Portability and the Ivory Tower (was Re: Book on Microsoft C)

[Andrew Duane]

In article <948 at atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, hascall at atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (John Hascall) writes:
> In article <42674c5e.b11a at falcon.engin.umich.edu> ejd at caen.engin.umich.edu (Edward J Driscoll) writes:
> >You're right, 'vi' is an excellent example.  I tried to teach a
> >Mac programmer (with an MS from MIT) how to use it, and he
> >thought it laughably brutal compared to even the most simple
> >Mac editor.  Do you really prefer h,j,k, and l to using a mouse?
> 
>     Yes.  I'm certainly not the worlds largest fan of vi, but using a mouse
>     to do simple cursor positioning is ludicrous.  Why take your hands off
>     the keyboard just to move over a couple of spaces?
>     By the way, I'm not being anti-mouse here (I have one on my workstation
>     and it is great for things like cut&paste), but I think it's silly to
>     try to do everything with it.
> John Hascall / ISU Comp Center

I agree. We modified EMACS here to use the mouse to position
around in the buffer and between windows. After a couple of
weeks of playing with it ("Boy, isn't this NEATO KEEN!")
everyone stopped using it. I don't even know if the mouse code
is even compiled into it any more. The moral: I don't know
what. But it certainly doesn't make sense to use the mouse for
everything. VI's h/j/k/l sucks big-time, yes. Is a mouse the
the answer, no.

Andrew L. Duane (JOT-7)  w:(508)-658-5600 X5993  h:(603)-434-7934
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Only my cat shares my opinions, and she's breaking in the new help.