From: jim@n5ial.chi.il.us (Jim Graham)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Why I love VI 
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 00:05:28 GMT
Organization: Me? Organized? Hah! :-)

ugghh....I knew, as soon as I saw the first post, that this was going to
degrade....yup, it has.

In article <Bt0BJG.HAv@cs.psu.edu> ward@math.psu.edu writes:
> In an old(er) article, bvaughan@lotka.Princeton.EDU (Barbara Vaughan)
> writes:
>> I'm always amazed at the fact that the most rapidly evolving field of the
>> 20th century attracts so many people who adamantly refuse to evolve with
>> it.
> 
> Now, that's a nominee for the next Usenet Olympiad's flame-baiting contest,
> if I ever saw one. Congratulations.

I don't agree with all of the comments in her post (hey, let's face it,
a lot of this is pure personal opinion), but I can tell you right now
that this particular point, which you've chosen to pick on, is, in fact,
quite correct.

these types do exist.  I'd never seen them while in school...there was
no such thing.  once I got out into the business world (even in an
engineering field/atmosphere), I was shocked at how many people swear
by prehistoric technology, and refuse to hear anything about anything
even remotely modern.

for example....  there are those who consider TCP/IP, which has been
around for ages, to be bleeding edge technology.  the same applies to
X.25....  I cringe whenever I hear someone say this, which means that
I cringe rather a lot at times.

and as far as editors (I'm not going to contribute to the flame-war
by mentioning names of editors...just classes), there are those who
still swear by their old line editors or block mode editors and all
of their user-hostile nature, and say that these fancy newfangled
full-screen editors are pure trash, and that nobody in their right
mind would ever use such a thing.  I've even gotten comments like,
``ok, so you can do in one keystroke what it takes me 15 or 20
keystrokes to do...what, are you TOO LAZY to do the rest?''

that, I believe, is the type of person the original post referred to.

and, at least in the cases I've seen, it's more of a power struggle
(those who've been dealing with ancient technologies and not bothering
to keep up with newer stuff are worried about losing their jobs to
those who have kept up).

>> I've known people who refused to abandon their punch cards when tapes came
>> along;
>> who refused to abandon their tapes when disks came along,
> 
> I can put 5 gigs on a little 5 buck videotape. I just don't see your point.

ummm, I might be mistaken, but I believe the reference was to cassette
tapes (like the old trash-80 computers used).  and, again, if my
interpretation is correct, we're not talking for things like backup...
we're talking for normal, everyday storage...just like lots of people
use their hard disk for.  tapes are a great thing for doing backups, due
to the large amount of data (and the fact that you can insert a tape,
start the backup process, and walk away....e.g., go home).  but again,
if I read the original post right, that wasn't the issue.

>> who maintained that line editors were vastly superior to full-screen
>> editors,

ah, yes... just what I was saying.  perhaps my interpretation of the
original post is, in this case, at least close to correct.

there are people who refuse to accept change.  this is a fact.  these
people cling to prehistoric technologies and deny the value of newer
methods (*ALL* newer methods).  this is a fact.  this is not to say
that all things that are old are bad....just that there may be something
better, and some people will refuse to ever see it.

for the record, on UNIX, I use vi.  on dos, I either use Qedit or vi,
depending on what I'm doing and which of the two best meets the needs
of the time (e.g., do I need regular expression capabilities?  do I
want multiple files on the screen at the same time?  etc.).  on the ibm
mainframe at work, I use vi on my workstation and ftp to the mainframe
(or use snarf-n-barf courtesy of the twm window manager under X11R5).
these choices are a matter of opinion, and are not correct or incorrect.
just personal choice.

enjoy the flame war....here's hoping it dies out soon.  :-)
   --jim

--
Standard disclaimer....Ever since my cat learned to type, there's no telling
whose thoughts these really are....         73 DE N5IAL (/9)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERNET:  jim@n5ial.chi.il.us  |  grahj@gagme.chi.il.us  |  j.graham@ieee.org
UUCP:  gagme!n5ial!jim@clout.chi.il.us
AMATEUR RADIO: n5ial@n9hsi (Chicago.IL.US.Earth)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.editors