From: David Cantrell Date: 16:17 on 17 May 2007 Subject: vim, and the configuration thereof I, like all RIGHT and PROPER people, use a vi-derivative for my coding, as only terrrrrrrrsts, paedos, and smokers use emacs. Specifically, I'm using vim 7.0. I recently intsalled a shiny new Debian Etch on my desktop at work. After a little fiddling with my ~/.vimrc it does exactly what I want with things like syntax highlighting, folding, indentation and so on. I also installed a shiny new Debian Etch in a virtual machine that I'm going to use to develop some code in. After exactly the same fiddling with my ~/.vimrc there it most certainly does *not* do what I want. So I consulted the fine manual, which told me to do, umm, exactly what I had done. Obviously, there's a difference in the configuration *somewhere* but determining precisely where all the configuration lives is Hard if all you've got is the manpages. I had to use strace, awk, md5sum and diff. To configure an editor. [goes to fetch Mr. Stabby]
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi Date: 20:09 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 5/17/07, David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> wrote: > I, like all RIGHT and PROPER people, use a vi-derivative for my coding, > as only terrrrrrrrsts, paedos, and smokers use emacs. Specifically, I'm > using vim 7.0. > > I recently intsalled a shiny new Debian Etch on my desktop at work. > After a little fiddling with my ~/.vimrc it does exactly what I want > with things like syntax highlighting, folding, indentation and so on. > > I also installed a shiny new Debian Etch in a virtual machine that I'm > going to use to develop some code in. After exactly the same fiddling > with my ~/.vimrc there it most certainly does *not* do what I want. So > I consulted the fine manual, which told me to do, umm, exactly what I > had done. Obviously, there's a difference in the configuration > *somewhere* but determining precisely where all the configuration lives > is Hard if all you've got is the manpages. > > I had to use strace, awk, md5sum and diff. To configure an editor. Serves vi(m) users right.
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 20:23 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof "Jarkko Hietaniemi" <jhi@xxx.xx> writes: > On 5/17/07, David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> wrote: >> I had to use strace, awk, md5sum and diff. To configure an editor. > > Serves vi(m) users right. Yeah, your editor should focus on being an Editor. Anything else, like being an Editor Configurer, is just bloat. After all, Unix has small, specialized tools for precisely this kind of task. Just shell out to them. /s who uses Emacs, but...
From: Robert G. Werner Date: 20:48 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Sean O'Rourke wrote: > "Jarkko Hietaniemi" <jhi@xxx.xx> writes: > >> On 5/17/07, David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> wrote: >>> I had to use strace, awk, md5sum and diff. To configure an editor. >> Serves vi(m) users right. > > Yeah, your editor should focus on being an Editor. Anything > else, like being an Editor Configurer, is just bloat. After all, > Unix has small, specialized tools for precisely this kind of > task. Just shell out to them. > > /s > who uses Emacs, but... > Wow!!! This has the makings of something Famous. Going down in history. Of course Vim rules all other editing environments. But people are entitled to their own foolish preferences. Of course, I hate how Vim helpfully brings up the help screen on my laptop when I hit f1 instdead of escape but that is a hardware hate. Let's see. Not too fond of Vim script. Looks a lot like Basic to me (not in a good sense, for all you VB people). Trying to think of some other hate: nope. Nothing comes to mind. I'll let someone else start that off.
From: Timothy Knox Date: 21:55 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Somewhere on Shadow Earth, at Thu, May 17, 2007 at 12:48:01PM -0700, Robert G. Werner wrote: > Of course, I hate how Vim helpfully brings up the help screen on my > laptop when I hit f1 instdead of escape but that is a hardware hate. That pain, I can help you with. Add the following two lines to your .vimrc: map <F1> <Nop> map! <F1> <Nop> Voila! :-)
From: Peter da Silva Date: 10:16 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof nvi kicks vim's pasty white butt. :) (and before the Emacs people get all excited... kids today, don't remember Gosling versus Lucid vs RMSmacs)
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi Date: 12:28 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Peter da Silva wrote: > nvi kicks vim's pasty white butt. :) > > (and before the Emacs people get all excited... kids today, don't > remember Gosling versus Lucid vs RMSmacs) I'm dating myself here by remembering those, I guess... Can't remember using gmacs, though, but Lucid, yes. > >
From: Yossi Kreinin Date: 14:42 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Peter da Silva wrote: > > (and before the Emacs people get all excited... kids today, don't > remember Gosling versus Lucid vs RMSmacs) > Well, as long as both emacs and xemacs are installed everywhere, it's sort of unforgettable. Especially as long as their configuration files are incompatible, so newbies have to choose a side when they copy someone's configuration (of course theoretically they can stay almost newtral by sticking to the default configuration, but few humans can survive the dysfunctional default settings of a highly extensible program).
