Old school hackers out there who use ed?

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Hey all,

I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
nice to use when you are in the mood for it, and especially, if you
are running a very minimalist setup (for me, this would be cwm(1)
window manager with mostly console based applications). It's
remarkably efficient at certain classes of editing operations,
and it does a pretty good job all around in the others.

Of course, line editors are most certainly out of fashion, and for
good reason. But I can't imagine that I am the only one who gets a
strange sort of pleasure from using ed(1) as my daily, primary
interactive text editor, rather than as a sed replacement, which
is where I normally hear its praises sung.

Since this is Slackware, where some serious old schoolers live,
I thought I would throw the question out there. Do any of you
still use ed(1) as an interactive editor? How often? Do you like
it or dread it when you need to use it?

Yours truly,

Aaron W. Hsu
--
Aaron W. Hsu | arc...@sacrideo.us | http://www.sacrideo.us
לֵ֤ב חֲכָמִים֙ בְּבֵ֣ית אֵ֔בֶל וְלֵ֥ב כְּסִילִ֖ים בְּבֵ֥ית שִׂמְחָֽה׃

[Grant]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:02:12 -0600, "Aaron W. Hsu" <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:

>
>Hey all,
>
>I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
>favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
>what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
>nice to use when you are in the mood for it, and especially, if you
>are running a very minimalist setup (for me, this would be cwm(1)
>window manager with mostly console based applications). It's
>remarkably efficient at certain classes of editing operations,
>and it does a pretty good job all around in the others.
>
>Of course, line editors are most certainly out of fashion, and for
>good reason. But I can't imagine that I am the only one who gets a
>strange sort of pleasure from using ed(1) as my daily, primary
>interactive text editor, rather than as a sed replacement, which
>is where I normally hear its praises sung.
>
>Since this is Slackware, where some serious old schoolers live,
>I thought I would throw the question out there. Do any of you
>still use ed(1) as an interactive editor? How often? Do you like
>it or dread it when you need to use it?

ed? shudder... I used something like it on cp/m before I scored a copy
of WordStar (non-document mode) ;) As to sed, nah, I go from vim to gawk.

No need in my book for strange artifacts of computing ;)

Grant.

[Edwin Johnson]

On 2013-02-27, Aaron W. Hsu <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:

> I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
> favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
> what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
> nice to use when you are in the mood for it, and especially, if you

My goodness you are brining back memories! Used to use that sort of line
editor on cp/m os. There was a commercial product I bought called Mr Edit,
named after Mr. Ed, the talking horse TV show, and the loose leaf manual
actually had a horse with glasses printed on it! ha It used an amazing
variety of keystroke commands using all of the function keys on the
Televideo (wonderful computer for its time) and would do almost everything.

Now on Linux I use almost exclusively Jed, which does almost as much as
Emacs without taking up much space. But have also used vi a bit.

...Edwin
____________________________________________________________
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes
turned skyward, for there you have been, there you long to
return."-da Vinci http://bellsouthpwp2.net/e/d/edwinljohnson

[Glyn Millington]

Edwin Johnson <edwinl...@bellsouth.net> writes:

> On 2013-02-27, Aaron W. Hsu <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:
>
>> I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
>> favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
>> what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
>> nice to use when you are in the mood for it, and especially, if you
>
> My goodness you are brining back memories!

Too right - haven't heard about ed since Alan Connors faded away!

:-)

atb

Glyn
--
RTFM http://www.tldp.org/index.html
GAFC http://slackbook.org/ The Official Source :-)
STFW http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=alt.os.linux.slackware
JFGI http://jfgi.us/

[Helmut Hullen]

Hallo, Aaron,

Du meintest am 26.02.13:

> Since this is Slackware, where some serious old schoolers live,
> I thought I would throw the question out there. Do any of you
> still use ed(1) as an interactive editor?

Interactive? No.
But I like using "ed" in scripts.

