Re: ::scr Towards a better text editor

[Richard Clamp <richardc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:55:24PM +0100, simon wistow wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:50:27PM +0100, Richard Clamp said:
> 
> > Explain how this could be better handled.  It's currently just a blind
> > assertion, that's why I'm challenging it.
> 
> But you were the one who said a text editor shouldn't be used for coding *and*
> emailing *and* whatever. /me is bemuddled now.

No, I opened asking you to clarify what kinds of text you wanted to
edit - something that might be really good for email may be completely
useless for hacking code, so I was trying to get the problem domain
down.

> > By internally do you mean internally consistent?  You'd have to give
> > me an example though.
> 
> As far as I was concerned there didn't seem to be any internal logic about how
> stuff worked. It wasn't easy to do one thing and then infer how to do
> something else from it. Or to puzzle out how to use a feature.

Okay, my experience differs.  Maybe it's familiarity, maybe I'm over
the hump of the learning curve, maybe it's just built in a way that
fits me better.  

For this reason I suspect that we won't get a good spec for an editor
- people find different things intuitive, and some things only become
intuitive after practice and study - go figure.

> Stop picking fights with me about text editors and which one is better. I

I will if you will.  It's not my intention to fight here.  I'm
responding to the points you raised, maybe not the ones you wanted me
to respond to but then people are arbitrary devices.

> think they all suck. In fact I think all applications suck (c.f document
> centric post) but that's beside the point. I just happen to use nano. But
> that's my choice. If you wanted to edit your emails using edlin then that's
> your choice. I just want to know why. And whether there's anything you'd
> change about it.

Why hit everything with the same text-editing hammer with specialised
modes?  Because it's consistent and it lets my brain think about other
things.

Yes we covered that already, but that's it again.

-- 
Richard Clamp <richardc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>