From: A. Pagaltzis Date: 15:24 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof * Yossi Kreinin <yossi.kreinin@xxxxxxxx.xxx> [2007-05-18 15:50]: > few humans can survive the dysfunctional default settings of a > highly extensible program). A virginal vim is almost as good as my customised one as far as I'm concerned: a quick `:set nocp ai nu acd | syn on` and I'm off to the races. Those are all of the customisations that affect me constantly, the rest of my vimrc is gravy. Start with an *editor*, not an operating system, and you won't have to painstakingly turn it into an editor in the first place. Regards,
From: Yossi Kreinin Date: 15:48 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof A. Pagaltzis wrote: > > A virginal vim is almost as good as my customised one as far as > I'm concerned: a quick `:set nocp ai nu acd | syn on` and I'm off > to the races. Those are all of the customisations that affect me > constantly, the rest of my vimrc is gravy. > I do like to delete characters with backspace, so I need this: set backspace=indent,eol,start There are a few more. I'm sure I can live with a .vimrc fitting into a single screen though. I think the worst thing about vim is it's hostility towards newcomers. If you run it without arguments, it tells you how to get help, but if you run it on a file, vim assumes you already know what you're doing. So you can't quit. And you're on Unix, so pressing F1 rarely crosses your mind, and there's no tip about getting help. Now comes the critical moment. The newbie is very annoyed, since it's probably the first encounter with a program that refuses to terminate. The newbie asks a more experienced user: "Can you please help me quit vim?". There are two common answers: * "No. Stay there forever." (common result: ps | grep vim; kill -9 pid; emacs) * "Type :q. Yes, press Shift and ';' and then 'q'. Yeah, yeah, I know - but look at the block editing with Ctrl-v!" (common result: the guy asks an emacs user about block editing, immediately forgets the long sequence of keystrokes and goes back to vim) And then there are the people who have a trauma from vi classic.
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 15:59 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Yossi Kreinin <yossi.kreinin@xxxxxxxx.xxx> writes: > Now comes the critical moment. The newbie is very annoyed, since it's > probably the first encounter with a program that refuses to > terminate. I like Emacs's solution to this (on a terminal): the user will eventually type backspace, which pops up a huge, dense, and ultimately useless meta-help screen. /s Of course, the best is ed (from the Emacs jokes file): golem> ed ? help ? ? ? quit ? exit ? bye ? hello? ? eat flaming death ? ^C ? ^C ? ^D ?
From: Yossi Kreinin Date: 17:35 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Sean O'Rourke wrote: > > I like Emacs's solution to this (on a terminal): the user will > eventually type backspace, which pops up a huge, dense, and > ultimately useless meta-help screen. > What are you talking about? XEmacs has an excellent online GUI help system! You go to a menu, and up pops an excellent text buffer with all kinds of useless stuff. I even found how to enlarge the font there once! Too bad I overshoot a little though - with the new settings, each letter took about 25% of the screen. Which is when an interesting question came to my mind: /just how am I supposed to get back now/, when everything, and I mean *everything*, every bit of text is now rendered in about 3 huge rows and 4 huge columns? I used vi to shovel through all kinds of .crap and restore the settings. > golem> ed > > ? > help > ? > ? > ? > quit > ? > exit > ? > bye > ? > hello? > ? > eat flaming death > ? > ^C > ? > ^C > ? > ^D > ? > > I don't even understand why it's so funny, but I'm still laughing while I'm typing this.
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 10:27 on 19 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Fri, 18 May 2007 19:35:46 +0300, Yossi Kreinin <yossi.kreinin@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > Sean O'Rourke wrote: > > > > I like Emacs's solution to this (on a terminal): the user will > > eventually type backspace, which pops up a huge, dense, and > > ultimately useless meta-help screen. > > > > What are you talking about? XEmacs has an excellent online GUI help system! You emacs and excellent in one line. Paradox. > go to a menu, and up pops an excellent text buffer with all kinds of useless stuff. wxcellent, again in the context of emacs? > I even found how to enlarge the font there once! Too bad I overshoot a little > though - with the new settings, each letter took about 25% of the screen. Which > is when an interesting question came to my mind: /just how am I supposed to get > back now/, when everything, and I mean *everything*, every bit of text is now > rendered in about 3 huge rows and 4 huge columns? I agree to a certain extent that vi is shit for the beginning user, but for people that need power, there is not an interactive tool available that is more powerful. And at least it restricts itself to what it is built for. FWIW the best intuitive editor I ever used was 'shed' on Primos, and the best `strange' editor was one, I forgot it's name, on VMES or something, a custom OS specific for VME-bus systems with MC680x0 CPU's.