Viele Gruesse
Helmut

"Ubuntu" - an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

[Aragorn]

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 17:08, Edwin Johnson conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.slackware...

> On 2013-02-27, Aaron W. Hsu <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:
>
>> I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
>> favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
>> what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
>> nice to use when you are in the mood for it, and especially, if you
>
> My goodness you are brining back memories! Used to use that sort of
> line editor on cp/m os.

Personally I've never used CP/M, but I did use EDLIN.COM - later on it
became EDLIN.EXE, I believe - on PC-DOS/MS-DOS. It was also a mandatory
skill (as part of the DOS course) in in IT college over here back in the
early 1990s.

> [...]

> Now on Linux I use almost exclusively Jed, which does almost as much
> as Emacs without taking up much space. But have also used vi a bit.

I also had to use vi in college for writing COBOL stuff on Sperry OS/3
Unix on a Unisys minicomputer. In GNU/Linux I generally use different
editors depending on the mood I'm in and the purpose.

° mcedit - i.e. the editor of the Norton Commander, which I only
install for the purpose of having that editor - for small files
such as /etc/fstab or /etc/inittab.

° nano for small files if the system does not have mcedit installed.

° GNU Emacs for scripting.

° KWrite for more prosaic stuff which doesn't require any fancy
formatting.

° OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer for prosaic stuff which does require
fancy formatting.

--
= Aragorn =
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

[Jim Diamond]

On 2013-02-27 at 00:02 AST, Aaron W. Hsu <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:
>
> Hey all,
>
> I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
> favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1).

What a bizarre posting to make 8 minutes before another posting
singing the praises of KDE.

Some sort of computational bi-polar disorder?

:-)

[Michael Black]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013, Aaron W. Hsu wrote:

>
> Hey all,
>
> I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
> favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
> what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
> nice to use when you are in the mood for it, and especially, if you
> are running a very minimalist setup (for me, this would be cwm(1)
> window manager with mostly console based applications). It's
> remarkably efficient at certain classes of editing operations,
> and it does a pretty good job all around in the others.
>
> Of course, line editors are most certainly out of fashion, and for
> good reason. But I can't imagine that I am the only one who gets a
> strange sort of pleasure from using ed(1) as my daily, primary
> interactive text editor, rather than as a sed replacement, which
> is where I normally hear its praises sung.
>
> Since this is Slackware, where some serious old schoolers live,
> I thought I would throw the question out there. Do any of you
> still use ed(1) as an interactive editor? How often? Do you like
> it or dread it when you need to use it?
>

Yuck.

When I ran Microware OS-9 almost thirty years ago, it came with a line
editor. I remember how much trouble it was.

I ended up buying three full screen text editors to replace it, trying one
and rejecting it until I found the third.

I am cheap, I won't spend money on things I dont' need, but I sure
couldn't live with a line editor.


Michael

[Loki Harfagr]

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:28:54 +0100, Aragorn did cat :

> On Wednesday 27 February 2013 17:08, Edwin Johnson conveyed the
> following to alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
>> On 2013-02-27, Aaron W. Hsu <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:
>>
>>> I love to use different text editors, and I have a few of my
>>> favorites, but one of my favorites must certainly be ed(1). I know
>>> what most would say about it, but I can't help but find it really
>>> nice to use when you are in the mood for it,

prolly the major hint you give there is "when" ;-)
but I agree that I enjoy ed/vi-ed/sed and used to enjoy edline
or whatever the name it had in previous tools like 3270 or Tymcom
though I remember I spent a semester on some antic emacs integrated
in a beautiful VT100 on disguise as an amber screen with META keys
and cuuuuuuuuurved design lines, special maps for APL, got in love
with, then had two weeks holidays and, back to the city, divorced that
harness of the good key world which didn't even recognize me, back to
the good old LA120 where you could actually see and hear what you
typed and where the 'ed' like line editing allowed you to stun the
cooing pidgeons (or suits) some ten feet around the place, much more ROI ;-)

> and especially, if you
>>
>> My goodness you are brining back memories! Used to use that sort of
>> line editor on cp/m os.

