[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: GNU ex (an enhanced version of GNU ed)
From: |
John Cowan |
Subject: |
Re: GNU ex (an enhanced version of GNU ed) |
Date: |
Sun, 24 Apr 2005 22:43:23 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.4.1i |
Andrew L. Moore scripsit:
> I have mostly tracked the patches for ed(1) that come from the BSD's.
> I am not aware of any in the GNU/Linux distributions. It was once
> proposed that ed(1) be invoked for the ed mode of nvi(1). The problem
> is in integrating the I/O and buffer handling of two diverse approaches.
'ed' and 'ex' are really pretty different in detail, though, as I found
when I tried to use 'ed -p :' directly as my editor. Hence my current
effort.
Any source code you'd care to send me I'd love to have.
> As it stands, nvi(1) does a poor job of emulating ed(1).
Fair enough, since it was never intended to do so.
> But, if nvi(1) could be modified for GNU distribution, that would be
> my choice.
A reasonable approach, but it sacrifices the small/fast property of 'ed',
which is one of the things I like about it. Furthermore, I worked with
the code of the Software Tools (in ratfor) editor years ago, and I still
remember it pretty well, it turns out.
--
John Cowan address@hidden www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com
Any sufficiently-complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc,
informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
--Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming (rules 1-9 are unknown)