From: David Cantrell Date: 14:14 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Fri, May 18, 2007 at 07:35:46PM +0300, Yossi Kreinin wrote: > Sean O'Rourke wrote: > >I like Emacs [yay carefully selective quoting!] > What are you talking about? XEmacs has an excellent online GUI help system! The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most unhelpful of "help" systems, GNU info. Xemacs might have fixed that bug I suppose, but I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Anything that combines the hatefulness of emacs with the hatefulness of X has got to be Just Wrong. > >golem> ed > >? > >help > >? > >exit > >? > >eat flaming death > >? > >^C > >? > >^D > >? > I don't even understand why it's so funny, but I'm still laughing while I'm > typing this. I like ed. It would be foolish to try to use him as an interactive text editor, but piping a string of commands to his STDIN is a thing of beauty, and sometimes works.
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 16:18 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: > The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most unhelpful of > "help" systems, GNU info. Meh, I personally prefer it to a wad of randomly-structured HTML, though I agree that the standalone Info reader is a polyp of evil. In any case, it sure beats either a PDF or, as is increasingly common nowadays, "please visit our AJAX-enhanced website for documentation." Because, you know, no one ever uses software without broadband... > I like ed. It would be foolish to try to use him as an > interactive text editor, but piping a string of commands to his > STDIN is a thing of beauty, and sometimes works. I actually once interned for a really smart guy who wrote all his scientific papers (LaTeX) with an ed clone, tedi, because it was the closest thing to the old VMS line editor that he could find. The code many of the papers were based on was a mixture of FORTRAN IV and FORTRAN 77. /s
From: A. Pagaltzis Date: 17:16 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof * Sean O'Rourke <sorourke@xx.xxxx.xxx> [2007-05-21 17:25]: > David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: > > The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most > > unhelpful of "help" systems, GNU info. > > Meh, I personally prefer it to a wad of randomly-structured > HTML, My ideal looks like this: * Manpage with usage/synopsis * For simple software, an overview/examples and full reference in the manpage * For anything complex, a brief reference in the manpage and narrative docs written in DocBook or something similar and rendered to HTML for perusal You can generate any number of other useful things out of DocBook, including PDF. As the sole format it would be hateful, but as an option for printing it's handy, and that is a nice thing to be able to do with docs for software complex enough to need a narrative manual. Needless to say, very few projects attain this level of perfection. The GNU crew openly *refuse* to produce docs you can actually use (with the sole and lonely exception of the Make manual -- the only tolerable Info doc I've ever seen). Regards,
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 17:35 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, 21 May 2007 18:16:50 +0200, "A. Pagaltzis" <pagaltzis@xxx.xx> wrote: > * Sean O'Rourke <sorourke@xx.xxxx.xxx> [2007-05-21 17:25]: > > David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: > > > The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most > > > unhelpful of "help" systems, GNU info. > > > > Meh, I personally prefer it to a wad of randomly-structured > > HTML, > > My ideal looks like this: > > * Manpage with usage/synopsis > > * For simple software, an overview/examples and full reference > in the manpage > > * For anything complex, a brief reference in the manpage and > narrative docs written in DocBook or something similar and > rendered to HTML for perusal > > You can generate any number of other useful things out of > DocBook, including PDF. As the sole format it would be hateful, > but as an option for printing it's handy, and that is a nice > thing to be able to do with docs for software complex enough to > need a narrative manual. > > Needless to say, very few projects attain this level of > perfection. > > The GNU crew openly *refuse* to produce docs you can actually use > (with the sole and lonely exception of the Make manual -- the > only tolerable Info doc I've ever seen). contradictio interminis info is so useless, that it is automatically deleted after installation of any GNU^Wutility that generates it and installs it. Even if you print out info pages, it is still unreadable
From: Peter da Silva Date: 11:36 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On May 21, 2007, at 11:16 AM, A. Pagaltzis wrote: > * Sean O'Rourke <sorourke@xx.xxxx.xxx> [2007-05-21 17:25]: >> David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: >>> The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most >>> unhelpful of "help" systems, GNU info. >> Meh, I personally prefer it to a wad of randomly-structured >> HTML, > My ideal looks like this: > > * Manpage with usage/synopsis > > * For simple software, an overview/examples and full reference > in the manpage * For anything complex, a man page *section* for the software, and a copy of man that doesn't freak out over "man tcl canvas" or "man perl commands" or whatever. > * For anything complex, a brief reference in the manpage and > narrative docs written in DocBook or something similar and > rendered to HTML for perusal * When this is considered appropriate, then a man command that runs "groff -Tlatin1 -mWhatever /usr/share/doc/foo/bar.whatever" when you run "man foo bar". I hate man pages that refer to a document that you can't get to in man.