I typed some stuff in CP/M but it was so clear and neat that I can't
remember I ever had to use some editing tool in it, as it was my
first fortnight in the career I might admit that I may have forgotten details ;-)

> Personally I've never used CP/M, but I did use EDLIN.COM - later on it
> became EDLIN.EXE, I believe - on PC-DOS/MS-DOS. It was also a mandatory
> skill (as part of the DOS course) in in IT college over here back in the
> early 1990s.

OMG, you're even a big little bit much less older than me, bloody time line ;D>

>> [...]
>> Now on Linux I use almost exclusively Jed, which does almost as much
>> as Emacs without taking up much space. But have also used vi a bit.

strangely since I had some shades of emacs in the early 80s and quite
liked it (apart that problem of vanishing remapped special keys) then
had to use 'vi' and hated it at first then enjoyed the power and simplicity
of the guy, really, I don't do that nowadays but I remember that the only possible
text editor you can use correctly while boozed (or wot) is 'vi'
(and there I mean the real 'vi' or at least the simple el'vi's, not
the narapoiac coloured by numbers vim [troll engine armed, countdown now];-)


strangely your list was calling for comments, I usually avoid that kind
but as it's a complemental info about 'not all aspis count the same way'
I'll goforit, sorry ;-)

> I also had to use vi in college for writing COBOL stuff on Sperry OS/3
> Unix on a Unisys minicomputer. In GNU/Linux I generally use different
> editors depending on the mood I'm in and the purpose.
>
> ° mcedit - i.e. the editor of the Norton Commander, which I only
> install for the purpose of having that editor - for small files
> such as /etc/fstab or /etc/inittab.

Norton Commander was, for me and a privileged few, a notch in the wall
after giving precious help for fudging to dried banana state any customer
machine, to the condition that the machine was actually useful and used.
The colour scheme was quite right, the F menu was useful, the tools behind
were outta control more and more (like if java or akin suddenly got
controlled by Oracle or someffin)

> ° nano for small files if the system does not have mcedit installed.

well, I used pine, use alpine (and mutt when no pine) but never got the
thing with nano pico and waitforit...
maybe my fault, not really a problem but why trying to intricate the
'vi' idea while the result doesn't give more power nor freedom?


> ° GNU Emacs for scripting.

el'vi's rules, or 'cat', come on, that's for scripting, not trying and
take footage in colors of the chiseling of the map to the gate of the path
where no one goes and cooking a soufflé awhile.

>
> ° KWrite for more prosaic stuff which doesn't require any fancy
> formatting.

KWrite was OK a few years ago when it was not coming on with dusty
dirty shiny semantically wrung off company like streegee and konadie

>
> ° OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer for prosaic stuff which does require
> fancy formatting.

yup, I use libreOffice (and have used OOo as well) for the sake of transmuting
the wrong ideas of some suits around about using MSOff to scatter idiotic
numbers about false imagination they believe in as to being an idea, around the
brown and caged world they have in the dough died retina they've got when they
penned that drop of red slime down right the parchment.

problem still is the editors are "going semantics" and the colors burst out the
screen while the sounds are 5.1 or worse but the content was lost and
nobody writes a good line, even on the wall.

[Aragorn]

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 20:50, Loki Harfagr conveyed the following
to alt.os.linux.slackware...

> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:28:54 +0100, Aragorn did cat :
>

>> Personally I've never used CP/M, but I did use EDLIN.COM - later on
>> it became EDLIN.EXE, I believe - on PC-DOS/MS-DOS. It was also a
>> mandatory skill (as part of the DOS course) in in IT college over
>> here back in the early 1990s.
>
> OMG, you're even a big little bit much less older than me, bloody time
> line ;D>

I wouldn't know, really. I got a late start on account of computers and
information technology in general. I was already 28 when I went back to
college to study IT.

