some other flavour (nvi or elvis or
whatever) installed instead, and that will just mess with you.
Joe
SteveG
<kitzapoo_R...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
>m...@df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
[snip]
>> I'm not quite sure that there is an "Alan Mode" for emacs,
No, I've never heard of one.
>> but writing
>> one would be considerably less work than writing an entirely new
>> editor.
Yes, even entering the Emacs world and conquering its learning curve
would be _way_ easier than writing an editor.
>
>There's an ALAN mode for Imaginate, it seems. Maybe Imaginate is already
>pretty close to what you (I mean Jova now) wants to create? Never used it
>though.
Imaginate is a promising new piece of software with ALAN and TADS
modes.
There's an ALAN syntax definition file for Textpad at the IF Archive
(in programming/editors.) So I suggest you try out that editor
(download it from www.textpad.com, costs about $30US to register it
but works unregistered too) before you try writing your own editor.
You need to do a bit of configuration work to set Textpad to use the
syntax file and to set up menu options to compile your sourcecode with
the Alan compiler. But that'd take about 30 minutes, mostly spent
reading the Textpad helpfiles. (And note that there's lots of other
editors available if Textpad doesn't suit you -- Roger Firth has
mentioned his list of IF editors; I'd second that suggestion as a good
starting point for an editor quest.)
I'd also suggest trying Textpad before using Imaginate as Imaginate is
still a work in progress and may not yet be stable enough to commit
your game's precious sourcecode to it. (But I'm sure Richard
Northedge, the author of Imaginate, would appreciate your feedback if
you did want to give it a try. I must get back into testing it
myself.)
-- SteveG
remove _X_ from my address to send me email
David Thornley
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>Mon, 20 Jan 2003 23:02:43 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras <for....@manager.de>:
>
>of Emacs. "Emacs is a great Lisp-based operating system, but it needs a
>better editor."
>
I'm not real fond of some of the choices made, but I do have the
source code....
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Will Grzanich
> Incidentally, TextPad will do the same if you press Ctrl-g (go to a line,
> row, label, page or byte #, that is.) If you keep your eyes on the
> keyboard, you won't even notice the dialogue box that'll pop up ;)
> Similar with ConTEXT, and I'm sure most other usable editors.
>
> Uhm. I think I'm just saying that to insult Notepad some more (apologies,
> but I think I've been traumatized). I know emacs can do more than all the
> editors I use combined.
Not that I'm chomping at the bit to defend Notepad or anything, but for
what it's worth, you can pull the old Ctrl-G trick with it, too, on
Windows 2000 or later. Only does "go to line," though.
That said, there are a million and one editors out there already that
display line numbers. Life's too short. It's probably best to just get
one of those and start writing games. :)
-Will
Magnus Olsson
SteveG <s_...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>>> but writing
>>> one would be considerably less work than writing an entirely new
>>> editor.
>
>Yes, even entering the Emacs world and conquering its learning curve
>would be _way_ easier than writing an editor.
It depends on what he wants to do.
I suppose that writing a full featured Alan mode from scratch requires
that you "conquer Emacs's learning curve". However, adding features
like compiling an Alan program at the press of a button isn't that
difficult, and one doesn't have to learn much about emacs to do it,
since one can look at existing modes and copy from them.
Besides, writing an entire editor from scratch in Visual Basic isn't
exactly an easy task, either. There's a long way to go before you get
even basic functionality.
That said, I was using emacs as an example. No doubt the editors
recommended by others are excellent choices, and probably easier to
learn.
Ally
> Not that I'm chomping at the bit to defend Notepad or anything, but
> for what it's worth, you can pull the old Ctrl-G trick with it, too,
> on Windows 2000 or later. Only does "go to line," though.
You're right. (damn.) :)
Roger Firth
news:dgoh0b...@titan.tobara.org...
> More correctly, they were designed (at least vi was) before computers had
> such things. But that's not a reason to avoid them in and of itself,
> especially since the newer versions know about such keys -- in "vi" on my
> Linux machine, page up and down move you up and down a screen, home takes
> you to the start of the line, and all the arrow keys work just as you'd
> expect...
>
> Now, vi is a modal editor, and emacs has a massive overkill of features,
> but those are different issues...
And they happen to be vital issues to the sort of person who's asking the
question "Is there a better editor than Notepad?". Modality in particular.
When I start vim 6.1 I get a screen which looks like the left-overs from
somebody's previous editing session. No matter; I'll try typing something,
say "hello world". So I type "h" and "e" and "l" and "l" and... nothing
happens.
On "o" the screen clears (sort of), and then my text starts appearing.