From: David Cantrell Date: 17:43 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 08:18:56AM -0700, Sean O'Rourke wrote: > David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: > > The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most unhelpful of > > "help" systems, GNU info. > Meh, I personally prefer it to a wad of randomly-structured HTML, Bet you'd rather have a nice manpage instead. Especially when once you've tracked down and installed the info reader and figured out how to use it, the info page ends up looking exactly like a man page and doesn't use any of info's extra (but hateful) features. > > I like ed. It would be foolish to try to use him as an > > interactive text editor, but piping a string of commands to his > > STDIN is a thing of beauty, and sometimes works. > I actually once interned for a really smart guy who wrote all his > scientific papers (LaTeX) with an ed clone, tedi, because it was > the closest thing to the old VMS line editor that he could find. He's a sick sick man. I sort of approve, in the same way as I'd approve of someone who was so self-confident that he admitted to all and sundry that he found womens' underwear more comfortable.
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 18:10 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: > On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 08:18:56AM -0700, Sean O'Rourke wrote: >> David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> writes: >> > The big problem with emacs is that it looks like that most unhelpful of >> > "help" systems, GNU info. >> Meh, I personally prefer it to a wad of randomly-structured HTML, > > Bet you'd rather have a nice manpage instead. Yep, though I actually prefer Info when inside Emacs (pace, info-hatas!). And I too taste bile whenever I see one of those GNU-blighted man pages for a command-line tool that says "see the info pages for how to use this." At that point it's almost easier to STFW, or just use some other tool. One of the fringe benefits of having moved to the Mac is that it comes with BSD manpages. /s
From: Peter da Silva Date: 18:05 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On May 18, 2007, at 9:59 AM, Sean O'Rourke wrote: > Of course, the best is ed The competition to "ed" was TECO and SOS, and not even the real TECO, and there was NO WAY you could run any kind of real Emacs on a PDP-11 (what did RMS care? If you don't have 36 bits you're not playing with a full DEC). I implemented "ed" on RSX-11 in Fortran because SOS was so painful, and showed it to my boss, and he thought I was some kind of god... he hated SOS too.
From: A. Pagaltzis Date: 17:00 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof * Yossi Kreinin <yossi.kreinin@xxxxxxxx.xxx> [2007-05-18 16:50]: > A. Pagaltzis wrote: > >A virginal vim is almost as good as my customised one as far > >as I'm concerned: a quick `:set nocp ai nu acd | syn on` and > >I'm off to the races. Those are all of the customisations that > >affect me constantly, the rest of my vimrc is gravy. > > I do like to delete characters with backspace, so I need this: > > set backspace=indent,eol,start Stick a `bs=2` in the list up there. (That's the shorthand notation for what you wrote.) > There are a few more. I'm sure I can live with a .vimrc fitting > into a single screen though. My vimrc is ~240 lines, but it's written in longhand notation with one setting per line and lots of trailing comments. Only ~30 of these lines are really important, the rest is to make the 3-10 hours a day that I spend in vim more pleasant. Much of the stuff is conditional, testing the environment and available features (since some machines I work on have vims as old as 5.0 (sigh)), with some settings repeated across different conditional branches. There are also nitpicky filetype-dependent settings. But I don't even need most of those 30 settings to be productive in a pinch. The 5 I listed are all I *need* for a short session, and for really light jobs, even autochdir and highlighting are optional. Vim is Useful Out Of The Box. What a concept. Anyway, sorry for gushing. I know this is the wrong list. > I think the worst thing about vim is it's hostility towards > newcomers. [...] Totally with you there. I always tell people to start with the vimtutor. Go through it all once, then again 2-3 days later. And skim through it again about a week later (assuming you use an editor with some regularity). At that point you're as proficient with vim as with the typical Notepad-ish editors, and can embark on growing more effective. Regards,
From: Peter da Silva Date: 18:20 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof > Vim is Useful Out Of The Box. What a concept. The only options I use in nvi are ":se ai", and I don't *need* that. I used to go with "sm" as well, but I seem to have quit expecting it. I haven't found the options that make "vim" non-hateful for me, so after installing nvi on panther I delete the link from "vi" to "vim" lest it sneak up on me some time...
