5 ms·

I have to wonder if he's ever tried vim. Seems like a lot of the features he likes are in vim as well. I'm sure a lot of this applies to emacs as well.

by Gaelan 10y ago

pvg 10y ago
WordStar is not modal and that's one of the things he appears to like about it. I doubt vim is going to cut it - he seems to be using WordStar 7 under DOS emulation now.
- flukus 10y ago
  Wouldn't emacs be just as capable, or at least an emacs distro?
  - pvg 10y ago
    It would be (and then some) but then he'd have to learn and heavily customize emacs. He's already found the tool that works for him.
    - singingfish 10y ago
      M-x wordstar-mode provides a major mode with WordStar-like key bindings. (I just tried it, although it's been so long since I used wordstar - when I was a kid - that I've forgotten all the keybindings so couldn't work out how to exit emacs)
      - pvg 10y ago
        Right but it's not the same thing, just some (incomplete) keybindings. Wordstar fundamentally deals with attributed text. It knows what pages are. It has a different UI. Etc, etc. It's Ctrl-K-x, btw.
        tincholio 10y ago
        Agree on the attributed text (though not on the need of it for writing prose), but Emacs also understands the concept of pages (you can insert page breaks at will by using form-feed characters, ^L)
        pvg 10y ago
        Inserting form feeds is not 'understands the concept of pages'. As to the other thing, I'm not sure 'you don't need that feature' is likely to convince a professional writer/Wordstar user to take up emacs.
        CJefferson 10y ago
        Emacs doesn't understand pages at all, it just lets you put in page breaks. But it would let you make a page 500 lines long without comment, or checking, and it won't let you preview "page by page".
        flukus 10y ago
        Would lyx (http://www.lyx.org/ http://www.lyx.org/) be a modern day equivalent then?
        pvg 10y ago
        No no, just 'attributed' where the attributes are things like 'bold', it's not a thing that really focuses on structure like LaTeX. There's nothing particularly magical about Wordstar, it's just an early and popular word processor from the 80s. The fact that there are fiction writers still using it probably says less about Wordstar itself and more about the role of tools in creative writing.
  - Semiapies 10y ago
    Depends. I use Emacs myself for prose writing and screenplays (in Fountain). It's very doable, and Emacs has many of the same virtues cited for WordStar. However, for someone used to one and not the other, I'm not sure what the benefits to switching would necessarily be, at least for the task of writing prose. There's something to be said for a tool you've spent decades using. At the very least, it's one less thing to think about. I'd say a cool challenge, if someone were interested in it, would be to devise a 100% compatible (both in file format and interface) WordStar replacement that ran on all the major desktop OSes and had really high-quality text rendering. That would probably be the only way to improve on WordStar for the remaining users.
  - mhd 10y ago
    While WordStars page metaphor actuall is quite interesting. to be fair, a lot is just about an environment that you're really used to. So yes, that could be WordStar, WordPerfect or emacs/vim. Or MS Word (which still has a better outline mode than most alternatives). I'd doubt that a lot of the authors mentioned in the article switched to WordStar after using something significantly capable for years. So we're mostly looking at a certain age bracket (i.e. age when they adopted computers). Different professional background would influence that. I've heard that journalists were quite enamored of XyWrite and lawyers really loved (early) WordPerfect. If you're a computer scientist, Emacs might be an option. Vernor Vinge would be an example[1]. Then came the long years where MS Word had an monopoly, but in a few years we'll probably hear wizened writers tell about how they loved early Google Docs (before they added whatever feature they didn't use and which could be turned off, but what still was ideologically too much). [1]: http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_screenshot.png http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_s...
  - tyingq 10y ago
    I imagine there are probably emacs plugins for this sort of thing, but Wordstar is a word processor. It does spell check, multi-column layout, visible page breaks, bold/underline text, automated table of contents, and so forth. I can't imagine the plethora of plugins needed to get those things (and the ones I haven't thought of) all working together in some sane way.
abricot 10y ago
He is evangelizing a writing program he has used extensively for 34 years. Don't place your bets on him dropping ship to another program that kinda does the same thing :)