Now with the greatest of respect, anybody who recommends that
behaviour to an obvious novice is living on Planet Zog. While I fully
appreciate the benefits of the vi, emacs and their clones to power
programmers,
I'd need a lot of convincing that they should even be mentioned in
this context. To my mind, the key requirements are familiarity,
predicatability and simplicity. Like Ctrl+C for copy, not "+y (yes, I know
the other works, but it's not what the Edit menu shows).
Fraser Wilson
> XEmacs (and maybe Emacs) supports arrow keys, too, though I'm no fan
> of Emacs. "Emacs is a great Lisp-based operating system, but it needs a
> better editor."
M-x vi-mode
David Thornley
>In article <Xns930AA052C3C6...@62.153.159.134>,
>Ally <kitzapoo_R...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
>>Anything
>>is better than Notepad.
>
>Even EDLIN? :-)
>
EDLIN should be considered a misspelling of ED for the purpose of
that rule.
Another rule is to use an editor, not a notepad-type program or word
processor, to write code. There's always free ones available, and
XEmacs will work even for a novice. (It won't be obvious what to
do at first, but typing is easy and the mouse and menus work.)
Neil Cerutti
> "Travis Casey" <efi...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:dgoh0b...@titan.tobara.org...
>> but those are different issues...
>
> And they happen to be vital issues to the sort of person who's
> asking the question "Is there a better editor than Notepad?".
> Modality in particular.
>
> When I start vim 6.1 I get a screen which looks like the
> left-overs from somebody's previous editing session. No matter;
> I'll try typing something, say "hello world". So I type "h" and
> "e" and "l" and "l" and... nothing happens. On "o" the screen
> clears (sort of), and then my text starts appearing.
Heh, heh.
Have you seen what happens if you accidentally get into
Ex mode? Guess how to get out again. Yikes! This still happens to
me once in a while, and I've been using Vim for several years.
> Now with the greatest of respect, anybody who recommends that
> behaviour to an obvious novice is living on Planet Zog.
In depends how much more power they want.
> While I fully appreciate the benefits of the vi, emacs and
> their clones to power programmers,
[Grand Moff Cerutti] Nothing will be able to resist the power of
our fully operational Vim 6.1 editor.
[Firth Vader] Don't be too proud of this technological terror
you've constructed.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net>
Cedric Knight
> Everytime I compile an *.ALA file, it would list errors which i can
fix
> easily but I noticed that when you are handling over 400 hundred lines
of
> codes, it would be difficult trying to find the exact line. For
example,
ADEW was designed for ALAN and Windows and is available from the ALAN
directory on the IF archive. ADEW includes PFE (Programmer's File
Editor), which I'd recommend:
http://www.simtel.net/pub/dl/11983.shtml
PFE is freeware, fast, you can turn line numbering on and off for
different file types, and define hotkeys to compile or run different
languages. I use it for every language that doesn't have its own
debugging environment, and a few that do.
HTH
CK
Eric F.
I personnaly use EditPad and it is very conveniant. It has line numbers,
and tab for opening several files.
It's fast and very stable.
The pro version has syntax colouring for those who like this sort of
thing.
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Richard Northedge
> modes.
You can download the latest version from its new location at
http://www.imaginate.free-online.co.uk.
It provides the usual editor functionality (line numbers, syntax
highlighting, macros, etc.) as well as providing context-sensitive help
(press F1 with your cursor in an ALAN keyword and get taken to the relevant
section of the Alan Author's Guide, in HTML Help format), the ability to
compile and run projects from within Imaginate, and a few other nifty
features.
> I'd also suggest trying Textpad before using Imaginate as Imaginate is
> still a work in progress and may not yet be stable enough to commit
> your game's precious sourcecode to it. (But I'm sure Richard
> Northedge, the author of Imaginate, would appreciate your feedback if
> you did want to give it a try. I must get back into testing it
> myself.)
This is a bit of a catch-22: I'm pretty confident Imaginate is stable enough
to program in, but being a professional software developer I'm unwilling to
declare "final release" until it's been properly system tested. And I just
don't have the resources to do that outside of my work, so I'm relying on
people to download my "public beta" and try it out. If I say "yes it's
fine" and it breaks, that's bad; if I say, "no, it's still buggy" no-one
will use it so it won't get tested. Basically, I'm sure there are bugs yet
to be found, but I'd be surprised if there were any show-stopping
eat-your-sourcecode type errors that I've somehow overlooked.
>
> -- SteveG
As always, bug reports, comments and suggestions welcome.
Richard
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> And they happen to be vital issues to the sort of person who's asking the
> question "Is there a better editor than Notepad?". Modality in particular.