From: jrodman Date: 20:52 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 12:23:07PM -0700, Sean O'Rourke wrote: > "Jarkko Hietaniemi" <jhi@xxx.xx> writes: > > > On 5/17/07, David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx> wrote: > >> I had to use strace, awk, md5sum and diff. To configure an editor. > > > > Serves vi(m) users right. > > Yeah, your editor should focus on being an Editor. Anything > else, like being an Editor Configurer, is just bloat. Right like a turing complete scripting language that only exists inside the one editor and nowhere else, has terrible syntax and clunky usage. That would be bloaty and ungainly and a terrible idea. Good thing vim has nothing like that! -josh (a vim user)
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 21:24 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx writes: > Right like a turing complete scripting language that only > exists inside the one editor and nowhere else, has terrible > syntax and clunky usage. You see, the beauty of a Turing-complete scripting language is that it transmutes software hate into self-loathing. Surcease of sorrow is always just a few more lines of configuration coding away, and you're a dolt if you don't do it. In programming languages, this is known as the Scheme Effect: "sure there's no object system or standard library, but that gives you the freedom to create your very own, and brands you a moron if you don't." Of course, this is irrelevant in the real world. It continues to amaze me how many students I see in the lab using vi without ":set syntax=on" or Emacs without "(blink-cursor-mode -1)", having not even tried to reduce the pain. /s contemplating a new editor, infinitely configurable in Befunge.
From: Zach White
Date: 21:38 on 17 May 2007
Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof
On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 01:24:38PM -0700, Sean O'Rourke wrote:
> Of course, this is irrelevant in the real world. It continues to
> amaze me how many students I see in the lab using vi without
> ":set syntax=on" or Emacs without "(blink-cursor-mode -1)",
> having not even tried to reduce the pain.
Not all who wander are lost...
I can't stand color syntax highlighting, myself. Every time I try to use
it I get distracted by the changing colors every time I open or close some
quoting method. And don't get me started on the problems when the file-type
auto-detection fails and it tries to highlight your python file using some
C-like syntax.
Give me the clean, zen-like simplicity of plain white or gray text any day
of the week.
-Zach (Who's still upset that there's no way he can use nvi's multi-level
undo model when stuck in vim)
From: A. Pagaltzis
Date: 22:46 on 17 May 2007
Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof
* Zach White <zwhite-hates-software@xxxxxxxx.xxxx.xxx> [2007-05-17 22:45]:
> -Zach (Who's still upset that there's no way he can use nvi's
> multi-level undo model when stuck in vim)
Vim 7 keeps all undo points around and you can go to any of them
at any time, including going forward to a different thread of
changes than the one you're on.
:help undo-branches
:help usr_32
Regards,
From: Phil Pennock Date: 22:51 on 17 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 2007-05-17 at 20:38 +0000, Zach White wrote: > I can't stand color syntax highlighting, myself. Every time I try to use > it I get distracted by the changing colors every time I open or close some > quoting method. And don't get me started on the problems when the file-type > auto-detection fails and it tries to highlight your python file using some > C-like syntax. I'm annoyed that there's no multi-editor type-marking that's actually used by all the mainstream editors. -*- python-mode -*- (or whatever it is), vs: vim: set filetype=python : , etc. If I'm wrong, please help me minimise the hate and let me start setting file type, tab settings etc in one place, out of the way at the bottom of the file, in a way which won't break just because someone uses a different format. > -Zach (Who's still upset that there's no way he can use nvi's multi-level > undo model when stuck in vim) Please elucidate; how does this differ from undolists? help undo-branches or undo-tree .. Thanks, -Phil
From: Tony Finch Date: 00:45 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Thu, 17 May 2007, Zach White wrote: > > -Zach (Who's still upset that there's no way he can use nvi's multi-level > undo model when stuck in vim) Oh you can, except the key bindings are helpfully different. In proper^Wnvi, to undo multiple times you type u.... (just like to do anything multiple times you type .... after the original action), and to undo/redo/undo/redo you type uuuu. In bloated^Wvim, to undo multiple times you type uuuu and to undo/redo/undo/redo you type u... OBVIOUSLY. Tony.
