Re: ed _ __ .

From	Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.unix.shell
Subject	Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______.
Date	2026-06-09 17:57 +0200
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<1109d53$1nauc$3@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	<slrn112c9fb.2pa2.zaydm@new.localdomain> <1105ae4$1naub$1@dont-email.me> <oOIArLUw8byBMy6LdnjjkP1V3hthLvd4@etherlight.link>

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On 2026-06-09 02:25, Lumin Etherlight wrote:
> Janis  Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
> writes:
> 
>> 'ed'  is  _a_  standard text  editor;  on  Unixes.
>> Though a very primitive one.
> 
>    It is indeed primitive, in the way a chisel is.
> 
>> (I wonder why one would make ones life harder than
>> necessary.)
> 
>          It is not harder with  ed.  As a user of ed,
>    who also  used emacs  and vim  for over  a decade,
>    (and many others) I don't view ed as a lesser tool
>    that is "behind" "modern" editors, I think ed is a
>    different mindset for editing, in the same vain as
>    vim being different from Visual Studio.  If a user
>    of Visual Studio says in relation to learning vim:
>    "Why make  one's life harder than  necessary", the
>    answer would  be very similar.  It  is harder only
>    because it didn't "click" for you yet.

These comparisons ignore some facts and put others in
one bag in an undifferentiated way. I disagree in most
of what you say here.

Line oriented editing (with 'ed' or 'ex' mode of 'vi')
is different from editing larger/other entities of text.
(You may not have used those "higher-level editing" in
your time of Vi/m (or Emacs) use, I have to presume. If
you'd have done you'd probably have missed them after
your switch back to a more primitive form of editing.)

Note that I'm not saying that you couldn't do a lot of
things in line oriented mode, or in sections that are
identified by ranges (lines or patterns). There's even
things that we can do only in ex-mode of vi.[*]

And as a valid sensible comparison of 'ed' and 'vi' the
only true point is pointing out the equivalences of Vi's
'ex'-mode and 'ed'.

For me an editor is "harder" (to fulfill some task) if I
need much more key-strokes, and/or if I have to switch
to the mouse or use menus, etc., or if I just cannot do
the editing with a specific tool. And I'm only speaking
about editing here, not about any IDE-functions or other
functionality outside editing.

(Your comparisons with the MS products make no sense to
me when it's about efficient editing. - I wouldn't start
an argument and won't follow your attempt.)

> 
>> Is that the reason why the formatting of your post
>> is corrupt?  (Or is it your newsreader settings?)
> 
>          Unlikely.  I'm also writing  this in ed, and
>    I don't think my formatting will be corrupt :)

To be frank, I also haven't expected that. Neither that
the 'slrn' would produce such results; quite some use
that newsreader and create clean posts. I was teasing!
But thanks for the confirmation.

(Though I'm still a bit curious what the actual reason
for his malformed post was.)

> 
>> Vim  is  not  based   on  the  Vi  code  base. But
>> functionally  yes,  mostly.   And you  won't  gain
>> anything  if  trying  to  somehow  relate  Vim  to
>> Ed;  these are  functionally completely  different
>> things.
> 
>          Vim, perhaps not.  As the culture around vim
>    is  no  longer similar  at  all  to what  ed  was.
>    People installing a 120  plugins to turn their vim
>    into an IDE  is exactly not what ed  is. 

I'm not sure what sick preconception you presume here.

I've certainly never installed any plugins in Vim. And
I started using Vi more than four decades ago, and I'm
using Vim almost since its beginning (without plugins).

Native Vim is still completely different to Ed (modulo
the Ex subset that has similarities with Ed, of course).

>    But, the
>    original vi  editors, I  would say they  were very
>    close  to  ed indeed.

You can say that for 'ex' mode but certainly not for
'vi'-mode or Vim's "visual" mode, ...

>    Screen  editing  is a  big
>    difference of course, but  with vi, you were still
>    meant to  integrate your  editor into the  rest of
>    your UNIX  environment using the vi  command mode,
>    you don't install  a plugin to wrap  lines in vim,
>    but you pass the text to fmt from vi.