> When I start vim 6.1 I get a screen which looks like the left-overs from
> somebody's previous editing session. No matter; I'll try typing something,
> say "hello world". So I type "h" and "e" and "l" and "l" and... nothing
> happens.
> On "o" the screen clears (sort of), and then my text starts appearing.
What, you mean this starting screen?
~ VIM - Vi IMproved
~
~ version 6.1
~ by Bram Moolenaar et al.
~ Vim is open source and freely distributable
~
~ Help poor children in Uganda!
~ type :help iccf<Enter> for information
~
~ type :q<Enter> to exit
~ type :help<Enter> or <F1> for on-line help
~ type :help version6<Enter> for version info
Which, right there, tells you *HOW TO GET HELP*. Or you can use the
Help menu. Or you can hit F1.
Being a novice doesn't mean someone is a moron. I believe very firmly
in assuming that people are intelligent until or unless they prove
otherwise.
But yes, if you can't read that and then type :help or hit F1, you're
too dumb to ever use Vim, and should use something else, or stop using
computers entirely.
Vim's learning curve is steep, but not *that* steep. Millions of
people have learned to use vi with much less friendly versions.
Ally
> Vim's learning curve is steep, but not *that* steep. Millions of
> people have learned to use vi with much less friendly versions.
Okay, so I'm just starting to fall in love with it. Once you know how to
get into and out of insert mode and that Ctrl+] is actually Ctrl++ on your
localized keyboard layout and how ridiculously useful the % key is, you can
almost start to really use it. Maybe I'm not a moron after all.
Roger Firth
news:slrnb2u3lv....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu...
> What, you mean this starting screen?
>
> ~ VIM - Vi IMproved
> ~
> ~ version 6.1
> ~ by Bram Moolenaar et al.
> ~ Vim is open source and freely distributable
> ~
> ~ Help poor children in Uganda!
> ~ type :help iccf<Enter> for information
> ~
> ~ type :q<Enter> to exit
> ~ type :help<Enter> or <F1> for on-line help
> ~ type :help version6<Enter> for version info
>
> Which, right there, tells you *HOW TO GET HELP*. Or you can use the
> Help menu. Or you can hit F1.
You miss the point. If I start up any other Windows editor, word processor,
graphics program or whatever, I get either an inactive grey screen, or a
white screen with a cursor on which I can type, draw, or otherwise interact.
I don't need 'help' -- I can just suck it and see. Vim works differently,
against
the established conventions, which is why I think it's an unsuitable
recommendation for newcomers. You need to be significantly experienced
before Vim is of relevance... and by that time, you'll have found it for
yourself,
if you like that sort of thing.
But let's try the help. Reading that screen -- and remember I'm wearing my
newbie's hat -- I see I have to type "help" and press Enter. So I do...
and nothing happens. I should have typed ":help" -- again, completely
counter-intuitive, since I've never ever come across a colon used like that
before.
And when I get to the help screen... it's not helpful. Specifically, it
doesn't
tell me why half of what I type appears and half doesn't. It /assumes/ that
everybody knows Vim is a modal editor, which may be true on Zog, less
so here on Earth.
> Being a novice doesn't mean someone is a moron. I believe very firmly
> in assuming that people are intelligent until or unless they prove
> otherwise.
>
> But yes, if you can't read that and then type :help or hit F1, you're
> too dumb to ever use Vim, and should use something else, or stop using
> computers entirely.
Tut, tut. We're not talking about intelligence here. We're concerned about
user expectations, established precedents, learning by example,
conditioning. About being able to anticipate how something will work,
based on experience of other, similar, programs.
> Vim's learning curve is steep, but not *that* steep. Millions of
> people have learned to use vi with much less friendly versions.
Vim's learning curve is indeed steep, and IMHO offers a novice no
noticeable advantage over other editors which require minimal
familiarisation. That's my point: getting started in IF programming
is hard enough without also having to master an editor designed
for a different age and a different set of users.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
>> in assuming that people are intelligent until or unless they prove
>> otherwise.
>> But yes, if you can't read that and then type :help or hit F1, you're
>> too dumb to ever use Vim, and should use something else, or stop using
>> computers entirely.
> Tut, tut. We're not talking about intelligence here. We're concerned about
> user expectations, established precedents, learning by example,
> conditioning. About being able to anticipate how something will work,
> based on experience of other, similar, programs.
People are not lab rats. Most of them can actually think for
themselves and learn new things. That *IS* talking about intelligence.
You appear to think people aren't capable of that kind of learning...
Maybe I am overly optimistic about human intelligence, but that's a
charge rarely levelled against me.