From: Philip Newton Date: 07:40 on 18 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 5/18/07, Tony Finch <dot@xxxxx.xx> wrote: > On Thu, 17 May 2007, Zach White wrote: > > > > -Zach (Who's still upset that there's no way he can use nvi's multi-level > > undo model when stuck in vim) > > Oh you can, except the key bindings are helpfully different. In > proper^Wnvi, to undo multiple times you type u.... (just like to do > anything multiple times you type .... after the original action), and to > undo/redo/undo/redo you type uuuu. In bloated^Wvim, to undo multiple times > you type uuuu and to undo/redo/undo/redo you type u... OBVIOUSLY. Oh, and the behaviour is different depending on whether or not 'compatible' is set -- which is sensitive to such little things such as whether a .vimrc exists or not. Always bites me when I use a vim somewhere and wonder why it doesn't behave like my vim. Especially when it is on one of my machines, but one I haven't used before and haven't set up a .vimrc for yet, so it's suddenly more vi-compatible and doesn't understand multiple-undo. Cheers,
From: Abigail Date: 15:20 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof --fdj2RfSjLxBAspz7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, May 18, 2007 at 08:40:03AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote: > On 5/18/07, Tony Finch <dot@xxxxx.xx> wrote: > >On Thu, 17 May 2007, Zach White wrote: > >> > >> -Zach (Who's still upset that there's no way he can use nvi's multi-le= vel > >> undo model when stuck in vim) > > > >Oh you can, except the key bindings are helpfully different. In > >proper^Wnvi, to undo multiple times you type u.... (just like to do > >anything multiple times you type .... after the original action), and to > >undo/redo/undo/redo you type uuuu. In bloated^Wvim, to undo multiple tim= es > >you type uuuu and to undo/redo/undo/redo you type u... OBVIOUSLY. >=20 > Oh, and the behaviour is different depending on whether or not > 'compatible' is set -- which is sensitive to such little things such > as whether a .vimrc exists or not. >=20 > Always bites me when I use a vim somewhere and wonder why it doesn't > behave like my vim. Especially when it is on one of my machines, but > one I haven't used before and haven't set up a .vimrc for yet, so it's > suddenly more vi-compatible and doesn't understand multiple-undo. What I hate about every Linux distro I've used is that when I type 'vi file', I get an editor that isn't vi. It's usually vim. I guess that's a great editor for some, and I don't mind it being there. But don't call it vi. It isn't.=20 Real Unixes have vi. Linux doesn't. So don't call something else vi. Abigail --fdj2RfSjLxBAspz7 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGUarEBOh7Ggo6rasRAuA3AKC7SgJtuEDKfLYr0qMv9SJ2pylUrACgqWeZ 78uIFr7rnuN77lkvqrvbeSI= =rXkF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --fdj2RfSjLxBAspz7--
From: Philip Newton Date: 15:28 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 5/21/07, Abigail <abigail@xxxxxxx.xx> wrote: > What I hate about every Linux distro I've used is that when I type > 'vi file', I get an editor that isn't vi. It's usually vim. I guess > that's a great editor for some, and I don't mind it being there. > > But don't call it vi. It isn't. > > Real Unixes have vi. Linux doesn't. So don't call something else vi. Just wait what happens when you type in 'sh'. Cheers,
From: Nicholas Clark Date: 15:35 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 04:28:11PM +0200, Philip Newton wrote: > On 5/21/07, Abigail <abigail@xxxxxxx.xx> wrote: > >What I hate about every Linux distro I've used is that when I type > >'vi file', I get an editor that isn't vi. It's usually vim. I guess > >that's a great editor for some, and I don't mind it being there. > > > >But don't call it vi. It isn't. > > > >Real Unixes have vi. Linux doesn't. So don't call something else vi. > > Just wait what happens when you type in 'sh'. IIRC Debian allows ash to be /bin/sh Which breaks (expecially) hateful software. "Portable - means it runs on both kinds of OS - Debian and RedHat" At least the rise of x86_64 is giving the (historically x86 only) Linux weenies their portability come-uppance. Nicholas Clark
From: jrodman Date: 18:06 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof > What I hate about every Linux distro I've used is that when I type > 'vi file', I get an editor that isn't vi. There is no vi. vi is dead. There are only vi compatables. Long live vim.
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 18:33 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, 21 May 2007 10:06:49 -0700, jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote: > > What I hate about every Linux distro I've used is that when I type > > 'vi file', I get an editor that isn't vi. > > There is no vi. vi is dead. There are only vi compatables. So untrue. Following up on Abigail's hate, there have been numerous times in the recent month that I typed 'ex -v' just to NOT get into some vi clone like gvim or vim. And hate to the (Linux) distro's that also replace ex with some vim clone! > Long live vim. Long live elvis. Elvis isn't dead, he lives! % alias emacs=vi
From: Tony Finch Date: 18:42 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, 21 May 2007, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > > So untrue. Following up on Abigail's hate, there have been numerous > times in the recent month that I typed 'ex -v' just to NOT get into > some vi clone like gvim or vim. Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? The latter is in many ways less hateful than the former (or at least the version shipped by Sun), e.g. because of infinite undo and not crashing when you make the terminal window too large. Tony.
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 19:08 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, 21 May 2007 18:42:14 +0100, Tony Finch <dot@xxxxx.xx> wrote: > On Mon, 21 May 2007, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > > > > So untrue. Following up on Abigail's hate, there have been numerous > > times in the recent month that I typed 'ex -v' just to NOT get into > > some vi clone like gvim or vim. > > Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? The latter is in Neither probably, as all the major vendors think they can do better. Both AIX and HP-UX ship with a `real' vi, but don't try to read the version :) % ex :ve Version 3.10 % ex :ve HP Version 78.2.1.21 $ 32-bit NLS $ % ex :ve HP Version 82.6.1.21 $ 32-bit NLS $ % ex :ve HP Version $ B.11.11_LR Nov 4 2004 06:40:43 $ % ex :ve HP Version $ B.11.23 Dec 2 2004 03:59:23 $ % ex :ve HP Version $ B.11.23 Jul 15 2003 02:09:47 $ > many ways less hateful than the former (or at least the version shipped by > Sun), e.g. because of infinite undo and not crashing when you make the > terminal window too large.
