[PLUG] Emacs Question

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Sat Nov 3 00:00:18 UTC 2007


On Fri, 2 Nov 2007, kurt braget wrote:

> Man, using a computer in 1979 must've sucked,

   It was better than the Unisys I used in 1962, and the IBM S/360s I used at
the U of Illinois 1972-1976. Many of us remember the joys of hours sitting
at the 029 key punch machine creating a deck of hundreds of 80-column
Hollarith cards. Then dropping them on the way to the throne room window,
and having hours of fun putting them back in order. The felt-tip pen was the
greatest programming tool: make diagonal lines on the top of the deck and
getting the cards back in order was _much_ simpler and faster.

   Then there was paper tape on the DEC VAXen ...

> I wasn't even born then. I didn't use a computer until 2003, and Linux
> until about 6 months ago. I have to admit that I use vi for two reasons:
> when I first saw a team of administrators at my work using it, it looked
> cool. I was using microsoft word before, now I would rather chisel in
> stone than use that. the other reason: I've read it's on more *nix machine
> by default, and that seems pretty good if you're in trouble, or in a
> strange environment. I would probably only get into Emacs just to see
> whether or not the learning curve is shaped in a sprial, like I've seen
> online, I doubt it.

   Many SysAdmins like vi for config files and other small editing jobs.
Those who know it well use it for longer programs, too. Like most things in
the *nix world, there are different philosophies of how to accomplish a
given task. Ergo, dozens of scripting languages, compiled programming
languages, text editors, etc. Of course, there are also a lot of egos
involved, but that can be found everywhere. :-)

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.        |         Accelerators(TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863



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