Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!pyramid!hplabs!sdcrdcf!darrelj
From: darrelj@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Darrel VanBuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: environments
Message-ID: <5028@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: 11 Dec 87 18:07:36 GMT
References: <5056@sol.ARPA> <338@siemens.UUCP>
Reply-To: darrelj@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Darrel VanBuer)
Organization: Unisys - System Development Group, Santa Monica
Lines: 35

In article <338@siemens.UUCP> steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark) writes:
>>Personal prejudice: back in the days when I used franz under unix, I hated
>>the structure editor.
>I cannot comprehend using a tty-based structure editor.  If I have to do
>Lisp from a tty, I will use Emacs.
>
>>Brad Miller
>>University of Rochester Computer Science Department
>>miller@cs.rochester.edu
>>allegra!rochester!miller
>
>Steve Clark, princeton!siemens!steve, steve@siemens.com

I have used various interlisp versions for almost 10 years, and certainly
agree that the old teletype structure editor is almost never the editor of
choice now.  On the D-machines I will almost always use Sedit or Dedit (and
would not even consider using unix emacs on the source files).  Sedit is
almost as much better than Dedit as Dedit was than TTYedit (for those
outside the Xerox D environment, Sedit combines some of the best of Dedit
and an emacs interaction style).
I will still occasionally use TTYedit:
  To make a small change in a very large object (to save substantial screen
	painting time).
  To edit circular structures (display editors tend to loop printing)
  To write programatic transforms (e.g. dialect translation with Transor)
Only the last of these might justify learning how to use it.  The problem
with learning and using the TTYeditor with anything approaching the
efficiency of the display based editors is the 60 pages of commands, which
if you know them all, means you have a command for almost any conceivable
edit, but if you know only a few you have very tedious editing.

-- 
Darrel J. Van Buer, PhD; unisys; 2400 Colorado Ave; Santa Monica, CA 90406
(213)829-7511 x5449        KI6VY        darrel@CAM.UNISYS.COM   or
...{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!darrelj