>> Vim's learning curve is steep, but not *that* steep. Millions of
>> people have learned to use vi with much less friendly versions.
> Vim's learning curve is indeed steep, and IMHO offers a novice no
> noticeable advantage over other editors which require minimal
> familiarisation. That's my point: getting started in IF programming
> is hard enough without also having to master an editor designed
> for a different age and a different set of users.
The Vim novice has to learn more to do just as much as with Notepad.
But with Notepad, you're stuck, there's nothing *more* to learn. With
Vim, there's always new and more powerful things you can learn to do, to
make your life easier. I learn new stuff even now, 20 years after I
first used vi.
Learning to use *any* serious editor is going to require a learning
curve, and once you're past the basics of operating Vim, it's no harder
than any other (and often easier, thanks to the help system).
And once you've learned how to use Vim, it'll be a tool you can use
for anything, not just IF.
Nor is Vim "for a different age". It's immensely faster to work with
than any other editor in the world, because you never have to take your
hands from the home keys to move around or execute commands. There is
still an excellent reason for having a modal editor.
Richard Bos
> Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:58:05 -0000, Roger Firth <ro...@firthworks.com>:
> > Vim's learning curve is indeed steep, and IMHO offers a novice no
> > noticeable advantage over other editors which require minimal
> > familiarisation. That's my point: getting started in IF programming
> > is hard enough without also having to master an editor designed
> > for a different age and a different set of users.
>
> The Vim novice has to learn more to do just as much as with Notepad.
> But with Notepad, you're stuck, there's nothing *more* to learn. With
> Vim, there's always new and more powerful things you can learn to do, to
> make your life easier.
True, but it isn't wise to do this _and_ learn to write IF at the same
time.
> Learning to use *any* serious editor is going to require a learning
> curve, and once you're past the basics of operating Vim, it's no harder
> than any other (and often easier, thanks to the help system).
I dispute this. I find real (read: non-modeful, non-*bleep*ing) editors
considerably easier than any kind of vi.
> And once you've learned how to use Vim, it'll be a tool you can use
> for anything, not just IF.
This is true for all decent editors.
> Nor is Vim "for a different age". It's immensely faster to work with
> than any other editor in the world, because you never have to take your
> hands from the home keys to move around or execute commands.
This is only true if you hunt-and-poke; the vi keys are shifted one
position from the touch-typing home keys. Yes, I do indeed find this
immensely irritating when trying to use vi. I actually find it easier
and, surprise, faster, to move my hand between the real cursor keys and
the alphanumeric keyboard every now and then than to shift them back and
forth along the home row.
> There is still an excellent reason for having a modal editor.
Yes, masochism.
Richard
Neil Cerutti
Vi is the only editor in which one's vast experience at HACK will
let one move the cursor around quickly and intuitively. ;-)
>> There is still an excellent reason for having a modal editor.
>
> Yes, masochism.
Modalism. I suppose this means all vi users are guilty of heresy. ;-)
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net>
Quintin Stone
> > There is still an excellent reason for having a modal editor.
>
> Yes, masochism.
I'm convinced that the reason vi users are so hell-bent on encouraging
others to use it is because of this simple mentality: "I suffered through
it, and now so should everyone else."
Know what? Even though I learned it and used it for years, I still hated
it. Still do today. The keys and commands were designed without rhyme or
reason. Never cared for emacs either.
/====================================================================\
|| Quintin Stone O- > "You speak of necessary evil? One ||
|| Weapons Master & Coder < of those necessities is that if ||
|| Rebel Programmers Society > innocents must suffer, the guilty must ||
|| st...@rps.net < suffer more." -- Mackenzie Calhoun ||
|| http://www.rps.net/ > "Once Burned" by Peter David ||
\====================================================================/
David Thornley
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net> wrote:
>
>Vi is the only editor in which one's vast experience at HACK will
>let one move the cursor around quickly and intuitively. ;-)
>
cursor diagonally. (Fortunately I never get confused enough to
attempt spellcasting in vi.)
Neil Cerutti
Quintin Stone wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Richard Bos wrote:
>> > There is still an excellent reason for having a modal
>> > editor.
>>
>> Yes, masochism.
>
> I'm convinced that the reason vi users are so hell-bent on
> encouraging others to use it
Do you mean "... *some* vi users ..."?
> is because of this simple mentality: "I suffered through it,
> and now so should everyone else."
>
> Know what? Even though I learned it and used it for years, I
> still hated it.
OK, now *that* sounds like masochism. ;-)
> Still do today. The keys and commands were
> designed without rhyme or reason.
That's basically my attitude. There's no text editor whose
commands have any *ultimate* rhyme or reason. Some justification
or mnemonic may be invented for any command, but not one that
everyone will accept.
