Friday, January 14, 2000, 2:33:18 AM, Oleg wrote:
> Editing has.
Nope. One does not need to edit mail to send/received/file/sort/kill
mail. Before anyone gets any ideas about "send", bounce (er, redirect, damned
non-standard terminology) a message to someone. Whoa, ya just sent a message
without the need to edit it.
> OTOH, please specify real example of lack of functionality of TB!'s editor
> for composing messages.
Proper reflow for one. TB! destroys my double-space after periods and
removes my indention. The ability to indent a block of text if needed is
another. Sending a block of text through a filter.
> Because you begun from the point that you don't want to learn new interface
> and now you are saying that interface is not a problem
No, I am pointing out that I have no problem bouncing between several
interfaces but I prefer a single interface so I don't have to. I the go on to
point that by using a single editor I am learning less interfaces, quirks and
capabilities.
>>> Mistype. I meant %OATTACHMENTS. How to implement QT containing
>>> %OATTACHMENTS with external editor?
SL>> Again, what is that?
> You are kidding, or what? I don't understand your question.
No, I am not kidding. I may be an overbearing prick but at least when I
say "Well, it doesn't work for this, here's why" for the most part. At least
I do know that I do so when asked the first time. Now, for the third tome,
What is %OATTACHMENTS and what does it do? I have never used it.
SL>> Funny, I find a need all the time for deleting lines as opposed to
SL>> blocks. I find the CUA mode clumsy at times because I can't just delete
SL>> an arbitrary set of lines. Furthermore, the way it marks blocks leaves a
SL>> lot to be desired.
> That's your opinion. In my opinion CUA is just fine at that.
OK, mark a set of lines. Realized that you forgot one line near the top.
Now, without losing your current marked text, extend that first line up one
more to include the line that you missed. CUA cannot do it.
> It's not possible if they will not remove editor at all. If it will be
> present while replaceble by external editor they will still have to pay some
> attention to it.
But the attention is to the interface which is a lot different than
reimplementing the entire editor.
Pop quiz, which is easier to implement:
a) An interface to an SMTP server
b) An SMTP server.
You will be graded.
> If they will remove it I will have to learn one more editor because I have
> learned TB!'s editor already and can't dislearn it and the editor I'm using
> outside TB! now cannot be used as external editor for TB! -- we discussed
> that already.
Irrelevant. It is part of the problem if the philosophy. Point is that
you will have to learn more editors whenever you change products. Besides,
the editor you use outside you might be able to go to the author and ask him
to include mail specific features.
> Than I will have to get another editor first, learn it and only after that I
> will be able to work with mail about 1/2 of my current efficiency because it
> will take time to tune up that perfect editor and to get used to it.
Bull. The more you use an editor, the faster you pick it up. It took me
less than 3 days of *minimal* editing to get to the same level of efficiency
in vim as I had with joe. That is because all I had to do was translate what
I was wanting to do into the patterns vim gave me. However, the context
highlighting in vim more than offsets any slight speed disadvantage I might
have now 9 months later.
> Next question is rather philosophical: if I don't learn new editor how do I
> my sacred User Choise? It becames only random choice of the editor I have
> get first.
As opposed to what? You really need to think it through. OK, let's take
a hypothetical new user, fresh of the streets of Zimbabwe and plop him down in
front of a computer.
He knows no editors. He needs to learn at least one. Teach him the right
one in the right way to do things and all he needs to learn is one for all his
ASCII tasks.
But in windows, in the philosophy you're defending, he has to learn one
editor for each editing task he wants to undertake. So if we have mail, news,
and writing short notes to mama Zubzub that is 3.
1, 3, 1, 3.
Now, getting back to your example. You've already learned at least two.
Regrettable because you've been a victim of the idiotic Redmond philosophy,
yes, but get over it. Let's take the long view. You're whining that you'll
have to learn a new editor. "Wah, I have to learn a new editor!" OK, what
are the costs of *not* learning a new editor?
Well, in 2 years RITLABS is bombed by a radical Zimbabwe terrorist because
they didn't implement a decent editor *cough*, there is no more TB! and darn
it, those bugs are annoying you. Enter, dundundun, OlegMail! Yes, another
editor that is your dream except, oh, you need to learn a new editor.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Whoops. There's one new editor you need to learn.
By separating the tasks from one another you can interchange them as
needed. When your needs in one area are no longer met you can replace that
one area without having to relearn a host of other things. That is a fact of
computing. So if you're going to have to learn a new editor *anyway*, why not
do it now so that you can get the most use out of it. When/if that editor's
development faulters, sure, you'll have to learn a new one. But I guarantee
that will happen less than you changing applications.
Let me give you a historical track record. I'm not whipping this out for
some contest, just want you to understand where I am coming from. In the past
20 years I have used the following....
...computers at home:
CoCo 1, CoCo 3, Tandy 1000HX (8086), 386sx-16, 486dlc-20, 486DX4-100, P5-100,
Celeron-400
...OSs at home:
CoCo (whatever, that was), DOS 2.x-5.x, Win95, Win98, WinNt, FreeBSD, BeOS R4,
Linux (Slackware, Debian, Stampede, Red Hat), OS/2.
...OSs at work:
Win95, WinNT, FreeBSD, Solaris
...editors:
Edit, vim, joe, Qedit, Mr. Ed, VDE, FTE, jed, A buttload of Windows
applications internal editors.
...BBSs for my BBS when I ran it:
QuickBBS, Remote Access, SuperBBS, WME
...Mail tossers for Fido-Net when I was in it:
Gecho, Squishmail, one other I can't remember...
...email clients:
pine, mutt, PMMail, TB!
etc, etc, etc...
Point of all of that is this, in 20 years of computing I am not using the
computer I used, the editor I've used, the email client I've used, anything
that I've used since the start. In fact, I'm not even using the same tools I
did a few years ago and, in some cases, a few months ago. However, through
all of that I've not had to learn several different things each time I changed
one part. In the long run, learning that one new editor when I needed to save
me learning a dozen more down the road.
I think the case is clear now, agreed?
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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