Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Daniel Cerqueira Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell Subject: Re: ed __ ___ ________ ____ ______. Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:47:40 +0100 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 108 Message-ID: <87mrx414nn.fsf@lispclub.com> References: <1105ae4$1naub$1@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Injection-Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:53:28 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="4037997"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/h4xoXQWyrEQ14BdpyjqsJVyLCzMZ/s1Y="; posting-host="3fa8a0192410223d12cf62625a338cc4" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Cancel-Lock: sha1:flbQZxNaAetsj4Lkr+rVqExB7o0= sha1:1XoJeA6jYdSxyklyWgpSof11lb8= sha256:WIUAHhsX4ZFwOjA96g/5skATvP26zcwqw4G086QxMoQ= sha1:2SsZO29Jq8FuRFSilvGlnBCoawA= Content-Language: en OpenPGP: id=0x964FC110C40AD575; url="https://openpgpkey.lispclub.com/.well-known/openpgpkey/lispclub.com/hu/wwhaoe1fy5idwyj4xx847eqerems5rwb?l=dan.list"; preference=signencrypt Xref: csiph.com comp.unix.shell:26864 --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Lumin Etherlight writes: > Janis Papanagnou > 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. > >> 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 :) > >> 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. But, the > original vi editors, I would say they were very > close to ed indeed. 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. 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. > >>> reply here if you use ed and would like to talk >>> about it, or if your nam e is ed! >> >> I suggest to talk about editors in comp.editors >> (not primarily here). > > Perhaps, better yes. But if one editor is > worthy of being discussed in comp.unix.shell, it's > ed, because ed is almost completely useless if not > for the shell. I spell check in ed by calling to > a shell program !aspell %, I format the post by > doing the same !par, when I want a calendar in my > task file I !cal, etc. etc. Personally, I think > ed is the only editor that follows the UNIX > philosophy closely, it applies edits to text, and > it does so very well. > > When I want to edit text, ed is my shell. I love the way your text is formatted. Lumin, how have you formatted the text above? :-) . I do use GNU Emacs, and I think you made a good argument for 'ed' in me. If anyone here know how to format like the text above, but in GNU Emacs, I would like to know how. Cheers for Freedom, =2D-=20 A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference. ~ Alan Alexander Milne --=-=-= Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQJmBAEBCgBQFiEEOVeKaEm0xBhCsMmYlk/BEMQK1XUFAmon0ywbFIAAAAAABAAO bWFudTIsMi41KzEuMTEsMiwyFhxkYW4ubGlzdEBsaXNwY2x1Yi5jb20ACgkQlk/B EMQK1XUwChAAi+Fkh+oukydRGlxSTmMoj0U2AyBV8sxjCHhTJ7+YR0l2+7TZHioL 6/Rjp2WGKiLk0pL64+PEbLNJBE0ve0pGxXPpFbUy32Jxk6qxpMzG65KHGCYyRlBt uEM0IXUweblzaRDpetVPZOz86QMtLGIfy6lNOZWZYQLC+TBH4gwwK2qaSh6E+qZ/ wyuxEIXsZr16/ZIkmzzbR+xkYx3sq0+Mn2FnNHlqtJS/xLg941fnKExDskRHTqfU yzwoCgVGD5gy/WT+AVWzCtkeMTgP0XUgJMB3Go0y0JXwHOBiTcOzjxgHNmXKSOv7 8fHvxNbc31/3ciH4BZD1CDV96tOvZPdiGoGzVyXMUD9lrySg+cxNG1TkppGn4dTu vwsmVk2N4cG57vS9jRlvXdiDtrVvb9aM84Sx0kAgYidp+SfOM1hz2tw7k0oVMuZK HEhh7JUSsLA12s8dMCobeq1QVYfREcYE753pAAzn2LVv7CiR5MMPjA3wMrDIRFtF qNeFY9drpXcsZySaoslKPxKkW8Xcp8eCWSNx4/uXo7BCDJmulP/hCZiMw3Z+YXbn DukRB00rqZJ5V9jU0r/a7+1TLuTpxFFbLAnfgc0NhV2uoO5t5nLATBQtdYoSKD5z Gh3oQLBdyFdh+c8H/PDtMXRGbupgFp+g2r7GiRbV3jFpECFcNKR8PKg= =RhGi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-=-=--