> Never cared for emacs either.
You mean, there are people that hate *both* vi and emacs? There
goes another paradigm down the drain. I suppose that means there
are people that love both, too. Ewww!
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net>
Cedric Knight
> noticeable advantage over other editors which require minimal
> familiarisation. That's my point: getting started in IF programming
> is hard enough without also having to master an editor designed
> for a different age and a different set of users.
I recall having to give a 10 minute presentation on vi at uni. This was
fifteen years ago. I started with Shift-ZZ (exit) as it seemed to be
the most important command....
CK
(OK, I have to admit it's my usual Linux editor now, but surely you
don't *need* that many features for writing IF. PFE's faster for huge
files BTW.)
Matthew Russotto
David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote:
>In article <b0oveb$s06sr$1...@ID-60390.news.dfncis.de>,
>Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net> wrote:
>>
>>Vi is the only editor in which one's vast experience at HACK will
>>let one move the cursor around quickly and intuitively. ;-)
>>
>Problem is, as an old Angband player, I sometimes try to move the
>cursor diagonally. (Fortunately I never get confused enough to
>attempt spellcasting in vi.)
I often curse items in emacs. But I don't think there's an
emacs-based roguelike...
--
Matthew T. Russotto mrus...@speakeasy.net
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue." But extreme restriction of liberty in pursuit of
a modicum of security is a very expensive vice.
Quintin Stone
> Do you mean "... *some* vi users ..."?
Yes, I suppose I do. :)
> > Know what? Even though I learned it and used it for years, I
> > still hated it.
>
> OK, now *that* sounds like masochism. ;-)
Yeah, unfortunately it was often on systems that had no decent
alternatives I was aware of. I can't remember for sure (was years ago),
but I think it was an old (maybe the first) version of Solaris.
> You mean, there are people that hate *both* vi and emacs? There goes
> another paradigm down the drain. I suppose that means there are people
> that love both, too. Ewww!
Yup, we do exist. I'm not saying vi isn't useful. Or powerful. Or
chock-full of features. Just that I can't bear to use it. And I haven't
touched emacs since Freshman year of college.
Quintin Stone
> I recall having to give a 10 minute presentation on vi at uni. This was
> fifteen years ago. I started with Shift-ZZ (exit) as it seemed to be
> the most important command....
To be clear, I hope you explained it was "save & exit", and not just
exit....
Neil Cerutti
<Pine.LNX.4.44.030123...@yes.rps.net>, Quintin
Stone wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Cedric Knight wrote:
>> I recall having to give a 10 minute presentation on vi at uni.
>> This was fifteen years ago. I started with Shift-ZZ (exit) as
>> it seemed to be the most important command....
>
> To be clear, I hope you explained it was "save & exit", and not
> just exit....
Almost quite. ;-)
ZZ Write current file, if modified, and quit.
:wq has the unwanted effect of timestamping an unmodified file.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net>
Ross Presser
news:9rWdndb6aci...@speakeasy.net:
> In article <3e30044e$0$145$a186...@newsreader.visi.com>,
> David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote:
>>In article <b0oveb$s06sr$1...@ID-60390.news.dfncis.de>,
>>Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>Vi is the only editor in which one's vast experience at HACK will
>>>let one move the cursor around quickly and intuitively. ;-)
>>>
>>Problem is, as an old Angband player, I sometimes try to move the
>>cursor diagonally. (Fortunately I never get confused enough to
>>attempt spellcasting in vi.)
>
> I often curse items in emacs. But I don't think there's an
> emacs-based roguelike...
Oh Lord. It would split the screen every time a new monster started
attacking you....
Ross Presser
60390.news.dfncis.de:
> You mean, there are people that hate *both* vi and emacs? There
> goes another paradigm down the drain. I suppose that means there
> are people that love both, too. Ewww!
>
FWIW, when I joined the workforce and started seriously using computers
(1987 or so), I hunted around for a decent editor for DOS and eventually
settled on Freemacs, a clone without elisp but with its own programming
language. Emacs wasn't available for DOS yet, but I'd played with it a bit
on a Pr1me while in school, so I knuckled down and learned Freemacs. I
grew to love Freemacs, and kept a Freemacs floppy with me wherever I went.
Then came Windows 3.1. I got tired of running an editor in a DOS window,
so I hunted around for a decent editor for Windows. I found PFE and loved
it and took it wherever I went. I stopped using Freemacs for good.
Two years ago I stumbled on vim, I don't remember how. I was no longer
happy with PFE - not programmable, not flexible enough - and I'd been
playing lots of roguelikes, so I decided to give vim a try. I loved it and
I take it wherever I go. And I've stopped using PFE for good.
