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ed is a god send. Often times, I want to edit a file but don't want to have an editor overwrite the whole screen because I need what was previously printed to e
by noobermin 10y ago
ed is a god send. Often times, I want to edit a file but don't want to have an editor overwrite the whole screen because I need what was previously printed to edit. When streams aren't enough, ed does the job.
Another psychological thing, it's like exiting a room and forgetting what you were supposed to remember in that room. When an editor takes over the whole screen, I feel a little mental context switch that I have to sort of fight (like having to go back into your memory once you leave a room)while ed seems like less of a break in context since it doesn't wipe the screen. That's my feeling at least.
- ezequiel-garzon 10y agoI agree. Ken Thompson put it like this: > I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing. In my case at least this is mainly the case for quick edit, though he probably felt this way in general. A full account by George Coulouris about em, a visual enhancement of ed, is more enlightening: > By the way, 'em' stands for 'editor for mortals' - I christened it that after Ken Thompson visited our lab at QMC while I was developing it and said something like: "yeah, I've seen editors like that, but I don't feel a need for them, I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing". [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20080103071208/http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/~george/history/ http://web.archive.org/web/20080103071208/http://www.dcs.qmu...
- njt 10y agoI'm not sure if you use tmux, but the way I do it is to open a new pane below the original, edit what I need to, and then close that pane when I'm done. The original screen remains untouched.