From: Timothy Knox Date: 23:05 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof Somewhere on Shadow Earth, at Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:08:57PM +0000, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > > Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? The latter is in > > Neither probably, as all the major vendors think they can do better. Both > AIX and HP-UX ship with a `real' vi, but don't try to read the version :) Well, on my FreeBSD boxen: $ ex :ve Version 1.79 (10/23/96) The CSRG, University of California, Berkeley. But it is nvi, not original vi. Still, closer than most. OTOH, I also have vim installed, because I use all the extra bells and whistles, and it is worth it, for me. ;-)
From: Abigail Date: 20:41 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof --0eh6TmSyL6TZE2Uz Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:42:14PM +0100, Tony Finch wrote: > On Mon, 21 May 2007, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > > > > So untrue. Following up on Abigail's hate, there have been numerous > > times in the recent month that I typed 'ex -v' just to NOT get into > > some vi clone like gvim or vim. >=20 > Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? The latter is in > many ways less hateful than the former (or at least the version shipped by > Sun), e.g. because of infinite undo and not crashing when you make the > terminal window too large. While infinite undo is nice, I happily trade it for consistency. If I install a system, one of the very first things I need to do after the initial install from CD is to an editor. At that moment, I don't need infinite undo - I'm not going to do hour long sessions; I'm going to do make many small edits. And on SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, SGI, etc, 'vi' just works. I can=20 configure the system, create users, set up permissions, etc, until I=20 can install the vi-clone of my choice. The 'vi' that comes with the system is consistent enough to not notice (no doubt some long sequence of keystrokes noone ever uses anyway will behave different). But not so on Linux. I have yet to spot any Linux developer (or distro vendor) that actually cares about consistency. Or backwards compatability. Abigail --0eh6TmSyL6TZE2Uz Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGUfXhBOh7Ggo6rasRAk6eAKCp/i+NDOh3QC16DlrVyOHwZCnVswCcD4ZQ 8jQndfQ4s19Zwd9G3w/aqZc= =AKaY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --0eh6TmSyL6TZE2Uz--
From: Phil Pennock Date: 02:21 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 2007-05-21 at 21:41 +0200, Abigail wrote: > On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:42:14PM +0100, Tony Finch wrote: > > Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? The latter is in > > many ways less hateful than the former (or at least the version shipped by > > Sun), e.g. because of infinite undo and not crashing when you make the > > terminal window too large. You beat me to it, but only because I was biting my tongue. Of course, if the terminal window starts out wide, you might not be able to go into visual mode at all. Damn it, if I wanted line-mode I'd have typed 'ed', probably with a here-document. > But not so on Linux. I have yet to spot any Linux developer (or distro > vendor) that actually cares about consistency. Or backwards compatability. Re Linux distributions: no argument. Re Vim: is this a matter of vendor-supplied vimrc stuff? "vim -C" will auto-set the 'compatible' option, which should be the default in the absense of a vimrc file. "vim -C -u NONE" should skip past just about any initialisation that has been inflicted upon you. Alias/function 'vi' to use that and I'm sure you'll still grumble but at least you'll be productive whilst grumbling about what you had to do in order to be productive. ;^) -Phil
From: jrodman Date: 08:04 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:21:53PM -0700, Phil Pennock wrote: > On 2007-05-21 at 21:41 +0200, Abigail wrote: > > On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:42:14PM +0100, Tony Finch wrote: > > > Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? My point was, like ircds, there is no mainline vi, and has not been for some time. Most people don't even use descendents from the original source tree, and those who do are fools or miserable, or both. At this point there are only clones and bastardized buggy descendents. > Of course, if the terminal window starts out wide, you might not be able > to go into visual mode at all. Damn it, if I wanted line-mode I'd have > typed 'ed', probably with a here-document. > > > But not so on Linux. I have yet to spot any Linux developer (or distro > > vendor) that actually cares about consistency. Or backwards compatability. > > Re Linux distributions: no argument. > > Re Vim: is this a matter of vendor-supplied vimrc stuff? Debian (Linux) ships with vim set in compatible mode, although I'm not sure whether vim is installed by default at all. I find both of these decisions extremely hateful. vim in compatable mode is not, I believe, 100% compatible, but so close you will probably not ever encounter a failed expectation. vim ships in compatible mode by default. -josh
From: Philip Newton Date: 08:28 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 5/22/07, jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx <jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > vim in compatable mode is not, I believe, 100% compatible, but so close > you will probably not ever encounter a failed expectation. vim ships in > compatible mode by default. That's why I was surprised that Abigail couldn't treat the vim as a stock vi; my impression was also that vim, by default (i.e. in the absence of any configuration files) will act very similar to plain vi. I suppose the presence of a pre-configured .vimrc by the distribution vendor was the reason, rather than the fact that it's vim rather than Joy vi. Cheers,
From: Tony Finch Date: 11:57 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Tue, 22 May 2007, jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote: > > vim in compatable mode is not, I believe, 100% compatible, but so close > you will probably not ever encounter a failed expectation. vim ships in > compatible mode by default. It's undo behaviour is still different to Berkeley vi. Tony.