Would I switch to Emacs today, now that it's well supported on Windows?
Well, if I got tired of vim .... maybe. But that's at least a few years
away.
Seebs
Quintin Stone <st...@rps.net> wrote:
>To be clear, I hope you explained it was "save & exit", and not just
>exit....
I always say "Zave and exZit".
-s
--
Copyright 2002, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
$ chmod a+x /bin/laden Please do not feed or harbor the terrorists.
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting, computers, web hosting, and shell access: http://www.plethora.net/
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
<ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org>:
>> Vim's learning curve is indeed steep, and IMHO offers a novice no
>> noticeable advantage over other editors which require minimal
>> familiarisation. That's my point: getting started in IF programming
>> is hard enough without also having to master an editor designed
>> for a different age and a different set of users.
> I recall having to give a 10 minute presentation on vi at uni. This was
> fifteen years ago. I started with Shift-ZZ (exit) as it seemed to be
> the most important command....
I prefer to teach :w, :q, :wq, and :q!, for "write", "quit", "write
and quit", and "really quit". I'd rather start by teaching them how to
edit some content to write or quit without writing, though.
Cedric Knight
> On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Cedric Knight wrote:
>
>> I recall having to give a 10 minute presentation on vi at uni. This
was
>> fifteen years ago. I started with Shift-ZZ (exit) as it seemed to be
>> the most important command....
>
>To be clear, I hope you explained it was "save & exit", and not just
>exit....
Ah, quite. There was the possibility that someone might have actually
done some editing, albeit accidentally, while trying to find the quit
command. So I was about to come onto the only other important command,
Shift-ZQ, when I ran out of time.
If, as a result of this, a number of fellow students entered 'logout'
while testing vi on their .profile and couldn't work out how to undo it,
I really wasn't to blame.
(In fact, in the mid-80s most academic institutions in the UK decided
the kind of editors that came with Unix were some kind of practical
joke, and wrote in-house ones to run on VT101s. They tended to reserve
the study of vi to an advanced postgraduate course. It's only a
perverse nostalgia that creates such things as elvis and IF.)
To be vaguely serious, there have occasionally been sensible editor
designs, which I didn't dislike from first encounter. The WordStar
keyset was adopted by Borland and DOS things like QEdit (still usable,
http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pub/pc/goldies/). In particular the invention of
the cut-and-paste seems a retrograde step where ^KV actually let you see
what you were doing.
CK
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
<ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org>:
> (In fact, in the mid-80s most academic institutions in the UK decided
> the kind of editors that came with Unix were some kind of practical
> joke, and wrote in-house ones to run on VT101s. They tended to reserve
> the study of vi to an advanced postgraduate course. It's only a
> perverse nostalgia that creates such things as elvis and IF.)
(assuming you mean 'elvis, the vi-clone')
Elvis was initially designed for home computers like the Amiga and
Atari ST that didn't have a good port of "real" vi. Not nostalgia, but
users deprived of their favorite power tool.
> To be vaguely serious, there have occasionally been sensible editor
> designs, which I didn't dislike from first encounter. The WordStar
> keyset was adopted by Borland and DOS things like QEdit (still usable,
> http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pub/pc/goldies/). In particular the invention of
> the cut-and-paste seems a retrograde step where ^KV actually let you see
> what you were doing.
For Unix newbies, I usually recommend pico. It's easy to use,
cut-and-paste is visual, the basic commands are listed at the bottom
of the screen, and it's slightly more powerful than Notepad or its ilk.
When they want a real editor, *then* I suggest moving up to Vim or
Emacs.
atholbrose
news:E60Y9.1922$9u5.107733@wards:
> To be vaguely serious, there have occasionally been sensible editor
> designs, which I didn't dislike from first encounter. The WordStar
> keyset was adopted by Borland and DOS things like QEdit (still usable,
> http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pub/pc/goldies/). In particular the invention of
> the cut-and-paste seems a retrograde step where ^KV actually let you see
> what you were doing.
Ahem. I'm sure you mean "DOS things like QEdit (still usable,
http://www.semware.com/)". Okay, okay, so it's called TSE Jr. now because
of a trademark conflict, but still.
TSE isn't such a bad editor, either. If I wasn't so attached now to the
elegance of gvim, I'd probably still be using it.
--
r. n. dominick / ur...@bookmice.net
mini-if site: http://www.bookmice.net/coffeehouse/
Cedric Knight
> cut-and-paste is visual, the basic commands are listed at the bottom
> of the screen, and it's slightly more powerful than Notepad or its
ilk.
