4 ms·

Anybody else use ed(1)? My main editor is acme, and when I need to do large edit jobs on remote servers I control I use sam. However, when I have to edit files

by 4ad 10y ago

Anybody else use ed(1)? My main editor is acme, and when I need to do large edit jobs on remote servers I control I use sam. However, when I have to edit files on servers I don't control, or when I have to do a quick edit job and I don't have a sam terminal started yet, I use ed. Unlike all other editors, ed doesn't erase the screen. I find this extremely useful. Also, ed is always the same. Vi is not always the same on different systems. Sometimes it has syntax syntax highlighting by default, forcing me to make effort to turn it off, sometimes nocompatible is set on or off, etc. Ed is always the same and has no settings. Sometimes inside my acme session I run win(1), and sometimes in my win sessions I ssh to some system and run ed inside acme. I forced myself to use ed exclusively for a week some years back, and since then I stuck with it.

james2vegas 10y ago
ex is usually safe from the featuritis that grips vim
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Yeah, that's the problem with poor scriptability, mixed with no dedication to minimalism or vision. This minimalism is one nice thing about vi, although I like my editors like I like my paper: scriptable.
joeyo 10y ago
My attempts at using ed end up like the session illustrated here: https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.txt https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.txt
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Ahh. Yes. I'm not that bad, but I'm not great either.
- SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
  > Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all It's not often I can type lol and literally mean it, but this is one of those times.. lol :D
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
like vi, ed is a tool that everyone should know how to use. If your system is well and truly FUBAR, to the point that all but /sbin is gone, and termcap's missing, you need to know how ed works. But even kt himself has given up on using ed for the day-to-day (he uses sam, which is probably what vi should have been...), so it's clear its popularity has waned over the years. I myself would rather emacs any day. As for acme, I never got on with it. It's too graphical for my tastes: call me old-fashioned, but I like to have my finger on the keyboard when I edit (sam in a tiled wm is about as far as I'll stray in that direction). OTOH, it does have some really cool features... However, we Emacs users don't get jealous of features: we steal them... grins evilly
- viraptor 10y ago
  > If your system is well and truly FUBAR, to the point that all but /sbin is gone, and termcap's missing, you need to know how ed works. I would agree with this a 10+ years ago, but I think we created better technologies since. I'd rather say that if your system is so broken you should know how to 1) snapshot it for analysis, 2) replace from original image, or orchestration. Using ed may be fun, but why not just move the snapshot to a working system instead? And apart from massive filesystem corruption, why would we ever lose /sbin in production in the first place?
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    No, not sbin, your shared libraries, and/or termcap. Those are easily loseable, especially if /usr, /share, or /lib are on a separate partition. Although yes, it's not the problem it used to be.
nzp 10y ago
Not to mention ed is the standard editor!
rbl 10y ago
Actually, I do use ed(1) quite regularly. Sometimes I invoke it in conjunction with rlwrap(1), but plain 'ed' or even 'restricted ed' is just fine. :) Ever had display problems using ncurses-based programs over a serial connection? I did and I was happy to have a line editor at my disposal…
veddox 10y ago
When I first read this, I thought it was satire - who in the world is still using ed? At the second reading, I realized you were serious and decided to check out ed (which I only knew by reputation). Having worked through the info manual, it doesn't seem half as bad as I thought it would be ;-) Not that it's going to replace Emacs, but who knows, I might just end up using it occasionally...
greggyb 10y ago
It sounds like your vi may be a symlink to vim, which is default on some distros. vi should be identical across Unices and Unix-likes.

by 4ad 10y ago

james2vegas 10y ago

ex is usually safe from the featuritis that grips vim

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Yeah, that's the problem with poor scriptability, mixed with no dedication to minimalism or vision. This minimalism is one nice thing about vi, although I like my editors like I like my paper: scriptable.

joeyo 10y ago

My attempts at using ed end up like the session illustrated here: https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.txt https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.txt

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Ahh. Yes. I'm not that bad, but I'm not great either.
SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
> Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all It's not often I can type lol and literally mean it, but this is one of those times.. lol :D

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

like vi, ed is a tool that everyone should know how to use. If your system is well and truly FUBAR, to the point that all but /sbin is gone, and termcap's missing, you need to know how ed works. But even kt himself has given up on using ed for the day-to-day (he uses sam, which is probably what vi should have been...), so it's clear its popularity has waned over the years. I myself would rather emacs any day. As for acme, I never got on with it. It's too graphical for my tastes: call me old-fashioned, but I like to have my finger on the keyboard when I edit (sam in a tiled wm is about as far as I'll stray in that direction). OTOH, it does have some really cool features... However, we Emacs users don't get jealous of features: we steal them... grins evilly

viraptor 10y ago
> If your system is well and truly FUBAR, to the point that all but /sbin is gone, and termcap's missing, you need to know how ed works. I would agree with this a 10+ years ago, but I think we created better technologies since. I'd rather say that if your system is so broken you should know how to 1) snapshot it for analysis, 2) replace from original image, or orchestration. Using ed may be fun, but why not just move the snapshot to a working system instead? And apart from massive filesystem corruption, why would we ever lose /sbin in production in the first place?
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  No, not sbin, your shared libraries, and/or termcap. Those are easily loseable, especially if /usr, /share, or /lib are on a separate partition. Although yes, it's not the problem it used to be.

nzp 10y ago

Not to mention ed is the standard editor!

rbl 10y ago

Actually, I do use ed(1) quite regularly. Sometimes I invoke it in conjunction with rlwrap(1), but plain 'ed' or even 'restricted ed' is just fine. :) Ever had display problems using ncurses-based programs over a serial connection? I did and I was happy to have a line editor at my disposal…

veddox 10y ago

When I first read this, I thought it was satire - who in the world is still using ed? At the second reading, I realized you were serious and decided to check out ed (which I only knew by reputation). Having worked through the info manual, it doesn't seem half as bad as I thought it would be ;-) Not that it's going to replace Emacs, but who knows, I might just end up using it occasionally...

greggyb 10y ago

It sounds like your vi may be a symlink to vim, which is default on some distros. vi should be identical across Unices and Unix-likes.