...and picking a singular external filter doesn't make
the argument any better.

It's fine that the Vi concept allows to apply external
filters. (And for that specific 'fmt' example it's also
not necessary any more in Vim, of course, since it's a
builtin.)

'vi'-mode allows more than ex-mode functions and use of
external filters. And Vim makes it less necessary to use
external tools for editing purposes; but still possible.

>    With ed, it
>    is a  very similar approach.   The power of  ed is
>    that it is  open to the rest of  UNIX, and through
>    that integration, you gain great productivity.

Yes, indeed. (This is a feature that 'ed' also and still
has, as 'ex'/'vi' have it.)

But editing text is generally more than being able to use
external filters.

> [...]
> 
>    When I want to edit text, ed is my shell.

If it's sufficient for all you want to do with an editor
it's fine.

Janis

[*] A complex example from a Vi/Vim course I once gave
:/^Start$/,$g/^# Key//Control-Key/s/Hello/Hello World/

Thread

ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Zayd Mohammed <zaydm@172.24.208.1> - 2026-06-08 02:16 +0000
  Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-08 04:46 +0200
    Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-06-08 13:44 +0000
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2026-06-08 14:12 +0000
        Re: ed. cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-06-08 19:30 +0000
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 14:40 -0700
        Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. groenveld@acm.org (John D Groenveld) - 2026-06-09 00:04 +0000
        Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> - 2026-06-09 01:50 +0100
        Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-09 16:47 +0200
          Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-09 16:41 -0700
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> - 2026-06-09 14:27 +0000
    Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Eric Pozharski <apple.universe@posteo.net> - 2026-06-08 22:28 +0000
    Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Lumin Etherlight <lumin+usenet@etherlight.link> - 2026-06-09 03:25 +0300
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Daniel Cerqueira <dan.list@lispclub.com> - 2026-06-09 09:47 +0100
        Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Joerg Mertens <joerg-mertens@t-online.de> - 2026-06-09 15:53 +0200
          Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Daniel Cerqueira <dan.list@lispclub.com> - 2026-06-09 21:00 +0100
          Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-09 16:29 -0700
            Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-11 08:39 +0200
              Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-11 13:40 -0700
                Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-12 16:56 +0200
                Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-12 15:22 -0700
                Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-13 00:58 +0200
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-09 17:57 +0200
  Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-06-08 22:57 +0000
  Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Lumin Etherlight <lumin+usenet@etherlight.link> - 2026-06-09 03:02 +0300
  Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. gmc@metro.cx (Koen Martens) - 2026-06-09 06:17 +0000
    Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:55 +0000
    Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-06-09 19:44 +0000
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Top Dead Ctr <tdc@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 14:09 -0600
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> - 2026-06-09 23:52 +0000
        Re: ed Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-10 00:40 +0000
      Re: ed Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-10 00:38 +0000
        Re: ed John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-06-10 22:01 +0000
          Re: ed Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 16:43 -0700
            Re: ed Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 16:50 -0700
            Re: ed cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-06-10 23:53 +0000
              Re: ed Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2026-06-11 00:12 +0000
                Re: ed Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-11 00:55 +0000
                Re: ed cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-06-11 02:00 +0000
                Re: ed Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 19:30 -0700
                Re: ed cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-06-11 11:31 +0000
                Re: ed Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> - 2026-06-11 15:02 +0000
              Re: ed Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-11 08:46 +0200
            Re: ed John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-06-11 14:28 +0000
          Re: ed cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-06-10 23:48 +0000
          Re: ed Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2026-06-11 00:24 +0000
            Re: ed John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-06-11 14:11 +0000
              Re: ed Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-12 00:22 +0000
          Re: ed Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-11 00:53 +0000
            Re: ed Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-11 09:02 +0200
    Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-10 11:03 +0100
      Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-11 09:12 +0200
        Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 09:44 +0100
          Android editor (Was: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______.) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2026-06-12 09:03 +0000
            Re: Android editor Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 12:01 +0100

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