If it's any help, I was born in the year John Fitzgerald Kennedy was
shot, and on the day that Martin Luther King would be shot five years
later. ;-)

>> In GNU/Linux I generally use different editors depending on the mood
>> I'm in and the purpose.
>>
>> ° mcedit - i.e. the editor of the Norton Commander, which I only
>> install for the purpose of having that editor - for small files
>> such as /etc/fstab or /etc/inittab.
>
> Norton Commander was, for me and a privileged few, a notch in the wall
> after giving precious help for fudging to dried banana state any
> customer machine, to the condition that the machine was actually
> useful and used. The colour scheme was quite right, the F menu was
> useful, the tools behind were outta control more and more (like if
> java or akin suddenly got controlled by Oracle or someffin)

Woops, my bad... What I meant to say was the GNU Midnight Commander,
not Norton Commander. They are very similar in appearance - Midnight
Commander was modeled after Norton Commander - but of course, Norton
Commander ran on DOS. As such, I have had to use it on one particular
machine at work, but I've never used it on my own machines.

The editor of the Norton Commander could be used separately and was
called "ncedit". The editor of the Midnight Commander can also be used
separately and is called "mcedit". And it is specifically to have this
editor that I install the Midnight Commander package, because I don't
generally use full-screen file managers.

For most part, I use the command line for dealing with files and
directories, but sometimes I do bring up Konqueror in file manager mode,
but then it's mainly to hand-select a great batch of files to be moved
while not having to move all the files in the directory, or something
like that, or else I also use it as a kind of photo manager, because it
has the ability to show thumbnails and to even automatically create an
index.html file of them.

>> ° GNU Emacs for scripting.
>
> el'vi's rules, or 'cat', come on, that's for scripting, not trying and
> take footage in colors of the chiseling of the map to the gate of the
> path where no one goes and cooking a soufflé awhile.

Hmm... I didn't know Emacs could cook a soufflé. So far I've only been
using it for baking steaks. :-)

>> ° KWrite for more prosaic stuff which doesn't require any fancy
>> formatting.
>
> KWrite was OK a few years ago when it was not coming on with dusty
> dirty shiny semantically wrung off company like streegee and konadie

KWrite doesn't need Akonadi or Strigi. It's just an editor with syntax
highlighting. Maybe you are thinking of Kate, which is more complex - I
haven't actually used it - and which uses KWrite as a "kpart" do do the
actual editing?

[jo...@wexfordpress.com]

I use gvim in a gui and vim in consoles.

John Culleton

[jeff g.]

On 02/27/2013 12:14 PM, Aragorn wrote:

> The editor of the Midnight Commander can also be used separately and
> is called "mcedit"

?

> And it is specifically to have this editor that I install the
> Midnight Commander package, because I don't generally use full-screen
> file managers.

I use mc and not for any editing functions - what are you referring to?
My mc uses nano to edit files when needed.
What am I missing?

[Aragorn]

On Sunday 03 March 2013 05:30, jeff g. conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...

> On 02/27/2013 12:14 PM, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> The editor of the Midnight Commander can also be used separately and
>> is called "mcedit"
>
> ?

What's so hard to understand about that? mcedit cannot be installed
separately; it comes as part of the Midnight Commander package.

>> And it is specifically to have this editor that I install the
>> Midnight Commander package, because I don't generally use full-screen
>> file managers.
>
> I use mc and not for any editing functions - what are you referring
> to?

Again, I don't see how you could possibly misinterpret what I have
written there.

> My mc uses nano to edit files when needed.
> What am I missing?

Then perhaps you have set up Midnight Commander to explicitly use nano.
It normally uses its own editor, called mcedit.

--
= Aragorn =

http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157

[jeff g.]

On 03/02/2013 08:39 PM, Aragorn wrote:

>> My mc uses nano to edit files when needed.
>> >What am I missing?
> Then perhaps you have set up Midnight Commander to explicitly use nano.

If I did that, I think I would remember doing so, thank you

> It normally uses its own editor, called mcedit.