ISTR pico was indeed reasonably user-friendly, although probably not so
much as gNotepad+.
> When they want a real editor, *then* I suggest moving up to Vim or
> Emacs.
There are the Real Editors and the Quiche Eaters (I happed to like
quiche), as in the once-topical
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html :
' The problem with these editors [vi, emacs] is that Real Programmers
consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in
Text Editors as it is in Women. No, the Real Programmer wants a "you
asked for it, you got it" text editor-- complicated, cryptic, powerful,
unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise.
' It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely
resembles transmission line noise than readable text. One of the more
entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a
command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible
typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your program,
or even worse...'
At this extreme, there is even a Win32 GUI(?) version of TECO:
http://cbbrowne.com/info/teco.html
Have I stumbled across one of Adam Thornton's programming secrets?
CK
Adam Thornton
Cedric Knight <ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org> wrote:
>At this extreme, there is even a Win32 GUI(?) version of TECO:
>http://cbbrowne.com/info/teco.html
>
>Have I stumbled across one of Adam Thornton's programming secrets?
Actually, I use emacs and inform-mode.el. I've never really learned how
to *use* emacs, quite frankly. I can edit text, search-and-replace,
change major modes, and split off new buffers; that's about it. I'm
certainly not an elisp hacker.
I have never used TECO in anger, and my name doesn't do anything
very interesting. I am curious, though: why me? That is, why does
TECO make you wonder if it's one of *my* secrets? Do I really project
that much of an oldtimery, curmudgeonly impression (he asked, preening)?
Because I think my released code itself is generally fairly readable and
straightforward.
Adam
Neil Cerutti
> "Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes" <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote
>> For Unix newbies, I usually recommend pico. It's easy to
>> use, cut-and-paste is visual, the basic commands are listed
>> at the bottom of the screen, and it's slightly more powerful
>> than Notepad or its
> ilk.
>
> ISTR pico was indeed reasonably user-friendly, although
> probably not so much as gNotepad+.
AFAIK you can procure it purely as part of pine. So if you pine
for pico, get pine, of which pico is part.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net>
Nikos Chantziaras
> In article <dcdY9.3762$pS2.148262@stones>,
> Cedric Knight <ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org> wrote:
> >At this extreme, there is even a Win32 GUI(?) version of TECO:
> >http://cbbrowne.com/info/teco.html
> >
> >Have I stumbled across one of Adam Thornton's
> >programming secrets?
>
That explains your weird sense of humor.
-- Niko
Cedric Knight
"Adam Thornton" <ad...@fsf.net> wrote
> Cedric Knight <ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org> wrote:
> >At this extreme, there is even a Win32 GUI(?) version of TECO:
> >http://cbbrowne.com/info/teco.html
> >
> >Have I stumbled across one of Adam Thornton's programming secrets?
>
> I have never used TECO in anger, and my name doesn't do anything
> very interesting. I am curious, though: why me? That is, why does
> TECO make you wonder if it's one of *my* secrets? Do I really project
> that much of an oldtimery, curmudgeonly impression (he asked,
preening)?
Er... yes?
Is there no similarity between someone porting a text editor originally
designed for a paper tape punch and 50-key keyboard to a recent OS that
tries to hide all workings from users, with someone attempting to make a
new Lord of the Rings game for a 30-year-old home computer using a 4K
EPROM programmer? Or writing IF in Latin come to that? There's a
general retro-lunacy shared by many RAIF people, and then there's
downright barking.
> Because I think my released code itself is generally fairly readable
and
> straightforward.
A bluff. (You probably wrote the zcode for Sins Against Mimesis in hex,
then decompiled it.)
CK
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
<ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org>:
> "Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes" <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote
>> For Unix newbies, I usually recommend pico. It's easy to use,
>> cut-and-paste is visual, the basic commands are listed at the bottom
>> of the screen, and it's slightly more powerful than Notepad or its > ilk.
> ISTR pico was indeed reasonably user-friendly, although probably not so
> much as gNotepad+.
Pico has the advantage of being text-mode, which a Unix user is going
to need sooner or later, and probably sooner. If you only know how to
use a graphical editor on Unix, you're going have real trouble when X
doesn't start. Web hosting shell access is telnet-only, too.
This is one of the big winning points of Vim and XEmacs--you can use
all of your text-mode knowledge on the prettier graphical versions.
>> When they want a real editor, *then* I suggest moving up to Vim or
>> Emacs.
> There are the Real Editors and the Quiche Eaters (I happed to like
> quiche), as in the once-topical
> http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html :
> ' The problem with these editors [vi, emacs] is that Real Programmers
> consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in
> Text Editors as it is in Women. No, the Real Programmer wants a "you
> asked for it, you got it" text editor-- complicated, cryptic, powerful,
> unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise.
