wily flashback

[Elliott Hughes]

how you remember wily used to look:

how wily actually used to look:

i was curious how wily would feel after roughly 20 years of using its Java replacement (variously called RoadRunner/Edit/Evergreen over the years).

pros:

* oh my god it starts fast. crazy fast.

cons:

* awful text rendering (unless you rewrite that code to use Xft, as i did)

* it's not as bad as acme was, but very few typical keyboard actions are supported --- really made me realize how heavily i rely on keyboard motion/selection

* i haven't had a true middle button in about 20 years, making many actions really awkward

* multiple columns don't even work well for a project of wily's size (with two libraries and the app itself), in my opinion

* Evergreen's "Open Quickly" is a much better use of screen space, and much better for larger-than-a-directory projects

* Evergreen's C-F/D/G is much more powerful *and* convenient than right-click, fun gimmick though that was

* Evergreen's "Find in Files" is much more convenient than grep.

* Evergreen's "Find/Replace" is much more convenient than sed.

wily sure does start fast though...

--

Elliott Hughes - http://www.jessies.org/~enh/

[Phil Norman]

On 29 July 2018 at 03:56, Elliott Hughes <elliott....@gmail.com> wrote:

how you remember wily used to look:

how wily actually used to look:

i was curious how wily would feel after roughly 20 years of using its Java replacement (variously called RoadRunner/Edit/Evergreen over the years).

pros:

* oh my god it starts fast. crazy fast.

It's amazing just how quick modern computers are, once you chop out all the layers of abstraction, fancy (but pointless) graphical effects, etc. Switching from the crappy Windows-esque UI they have on Ubuntu now back to a good old-fashioned X server has made my life so much better.

 

cons:

* awful text rendering (unless you rewrite that code to use Xft, as i did)

* it's not as bad as acme was, but very few typical keyboard actions are supported --- really made me realize how heavily i rely on keyboard motion/selection

* i haven't had a true middle button in about 20 years, making many actions really awkward

Yes, the death of the middle button was a sad thing. I'm sure it should be possible to make a scrollable middle button which works well as a button too, but it seems no one tries.

 

* multiple columns don't even work well for a project of wily's size (with two libraries and the app itself), in my opinion

* Evergreen's "Open Quickly" is a much better use of screen space, and much better for larger-than-a-directory projects

* Evergreen's C-F/D/G is much more powerful *and* convenient than right-click, fun gimmick though that was

* Evergreen's "Find in Files" is much more convenient than grep.

* Evergreen's "Find/Replace" is much more convenient than sed.

On those points, yes I agree entirely. Wily's a great tool for getting anything done reasonably quickly, but Evergreen's better for getting specific common things done very quickly.

 

wily sure does start fast though...

Sure, it starts fast, but don't forget: By installing Java, you will be able to experience the power of Java.

Not to be sneezed at.

 

--

Elliott Hughes - http://www.jessies.org/~enh/

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[Elliott Hughes]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 1:37 AM Phil Norman <phil...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 29 July 2018 at 03:56, Elliott Hughes <elliott....@gmail.com> wrote:

how you remember wily used to look:

how wily actually used to look:

i was curious how wily would feel after roughly 20 years of using its Java replacement (variously called RoadRunner/Edit/Evergreen over the years).

pros:

* oh my god it starts fast. crazy fast.

It's amazing just how quick modern computers are, once you chop out all the layers of abstraction, fancy (but pointless) graphical effects, etc. Switching from the crappy Windows-esque UI they have on Ubuntu now back to a good old-fashioned X server has made my life so much better.

cons:

* awful text rendering (unless you rewrite that code to use Xft, as i did)

* it's not as bad as acme was, but very few typical keyboard actions are supported --- really made me realize how heavily i rely on keyboard motion/selection

* i haven't had a true middle button in about 20 years, making many actions really awkward

Yes, the death of the middle button was a sad thing. I'm sure it should be possible to make a scrollable middle button which works well as a button too, but it seems no one tries.

 

* multiple columns don't even work well for a project of wily's size (with two libraries and the app itself), in my opinion

* Evergreen's "Open Quickly" is a much better use of screen space, and much better for larger-than-a-directory projects

* Evergreen's C-F/D/G is much more powerful *and* convenient than right-click, fun gimmick though that was

* Evergreen's "Find in Files" is much more convenient than grep.

* Evergreen's "Find/Replace" is much more convenient than sed.

On those points, yes I agree entirely. Wily's a great tool for getting anything done reasonably quickly, but Evergreen's better for getting specific common things done very quickly.

 

wily sure does start fast though...

Sure, it starts fast, but don't forget: By installing Java, you will be able to experience the power of Java.

Not to be sneezed at.

Java certainly means i don't need to worry about stuff like https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2018/07/drawing-outside-box-precision-issues-in.html

even if i was starting Evergreen^WRoadRunner again today, i don't think there's a reasonable alternative to Java given the desire to be available on macOS and Windows too. well, not without going all the way and using something like SDL. then we'd be able to run on Android too.

i do wonder where all the startup time goes, though. even FatBits takes a long time to actually appear on the display (which makes me despair of getting Evergreen up any faster than that).

 

--

Elliott Hughes - http://www.jessies.org/~enh/

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