I wasn't asked to choose an editor anywhere, on install or since. And
can find no options to change such.
In term, mcedit does indeed bring in what looks an edit app - never saw
it before...

Probable part of some conf file?
using vers 3:4.8.1-2ubuntu1 on bodhi ...

[Helmut Hullen]

Hallo, jeff,

Du meintest am 02.03.13:

>>> My mc uses nano to edit files when needed.

>> Then perhaps you have set up Midnight Commander to explicitly use
>> nano.

> If I did that, I think I would remember doing so, thank you

f9, Options, Configuration, other options

and thereafter

f9, Options, save setup

>> It normally uses its own editor, called mcedit.

> I wasn't asked to choose an editor anywhere, on install or since.
> And can find no options to change such.

see above ...

And beyond "mc":

file "/etc/profile.d/editor.sh"

EDITOR=/usr/bin/mcedit
VISUAL=$EDITOR
export EDITOR VISUAL

No more problems with "vi", even in programs like "vipw" or "visudo" ...

[jeff g.]

On 03/02/2013 11:58 PM, Helmut Hullen wrote:
> Hallo, jeff,
>
> Du meintest am 02.03.13:
>

sorry, don't understand that...

>>>> My mc uses nano to edit files when needed.
>
>>> Then perhaps you have set up Midnight Commander to explicitly use
>>> nano.
>
>> If I did that, I think I would remember doing so, thank you
>
> f9, Options, Configuration, other options
>
> and thereafter
>
> f9, Options, save setup
>

Helmut, my choices are a little different. Options>configuration has
choices, 1 of which is to /autosave/ setup.

And now, fsck me, I see the choice [Use internal Edit] which I didn't
see before. I just glossed right over that.

So it is time for the hair shirt for me - along with apologies to
Aragorn, although I was never offered any choices on install. My distro
seems to default to nano and I never gave it a thought. Probably due to
using the ubuntu repository (?)

>>> It normally uses its own editor, called mcedit.
>

That isn't normal for my vers - its probably an ubuntu thing (?).

<snip>

>
> And beyond "mc":
>
> file "/etc/profile.d/editor.sh"
>
> EDITOR=/usr/bin/mcedit
> VISUAL=$EDITOR
> export EDITOR VISUAL
>

I don't have that file on my system - the choices as shown in the Config
dialog are stored in an ini file under config/mc in my home folder.

[Helmut Hullen]

Hallo, jeff,

Du meintest am 03.03.13:

[...]

> My distro seems to default to nano and I never gave it a thought.
> Probably due to using the ubuntu repository (?)

Ubuntu? You're writing and asking in a slackware newsgroup ...

>> And beyond "mc":
>>
>> file "/etc/profile.d/editor.sh"
>>
>> EDITOR=/usr/bin/mcedit
>> VISUAL=$EDITOR
>> export EDITOR VISUAL

> I don't have that file on my system - the choices as shown in the
> Config dialog are stored in an ini file under config/mc in my home
> folder.

And in an Ubuntu installation EDITOR and VISUAL are defined in a very
special place ...

[jeff g.]

On 03/03/2013 10:39 PM, Helmut Hullen wrote:

> Ubuntu? You're writing and asking in a slackware newsgroup ...

I was only asking in passing on the mcedit issue and it snowballed - I
was curious on a reason for a simple (hah) text editor to be at such
variance across distros.

[Ed Wilson]

jeff g. wrote:

> On 03/02/2013 11:58 PM, Helmut Hullen wrote:
>> Hallo, jeff,
>>
>> Du meintest am 02.03.13:
>>
>
> sorry, don't understand that...
>

I think Helmut Hullen speaks a language that is not english, google offered
the following translation from german.

You mean at 02:03:13:

I think he was trying to state that he is replying to something you wrote on
March 2nd 2013.


