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From: Jim Diamond on 29 Nov 2009 20:35 On 2009-11-29 at 15:22 AST, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist(a)deadspam.com> wrote: > Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond(a)nospam.AcadiaU.ca> wrote: >> I'm sort of curious. Can you tell me what it is that you find so >> difficult about vi? > > Maybe this question was only ment for the OP, Yup. > if so feel free to ignore the contents of this post. If you are > curios about what more than one people find difficult it might still > have some value. Sure, thanks. > I know how to use vi for basic editing but use emacs for my everyday work > not only as a sysadmin, but mostly as a programmer. I use both myself. Vi for quick edits, emacs for serious work. Don't ask me why :-) >> (3) the fact that the commands are different than in other programs >> you are familiar with, > > Yes, I think this is the major problem. This problem is not only about > learning the keys of yet another program. When you are used to some key > combinations those keys usually get pressed before you even have taken > your time to think what those keys will do in your current program. Yup, I hear you. In my .vimrc I have some emacs-isms such as map! ^A ^O0 map ^A 0 so that I can type Ctrl-A to get to the start of the line, regardless of whether I am in append or command mode. Anyway, I appreciate your response, but since you are able to use both, you aren't dead in the water like the OP is. And I'm still curious about that. Cheers. Jim
From: Jim Diamond on 29 Nov 2009 20:54 On 2009-11-29 at 16:29 AST, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote: > Responding to Jim Diamond: > >> On 2009-11-28 at 07:24 AST, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote: >> >>> I think what I'm discovering here is that there is a phenomena >>> something like a kind of selective application dislexia, and I (and a >>> few others) have it regarding Vi. >> >> I'm sort of curious. Can you tell me what it is that you find so >> difficult about vi? >> >> It is >> (1) the fact that there are two modes, (2) the fact that there are >> (keyboard) commands to delete/change >> existing text, rather than using the mouse to do this, >> (3) the fact that the commands are different than in other programs >> you are familiar with, >> (4) something else (what)? >> >> Just for the record, I'm not a vi fanatic, so please don't feel I am >> being critical of your difficulties, but I am genuinely interested in >> what they are. > Ok. Lets see now... > There is always a problem or two learning a new way to do an old job. Yup. > There is usually a "learning curve" experience while adopting and > adapting to the new way of doing something. This is why the > "migrating to *NIX" experience has a classic "steep learning curve", > which is in fact simply the confusion cause by UN-learning the old > (typically M$) way of even thinking about things. Agreed. (As you may appreciate, some people have learned things in the other way and find the M$ way of doing things confounding.) > every now and then there is something that feels like running into a > brick wall instead of just dropping a gear for a gradient. I have no > real explaination for this yet. > Vi is one such experience generator. I've read up on it, and on paper it > looks fantastic. I've read other's experiences of it, and thought "Wow! I > gotta get me one of those!" And then there is the face-against-the-bricks > "moment of impact" as what I now call "Vim-lexia" hits. > Its like some kind of blind-spot thing, writers block, or something. > Did that go anyway to answering your query? Well, thanks for the response, but... not really. I was hoping you would have something more specific. You've told me you can't do it, which I already knew, but I don't see what it is you can't do. Or, for that matter, what it is you are able to do. (IIRC you managed to get vi started and found some help, so you obviously got started, but I'm not really sure what happens to you after you start vi.) Anyway, it may be very difficult to articulate the issue, I was just hoping it was relatively easy. Cheers. Jim
From: Sylvain Robitaille on 30 Nov 2009 01:04 On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:31:44 -0500, Theodore Heise wrote: > The command ^J should do this, but you will need to call pico with > the quote string specified (i.e., pico -Q "> "). ... I just tested with the sample text I supplied, and it seems to reformat each individual line, rather than the block of text, so it's certainly not the same functionality as what I'd learned in vim. > As far as I know, it only accepts one quote string, so it *is* limited > (with ">" specified, pico won't recognize other characters like "|"). Ok, so not as "complete" a feature, at least for folks used to the way this sort of thing is possible in vim. > In addition, pico would not reformat the example text you gave > because of the multiple leading spaces). Vim's "gq" produces the following on the sample text I provided: >> ... reformatting lines quoted from a netnews article, without first >> removing the preceding quote (">") characters, then adding them >> back after formatting (highlight the lines in question, then >> "gq"). One double space is missed. With Pico, as I noted, it seems I can get it to "reformat" individual lines, but not the whole block of text, which I find particularly useful. > On the other hand, it > does recognize multiples of the specified character, and > variations with single spaces. For example, the following > snippets are reformatted by pico with ^J: Here's what vim's "gq" does with your sample text: >> test of the multiple levels of character >> > test of the multiple levels of character test of the multiple >> > levels It's easy enough then to remove the vertical block of extra whitespace in the ">> >" sequence (assuming this would exist in a paragraph of more than two lines; obviously in this example, removing it is just as easy with any editor). > Hope that helps. It does, but it also confirms that for the way I work, at least, I'm not missing anything by not using Pico. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sylvain Robitaille syl(a)encs.concordia.ca Systems analyst / AITS Concordia University Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Montreal, Quebec, Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Henrik Carlqvist on 30 Nov 2009 01:42 Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond(a)nospam.AcadiaU.ca> wrote: > I use both myself. Vi for quick edits, emacs for serious work. Don't > ask me why :-) I think I understand why. Emacs with all its features might be a little to "bloated" to start for only a quick edit. Sometimes for quick appends I don't start any editor at all, I then only use echo and >>. regards Henrik -- The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is: hc3(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers: root(a)localhost postmaster(a)localhost
From: Mike Jones on 30 Nov 2009 05:43
Responding to Jim Diamond: > On 2009-11-29 at 16:29 AST, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote: >> Responding to Jim Diamond: >> >>> On 2009-11-28 at 07:24 AST, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote: >>> >>>> I think what I'm discovering here is that there is a phenomena >>>> something like a kind of selective application dislexia, and I (and a >>>> few others) have it regarding Vi. >>> >>> I'm sort of curious. Can you tell me what it is that you find so >>> difficult about vi? >>> >>> It is >>> (1) the fact that there are two modes, (2) the fact that there are >>> (keyboard) commands to delete/change >>> existing text, rather than using the mouse to do this, >>> (3) the fact that the commands are different than in other programs >>> you are familiar with, >>> (4) something else (what)? >>> >>> Just for the record, I'm not a vi fanatic, so please don't feel I am >>> being critical of your difficulties, but I am genuinely interested in >>> what they are. > >> Ok. Lets see now... > >> There is always a problem or two learning a new way to do an old job. > Yup. > >> There is usually a "learning curve" experience while adopting and >> adapting to the new way of doing something. This is why the "migrating >> to *NIX" experience has a classic "steep learning curve", which is in >> fact simply the confusion cause by UN-learning the old (typically M$) >> way of even thinking about things. > Agreed. (As you may appreciate, some people have learned things in the > other way and find the M$ way of doing things confounding.) > >> every now and then there is something that feels like running into a >> brick wall instead of just dropping a gear for a gradient. I have no >> real explaination for this yet. > >> Vi is one such experience generator. I've read up on it, and on paper >> it looks fantastic. I've read other's experiences of it, and thought >> "Wow! I gotta get me one of those!" And then there is the >> face-against-the-bricks "moment of impact" as what I now call >> "Vim-lexia" hits. > >> Its like some kind of blind-spot thing, writers block, or something. > >> Did that go anyway to answering your query? > > Well, thanks for the response, but... not really. I was hoping you > would have something more specific. You've told me you can't do it, > which I already knew, but I don't see what it is you can't do. Or, for > that matter, what it is you are able to do. (IIRC you managed to get vi > started and found some help, so you obviously got started, but I'm not > really sure what happens to you after you start vi.) > > Anyway, it may be very difficult to articulate the issue, I was just > hoping it was relatively easy. > > Cheers. Jim I think my term "Vim-lexia" is the closest I can get ATM. -- *=( http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ *=( For all your UK news needs. |