Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!ncar!gatech!linus!munck
From: munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Sprint
Keywords: Sprint, Final Word, Borland, Emacs, Scribe
Message-ID: <35802@linus.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jul 88 16:56:47 GMT
References: <398@csed-1.IDA.ORG> <741@cgh.UUCP>
Reply-To: munck@faron.UUCP (Robert Munck)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA
Lines: 36

In article <741@cgh.UUCP> paul@cgh.UUCP (Paul Homchick) writes:
   (much about its ancestry, non-WYSIWYG-ness, etc.)
>...  But if you are looking for a powerful,
>programmable document preparation system that can easily handle monster
>manuals, then Sprint is a steal at the asking price.  (It makes a pretty
>good programmer's editor, too).

FW is definitely a "cult editor."  Only the real "in crowd" has ever heard
about it, and they all love it.  Amazingly, though, no one says much about
what a great editor of programs you can make it, and the many advantages
of that.

For instance, I program mostly in Pascal, Modula-2, and Ada; I've written
FW macros to help with the typing and indenting of each.  The three languages
are just similar enough that the differences could make me crazy, but
I've managed to hide most of them in the editor interface.  Comment delimiters
are different in all three, but I just hit "'" (single-quote) and I get the
delimiters for the language I'm currently editing.  It also switches me to
continuous spelling checker (beeps immediately after a mistake) and line-wrap
(generates additional delimiters when wrapping as needed) and (my preference)
right-justifies the comment against the right margin.

Likewise FOR, IF, CASE, etc. statements have slightly different syntax, but
the FW macros just generate the right skeleton and prompt me to fill in
non-terminals.  Other goodies: the macros know the format of the error-message
output of the compilers I use, and can display each error message in turn
in one window and position the cursor to the appropriate place in the code
in the other.  Just hit  to jump to the next error.  Another
key will find the declaration of the identifier under the cursor and put it
in a window.

The real joy, of course, is that I use the same editor to type documents,
with as many keys as possible having identical or analogous functions.
As my brain gets older, it switches context more and more reluctantly, and
FW is a great help.
                        -- Bob Munck, MITRE
                        -- Munck@MITRE-Bedford.ARPA, ...!linus!munck