Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!wjh12!n44a!ima!cca!editor-p From: editor-p@cca.UUCP Newsgroups: fa.editor-p Subject: Re: Insertion Modes/Modes in general Message-ID: <4813@cca.UUCP> Date: Sun, 5-Jun-83 05:20:24 EDT Article-I.D.: cca.4813 Posted: Sun Jun 5 05:20:24 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jun-83 01:39:58 EDT Lines: 33 >From cbosgd!mark@cca-unix Sun Jun 5 05:20:15 1983 You can flame all you want about modeless editors (ala EMACS) vs moded editors (ala vi). I think a poll would show that 99.9% of those whose first screen editor was modeless hate moded editors, and 99.9% of those whose first screen editors was moded hate modeless editors. It's a highly religious issue. I read that the most common operation is inserting text, and that therefore printing characters should be self inserting. I don't know where this person gets his statistics, but I don't believe them for a minute. Text editors are used for three major purposes: (a) Text entry. This is where you type in your program/document/file from scratch. In this case, certainly you are doing input almost all the time, and a modeless editor probably has the advantage. (b) Text editing. This is where you have an existing file and are making changes to it. I claim that commands are likely to dominate text typed in, but don't have any measurements to prove it. Either this category is a toss-up, or moded editors have the advantage. (c) File viewing. This is where you use your editor to look at a file, but don't make any modifications. (This case probably accounts for less than 10% of all text editing.) In this case, the moded editor has a strong advantage. Of course, the answer is not to have two editors; people go nuts changing editors. The answer is to have an editor that does well in both (a) and (b) modes. Neither vi nor EMACS is satisfactory in this respect. vi should allow more commands in input mode than just ^H, ^W, and ^U; EMACS should have a sticky control lock.