On Thu, 15 Nov 2012, mick wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:27:36 +0000 Keith Edmunds kae@midnighthax.com allegedly wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:23:33 +0000, mbm@rlogin.net said:
Oh c'mon, give the guy a break.
I didn't mean to be rude.
Keith
I didn't think you were. Amusing yes, rude no. :-)
For the novitiate, sed, like most tools designed in the unix dark ages can be baffling.
I'll join you in a beer. But James needs a whisky. Or two.
Mick
Yes... malt is best. I used to live in Aberdeen when i worked in the oil industry and there was always a pleasant evening at a certain hotel that stocked all the malts along a wall - there are hundreds.
As to learning sed i think from what i've looked at it may be easier to learn vim. I do know some vim and it's not that difficult to master a dozen commands initially to do basics and after that one picks up additional ones gradually. The thing that's 'foreign' to me with editors is that while there are so many - there are very few (one i think) with CUA bindings and only one console editor with 'linebreak'. Emacs (as you haven't mentioned it!) - i'm sure it's very powerful and good but it's somehow just impregnable to me... lovely huge reference manual but such hard reading.
I still think wordstar keybindings are the most efficient and hence why so many writers still use it. Joe editor does the lovely 'hotch' (as i call it - option --mid) i.e. cursor returns to mid screen and moves text up when at the bottom - Pico, Emacs, and i think vim do that. Which is indispenable for writing although nice for coding as well. Vim keybindings are a bit perculiar to me although one has to admit it's the #1 editor... it's uncomfortable to use but that's down to practice.
thanks james