I have to wonder if he's ever tried vim. Seems like a lot of the features he likes are in vim as well. I'm sure a lot of this applies to emacs as well.

by Gaelan 10y ago

I have to wonder if he's ever tried vim. Seems like a lot of the features he likes are in vim as well. I'm sure a lot of this applies to emacs as well.

pvg 10y ago

WordStar is not modal and that's one of the things he appears to like about it. I doubt vim is going to cut it - he seems to be using WordStar 7 under DOS emulation now.

flukus 10y ago
Wouldn't emacs be just as capable, or at least an emacs distro?
- pvg 10y ago
  It would be (and then some) but then he'd have to learn and heavily customize emacs. He's already found the tool that works for him.
  - singingfish 10y ago
    M-x wordstar-mode provides a major mode with WordStar-like key bindings. (I just tried it, although it's been so long since I used wordstar - when I was a kid - that I've forgotten all the keybindings so couldn't work out how to exit emacs)
    - pvg 10y ago
      Right but it's not the same thing, just some (incomplete) keybindings. Wordstar fundamentally deals with attributed text. It knows what pages are. It has a different UI. Etc, etc. It's Ctrl-K-x, btw.
      - tincholio 10y ago
        Agree on the attributed text (though not on the need of it for writing prose), but Emacs also understands the concept of pages (you can insert page breaks at will by using form-feed characters, ^L)
        pvg 10y ago
        Inserting form feeds is not 'understands the concept of pages'. As to the other thing, I'm not sure 'you don't need that feature' is likely to convince a professional writer/Wordstar user to take up emacs.
        CJefferson 10y ago
        Emacs doesn't understand pages at all, it just lets you put in page breaks. But it would let you make a page 500 lines long without comment, or checking, and it won't let you preview "page by page".
      - flukus 10y ago
        Would lyx (http://www.lyx.org/ http://www.lyx.org/) be a modern day equivalent then?
        pvg 10y ago
        No no, just 'attributed' where the attributes are things like 'bold', it's not a thing that really focuses on structure like LaTeX. There's nothing particularly magical about Wordstar, it's just an early and popular word processor from the 80s. The fact that there are fiction writers still using it probably says less about Wordstar itself and more about the role of tools in creative writing.
- Semiapies 10y ago
  Depends. I use Emacs myself for prose writing and screenplays (in Fountain). It's very doable, and Emacs has many of the same virtues cited for WordStar. However, for someone used to one and not the other, I'm not sure what the benefits to switching would necessarily be, at least for the task of writing prose. There's something to be said for a tool you've spent decades using. At the very least, it's one less thing to think about. I'd say a cool challenge, if someone were interested in it, would be to devise a 100% compatible (both in file format and interface) WordStar replacement that ran on all the major desktop OSes and had really high-quality text rendering. That would probably be the only way to improve on WordStar for the remaining users.
- mhd 10y ago
  While WordStars page metaphor actuall is quite interesting. to be fair, a lot is just about an environment that you're really used to. So yes, that could be WordStar, WordPerfect or emacs/vim. Or MS Word (which still has a better outline mode than most alternatives). I'd doubt that a lot of the authors mentioned in the article switched to WordStar after using something significantly capable for years. So we're mostly looking at a certain age bracket (i.e. age when they adopted computers). Different professional background would influence that. I've heard that journalists were quite enamored of XyWrite and lawyers really loved (early) WordPerfect. If you're a computer scientist, Emacs might be an option. Vernor Vinge would be an example[1]. Then came the long years where MS Word had an monopoly, but in a few years we'll probably hear wizened writers tell about how they loved early Google Docs (before they added whatever feature they didn't use and which could be turned off, but what still was ideologically too much). [1]: http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_screenshot.png http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_s...
- tyingq 10y ago
  I imagine there are probably emacs plugins for this sort of thing, but Wordstar is a word processor. It does spell check, multi-column layout, visible page breaks, bold/underline text, automated table of contents, and so forth. I can't imagine the plethora of plugins needed to get those things (and the ones I haven't thought of) all working together in some sane way.

abricot 10y ago

He is evangelizing a writing program he has used extensively for 34 years. Don't place your bets on him dropping ship to another program that kinda does the same thing :)