Perhaps it would have been more clear if Helmut used ISO 8601
http://www.xkcd.com/1179/

>>
>> Viele Gruesse
>> Helmut

Many Greetings
Helmut


--
Ed

[Dario Niedermann]

Aaron W. Hsu <arc...@sacrideo.us> wrote:

> Of course, line editors are most certainly out of fashion, and for
> good reason. But I can't imagine that I am the only one who gets a
> strange sort of pleasure from using ed(1) as my daily, primary
> interactive text editor, rather than as a sed replacement, which
> is where I normally hear its praises sung.
>
> Since this is Slackware, where some serious old schoolers live,
> I thought I would throw the question out there. Do any of you
> still use ed(1) as an interactive editor?

I do!

> How often? Do you like it or dread it when you need to use it?

I like to use it to edit configuration files where replacing a
value is more efficiently done with the 's' command. Firing up a
full-screen editor and hunting the value with the cursor... that
would be totally uncool.

My primary editor is nvi, though.

--
> cat /etc/slackware-version && uname -mprs
Slackware 14.0
Linux 3.2.29-smp i686 AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology MK-36

[tapp]

Aragorn <str...@telenet.be.invalid> [Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:14:42 +0100]

> KWrite doesn't need Akonadi or Strigi. It's just an editor with syntax
> highlighting. Maybe you are thinking of Kate, which is more complex - I
> haven't actually used it

The nice thing about Kate is the "Sessions" feature, where you get a
column on the left with all the files you saved into a session group, e.g.
"System Configs". This lets you choose very quickly a file without having
to navigate through the filesystem tree.

Theat feature is obviously only useful if you edit certain files on a
regular base.

[Unknown]

On Sun, 03 Mar 2013 08:58:00 +0100, Helmut Hullen wrote:

#> My mc uses nano to edit files when needed.

>
>>> Then perhaps you have set up Midnight Commander to explicitly use
>>> nano.
>
>> If I did that, I think I would remember doing so, thank you
>
> f9, Options, Configuration, other options
>
> and thereafter
>
> f9, Options, save setup
>
>>> It normally uses its own editor, called mcedit.
>

Yea, but I vaguely remember that Deb uses nano, with it; but not slak,
RH, Mandrake, FC1 ...

>> I wasn't asked to choose an editor anywhere, on install or since. And
>> can find no options to change such.
>
> see above ...
>
> And beyond "mc":
>
> file "/etc/profile.d/editor.sh"
>
> EDITOR=/usr/bin/mcedit
> VISUAL=$EDITOR
> export EDITOR VISUAL
>
> No more problems with "vi", even in programs like "vipw" or "visudo" ...
>
> Viele Gruesse
> Helmut
>

Like top judiciaries we should learn to give the higher reasons for our
decisions, and not just say 'I prefer' or 'it FEELS better'.

Reasons to prefer `mc` over nano or any that I know of are:
* if you started in the 70's with wordstar, that's a big investment to
have to throw away -- one major reason why M$ came to dominate.
* the most common actions: save, exit; are only ONE key stroke.
* you can extend it, eg. to process the <marked text block>;
I've done: remove all ">" ; replace all LF with SPACE; fmt len=72;
IF last line is "#<space>" THEN prepend "|" to each line.
This allows you to cleanup 'overflowed >>>-type lines'.
---
There are some stagerring aps that you can build with mc; but I'd better
stop now else I'll really go over-board.

> "Ubuntu" - an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

No!! I use the 'least hard' that I can find. Where least-hard is the
'minimun effort/cost over my relevant time scale'.
Explaining why slak is [for me] the 'least-hard' is difficult and is a
woman's/poet's/feely-type task. A big factor seems to be that PV gives you
a mental-model ahead of major tasks. This is comforting for people who
want to be in control.

PS. a serious deficiency of mcedit is that it can't give multiple copies
of the same file. There I use `wily`; or better ETHOberon, which is the
source idea of `wily`: the public-domian of acme; the plan9-crib of ETHO.
With ETHO you don't need any keys. You just look at the screen and
imagine and it-happens.
==Poetry indeed.