*BSD News Article 26587


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From: agc@uts.amdahl.com (Alistair G. Crooks)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.apps
Subject: Re: MicroEmacs
Message-ID: <36pf03Obe1qO00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 26 Jan 94 10:18:49 GMT
References: <JKH.94Jan24012833@whisker.lotus.ie> <ellis.759392179@nova> <2i173v$n69@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
Followup-To: comp.editors
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 51

In article <2i173v$n69@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:
>In article <ellis.759392179@nova>, R. Stewart Ellis <ellis@nova.gmi.edu> wrote:
>
>>>I don't want to start a fight, but I gave up on microemacs a long time ago
>>because it was too much of a hackers toy.  There were some fundamental
>>problems with the design that the main developer did not fix because he was
>>too busy adding toys, like a macro language that was very fragile.  But to
>>get error-parsing and a lot of other things I had to use the language, which
>>would crash very easily.  My other main irritation was that you could open
>>help windows on help windows.
>
>If you want GNU Emacs, then get GNU emacs.  If you want a small editor
>with similar keybinding to GNU emacs that's an JUST an editor, then
>MicroEmacs fits the bill nicely.  Matter of fact vim uses alot of uemacs
>code in it and is very well liked by lots of folks.  I've found the uemacs
>source code easy to modify and understand.  Your milage may vary.

Just to correct some disinformation here:

1. The original poster wanted a replacement for GNU Emacs, so telling
him/her to get Gnu Emacs isn't really helpful.

2.  To the best of my knowledge (I put vim on NeXTs, NetBSD and
Amdahl's UTS) vim has no uemacs code in it - it's based on the stevie
clone, and shares the elvis code for the ex commands.  The vi-clone
that you're thinking of that uses the uemacs code is vile (vi-like
emacs) which uses the uemacs 3.9 display code (I believe - I put vile
on NeXTs, NetBSD and Amdahl's UTS), but it has had changes made to it.

For the curious, vim 2.0 is avilable at a comp.sources.misc site near
you, and vile can be got from ftp.cayman.com:pub/vile/vile3.64shar.gz

>This isn't editor wars, and comparing any editor w/out checking out the
>latest revision of the editor is just asking for flames.

Get an editor, try it out - if you like it, keep it, if not then keep
on looking.  There are some interesting new tk-based editors out there
now, and sam's worth a try, too.  Both FreeBSD-current and
NetBSD-current have nvi now, and there are some interesting ones on
the fringes with features like folding, syntax direction etc.

Note that followups are re-directed.

(And, if anyone's interested in getting a NetBSD version of sam, drop me
a line - works VERY well on NetBSD-current, XFree86 2.0)

Alistair
--
Alistair G. Crooks (agc@uts.amdahl.com)			     +44 252 346377
Amdahl European HQ, Dogmersfield Park, Hartley Wintney, Hants RG27 8TE, UK.
[These are only my opinions, and certainly not those of Amdahl Corporation]