From: Peter da Silva Date: 12:03 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On May 22, 2007, at 2:04 AM, jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote: > vim in compatable mode is not, I believe, 100% compatible, but so close > you will probably not ever encounter a failed expectation. Har Bloody Har.
From: Peter da Silva Date: 12:01 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof > "vim -C -u NONE" should skip past just about any initialisation that > has > been inflicted upon you. Alias/function 'vi' to use that and I'm sure > you'll still grumble but at least you'll be productive whilst grumbling > about what you had to do in order to be productive. ;^) BTDTGT"cd ~/src/nvi; make; sudo sh -c 'make install; vi=`which vi`; rm $vi; ln -s /usr/local/bin/vi $vi'" There is no combination of options that anyone has handed me that makes vim less than hateful.
From: Phil Pennock Date: 18:24 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On 2007-05-22 at 06:01 -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > BTDTGT"cd ~/src/nvi; make; sudo sh -c 'make install; vi=`which vi`; rm $vi; > ln -s /usr/local/bin/vi $vi'" You do realise that sooner or later a Linux wannabe distribution is going to ship without vi by default, so that you'll just have created a self-referential symlink (with no vi installed)? > There is no combination of options that anyone has handed me that makes vim > less than hateful. Of course; that's because you, sir, are an übertroll to inspire us all. -Phil
From: Peter da Silva Date: 06:18 on 23 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On May 22, 2007, at 12:24 PM, Phil Pennock wrote: > On 2007-05-22 at 06:01 -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: >> BTDTGT"cd ~/src/nvi; make; sudo sh -c 'make install; vi=`which vi`; >> rm $vi; >> ln -s /usr/local/bin/vi $vi'" > You do realise that sooner or later a Linux wannabe distribution is > going to ship without vi by default, so that you'll just have created a > self-referential symlink (with no vi installed)? 1. No, the command "nvi" would still work. 2. If I were thick enough to ever run that command on Linux the compiler barf would alert me to the problem. 3. Which means I'd end up with no "vi" installed and a loose symlink pointing to a nonexistent file. 4. In any case, it's more likely that "vi" would be linked to "nano". 5. Or "emacs".
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 22:13 on 21 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, 21 May 2007 18:42:14 +0100, Tony Finch <dot@xxxxx.xx> wrote: > On Mon, 21 May 2007, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > > > > So untrue. Following up on Abigail's hate, there have been numerous > > times in the recent month that I typed 'ex -v' just to NOT get into > > some vi clone like gvim or vim. > > Are you actually getting Joy's vi or is it Bostic's nvi? The latter is in Neither probably, as all the major vendors think they can do better. Both AIX and HP-UX ship with a `real' vi, but don't try to read the version :) % ex :ve Version 3.10 % ex :ve HP Version 78.2.1.21 $ 32-bit NLS $ % ex :ve HP Version 82.6.1.21 $ 32-bit NLS $ % ex :ve HP Version $ B.11.11_LR Nov 4 2004 06:40:43 $ % ex :ve HP Version $ B.11.23 Dec 2 2004 03:59:23 $ % ex :ve HP Version $ B.11.23 Jul 15 2003 02:09:47 $ > many ways less hateful than the former (or at least the version shipped by > Sun), e.g. because of infinite undo and not crashing when you make the > terminal window too large.
From: David Cantrell Date: 17:49 on 22 May 2007 Subject: Re: vim, and the configuration thereof On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 04:20:52PM +0200, Abigail wrote: > What I hate about every Linux distro I've used is that when I type > 'vi file', I get an editor that isn't vi. It's usually vim. I guess > that's a great editor for some, and I don't mind it being there. > But don't call it vi. It isn't. At some point in the past, I used a Debian box which, through a twisty maze of symlinks in /etc/alternatives had typing 'vi' end up running nano. Now that is truly hateful.
Generated at 10:27 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi