Re: ::scr Towards a better text editor

[Richard Clamp <richardc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:21:37PM +0100, simon wistow wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:57:26AM +0100, Richard Clamp said:
> > Again you're already muddling all the types of text into one.  Editing
> > mail messages != editing code != editing structured data.
> 
> True. But Emacs and Vi even worse for this. 

Eh?  Sorry, what?  Doesn't scan.  What's 'this'?

> C-x in Nano. I was being obtuse but you know what I meant. Plus key strokes in
> Emacs aren't intuitive. In fact Emacs is not intuitive, not even internally.

Okay, now I'm puzzled.  Maybe it's in how I perceive intuitive,
looking at dict.

  Intuitive \In*tu"i*tive\, a. [Cf. F. intuitif.]
     [1913 Webster]
     1. Seeing clearly; as, an intuitive view; intuitive vision.
        [1913 Webster]

     2. Knowing, or perceiving, by intuition; capable of knowing
        without deduction or reasoning.
        [1913 Webster]

              Whence the soul
              Reason receives, and reason is her being,
              Discursive, or intuitive.             --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]

     3. Received, reached, obtained, or perceived, by intuition;
        as, intuitive judgment or knowledge; -- opposed to
        {deductive}. --Locke.
        [1913 Webster]

 intuitive
   adj 1: spontaneously derived from or prompted by a natural
          tendency; "an intuitive revulsion"
       2: obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or
          observation [syn: {nonrational}, {visceral}]

No still confused.  What that dictionary seems to say is that something
is intuitive when you can use it without thinking about it.

An analogy perhaps.  My first driving lesson was awkward.  I didn't
know what to do, the controls were inconsistent (pedals for speed but
a wheel for changing direction?)  The interface to a car was alien and
unintuitive to me.

On Saturday I drove ~300 miles, from London to Birmingham and back
again.  I spent practically no time at all thinking how to operate the
van, it was all intuitive to me.

I'd learned the interface, oddly you seem to need to do that with
chopsticks, walking, and sometimes even software.

> > > the up arrow goes up, the down arrow goes down 
> > 
> > Snap.
> 
> Vi, OTOH, doesn't do this unless you're in editor mode.  But shirley I'm in a
> text editor. I want to be editing stuff. Aaaargh.

Vim does, and yes I know vim isn't strictly vi, but it's what people
commonly use, since it has other niceties too.

If you're just trying to say want to say that you don't like modal
editing go for it, some people will disagree with you as they find it
very natural, and I can see their point..

> > That's okay, people would only waste space writing elite for it, eh?
> 
> Not if it was simple enough. 

That's an interesting one - a new-speak for editor extension
languages, making it impossible for you to implement bad modes.  I
await the spec.

> I don't think that the best tool exists at the moment. Which is what I'm
> asking about. What features should a text editor have and where do you stop
> before it gets too bloated?

You have to stop?  Surely if it's modular and demand loading you don't
need to worry unduly about this.

-- 
Richard Clamp <richardc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>