I used to use TECO, long ago, *very carefully*, writing out my
programs on paper first so I knew what I was doing. It was a useful
tool, before good text-processing languages like Python or Perl or PHP
were around. When I was really into it, it was easy for me to write
TECO scripts that would transform one text data format into another; I
couldn't just use sed, because they were multi-line formats, and I
didn't know enough about awk to realize I could use that. Nowadays? I
wouldn't touch TECO with a 10m cattle prod.
The "Real Programmer" stereotype in that letter, and in hacker
culture, is a scary relic of the past, and it wasn't common even then.
But vi and Emacs aren't "Real Editors" in that sense. They're sane,
quiche-eating, normal-user tools. A little weird to someone raised with
Windows Notepad, maybe, but there are good reasons for their
weirdnesses, they're safe to fool around in (especially Vim with
multi-level undo), and millions of people have learned to use them.
Hmn. Obviously, you could write IF in elisp. You should be able to
write IF in Vim, but it'd be difficult and evil unless you cheat and use
one of the extension languages. But I'm fairly sure you could write IF
in TECO, too. Great Cthulhu, I'm almost tempted to try.
Adam Thornton
Cedric Knight <ckn...@gn.babpbc.removeallBstosend.org> wrote:
>Is there no similarity between someone porting a text editor originally
>designed for a paper tape punch and 50-key keyboard to a recent OS that
>tries to hide all workings from users, with someone attempting to make a
>new Lord of the Rings game for a 30-year-old home computer using a 4K
>EPROM programmer? Or writing IF in Latin come to that? There's a
>general retro-lunacy shared by many RAIF people, and then there's
>downright barking.
Aw, shucks.
Adam
Stephen Granade
> But vi and Emacs aren't "Real Editors" in that sense. They're sane,
> quiche-eating, normal-user tools. A little weird to someone raised with
> Windows Notepad, maybe, but there are good reasons for their
> weirdnesses, they're safe to fool around in (especially Vim with
> multi-level undo), and millions of people have learned to use them.
>
> Hmn. Obviously, you could write IF in elisp.
Or write it using Inform, compile to the z-machine, and have people
run it using Malyon, an elisp z-code interpreter:
http://ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXinfocomXinterpretersXemacs.html
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade
ste...@granades.com
Magnus Olsson
No, that's cheating :-).
And there is IF written directly in elisp: walk, no, run, to your
nearest Gnu emacs installation, start it up, and type Esc-x dunnet.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se)
PGP Public Key available at http://www.df.lth.se/~mol
Dosius
I'm wondering...
...is it feasible, or even possible, to translate MDL Zork (I've got a
copy at home) to emacs LISP?
-uso.
(Okay, so I translated a couple games from Basic to Inform. So what?)
SteveG
>In article <ubs26hs5...@granades.com>,
>Stephen Granade <ste...@granades.com> wrote:
>>kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes) writes:
[snip]
>>> Hmn. Obviously, you could write IF in elisp.
>>
>>Or write it using Inform, compile to the z-machine, and have people
>>run it using Malyon, an elisp z-code interpreter:
>>http://ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXinfocomXinterpretersXemacs.html
>
>No, that's cheating :-).
>
>And there is IF written directly in elisp: walk, no, run, to your
>nearest Gnu emacs installation, start it up, and type Esc-x dunnet.
Or another tack -- there's the "GINAS" IF authoring system by Jeff
Standish. (Last updated version: 0.4 (August 1995), beta)
It is described in its IF Archive listing as an object-oriented LISP
system for interactive fiction. It doesn't run within Emacs but the
'whichsys' faq mentions that the GINAS language is similar to Elisp.
http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/programming/ginas/
-- SteveG
remove _X_ from my address to send me email
Neil Cerutti
Quite possible, I would guess, but you'll need to order the
various MDL manuals from MIT (they were still available a few
years ago).
But there are already at least 2 Inform ports of Dungeon based on
the Fortran source. I can't remember if there's a TADS version.
There is a HUGO reverse-engineering of Zork I.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@trans-video.net>
Ben Caplan
line..." option. It's more legible than having the actual numbers on your
code. (I personally use it for writing in TADS.)
Greg Ewing (using news.cis.dfn.de)
> I'm not sure what platforms it's available for, but BBEdit has a "go to
> line..." option.
If that's the same BBEdit as on the Mac, then not only does
it have a goto-line function, it has an option for displaying
line numbers as well!
It's a great editor, and I use it a lot for programming
of various sorts on the Mac.
Greg