6 ms·

As an Emacs user I never really understood why Nano was so popular when you could use Emacs, but I've since learned a few things... 1. Emacs isn't always on al

As an Emacs user I never really understood why Nano was so popular when you could use Emacs, but I've since learned a few things... 1. Emacs isn't always on all the systems, and getting it downloaded/setup can be a pain in the butt 2. Sometimes it's just easier to launch nano quickly to edit one line in a .bashrc from the command line 3. When I bork Emacs and it doesn't work, it's nice to be able to fall back on a simple editor to edit my .emacs.d 4. It's nice to have an alternative to vi with keybindings I'm more familiar with

eixiepia 4y ago
5. Sometimes you don't need an operating system, but a decent editor and that's where Nano come in :)
zdkl 4y ago
> I never really understood why Nano was so popular when you could use Emacs > When I bork Emacs and it doesn't work Only 50 % joking but like you said it's not if, it's when. Nano is there and works.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  `emacs --quick`?
- anthk 4y ago
  emacs -q
NelsonMinar 4y ago
Back in the 90s the joke was "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping". 8mb is nothing now and I note that Nano, with no file open, is 6768kb virtual and 3620kb resident on my x86_64 Linux box. (I use mg as my small emacs alternative; full emacs UI but tiny binary / memory. Unfortunately it doesn't support Unicode properly.)
- anthk 4y ago
  Check jmacs from joe.
  - NelsonMinar 4y ago
    Oh that's nice, somehow I never thought to try Joe. It's 13MB VSZ and 7MB RSS megabytes in my little measurement. emacs-nox is 94/22.
    - anthk 4y ago
      "emacs -nw -q" can be pretty fast too. Not light on resources compared to jmacs, but at least it loads faster.
  - microtherion 4y ago
    There is also GNU zile.
    - a_e_k 4y ago
      Or Mg, which is even smaller.
      - anthk 4y ago
        The parent had issues with Unicode, which jmacs doesn't.
    - NelsonMinar 4y ago
      Does not support Unicode.
- xxpor 4y ago
  I wonder how much of the base data structures that are always in memory are pointers, and if it'd be more fair to say it's really the equivalent of 3 mb virtual/1.5 mb resident (or even 1.5/.75 for 16 bit!)
- 4y ago
distantsounds 4y ago
Nano is _by far_ easier to use as a first-timer on the command line. Emacs is an amalgamation of a scripting language that happens to have a text editor built in.
newswasboring 4y ago
Honestly the main reason seems to be that it looks less intimidating. Open vi and no help is offered in terms of commands, it's just an empty screen. Same for Emacs i think. Nano looks like something built for humans.
- soraminazuki 4y ago
  This is the greeting text that is displayed when you launch Vim [1]: VIM - Vi IMproved version 8.2.4133 by Bram Moolenaar et al. Vim is open source and freely distributable Help poor children in Uganda! type :help iccf<Enter> for information type :q<Enter> to exit type :help<Enter> or <F1> for on-line help type :help version8<Enter> for version info Running in Vi compatible mode type :set nocp<Enter> for Vim defaults type :help cp-default<Enter> for info on this "No help offered" or "just an empty screen" is not how I would describe the above text. [1]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/a96edb736d4274fc4aea460800780e06e1510812/src/version.c#L10910-L10929 https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/a96edb736d4274fc4aea46080078...
  - vimacs2 4y ago
    OP was specifically referencing vi, not vim
  - onei 4y ago
    Most of the time I've seen people get stuck in vim is when they use "git commit" which opens up whatever you have $EDITOR set to. The default value in most distros I've used in vim/vi and I can't recall seeing usage help in that scenario.
    - soraminazuki 4y ago
      True, but at least it points you to the :help command at the beginning of its man page and pressing ctrl-c tells you how you can quit.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
yaantc 4y ago
I used to use jed instead of nano for quick edits, but same idea really. Then one day I realized that "emacs -nw -Q" starts subjectively instantly, and is also immune to a borked configuration ("-Q" skips it). So I just created a short alias for it and use it. Bonus: one can always load all the configuration later if needed. That doesn't solve point 1 obviously, but then that's never been an issue for me: emacs is always where I need it, and then there's always TRAMP.
codedokode 4y ago
I use nano when I need to edit something from CLI because I don't like ancient editors with modes or non-standard key combinations from 80s. And in nano the most important shortcuts are at least written in the bottom of screen. While nano supports some standard shortcuts (arrows, Ctrl + arrows, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn), others are non-standard and I don't understand why. For example, "save" is Ctrl + O instead of common Ctrl + S, exit is "Ctrl + X" instead of "Ctrl + Q", Esc doesn't work when you want to cancel search, and so on. What a nonsense. Why should someone use different shortcuts for the same function.
- klyrs 4y ago
  This made me chuckle. Pico was the first non-BASIC editor I used because the public library BBS used Pine. As a descendant of Pico, I'd say that Nano is an ancient editor, and it comes with all the historical baggage fueling your complaints.
- soraminazuki 4y ago
  It's not a good idea to use Ctrl + s and Ctrl + q as default keybindings for any important functionality on the terminal because terminals traditionally used them to stop/resume terminal output. Some terminal emulators still do this, so making people press those keys unwittingly would be problematic. So no, nano developers aren't being non-sensical here.
  - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
    Yep, pressing Ctrl-S in a terminal and having it freeze up is extremely confusing at the best of times. Because I often (used to) press Ctrl-S as a reflex against certain crashy software, I'd not even really recall pressing it and then I'd wonder what the hell was going on. Then again, I have saved :wq into a few text files too!
    - cesarb 4y ago
      > Yep, pressing Ctrl-S in a terminal and having it freeze up is extremely confusing at the best of times. At least some terminals (IIRC, KDE's Konsole is one of them) show a helpful colored bar telling you that the output is paused and you should press Ctrl-Q to resume. Unfortunately, other popular terminals (like Gnome's gnome-terminal) don't have any visible indication for that.
brimble 4y ago
An editor with always-on help displaying the most common actions one might want to perform, is super-useful not just for n00bs, but for anyone who doesn't work on the command line enough to memorize the commands to operate vim and emacs. Crucially, you don't have to ask nano for help. It helps by default.
throwawayboise 4y ago
> Emacs isn't always on all the systems Nor is nano. vi is about the only editor that can be assumed to be available on a unix-like system.
- progre 4y ago
  Ed is the standard editor

eixiepia 4y ago

5. Sometimes you don't need an operating system, but a decent editor and that's where Nano come in :)

zdkl 4y ago

> I never really understood why Nano was so popular when you could use Emacs > When I bork Emacs and it doesn't work Only 50 % joking but like you said it's not if, it's when. Nano is there and works.

avgcorrection 4y ago
`emacs --quick`?
anthk 4y ago
emacs -q

NelsonMinar 4y ago

Back in the 90s the joke was "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping". 8mb is nothing now and I note that Nano, with no file open, is 6768kb virtual and 3620kb resident on my x86_64 Linux box. (I use mg as my small emacs alternative; full emacs UI but tiny binary / memory. Unfortunately it doesn't support Unicode properly.)

anthk 4y ago
Check jmacs from joe.
- NelsonMinar 4y ago
  Oh that's nice, somehow I never thought to try Joe. It's 13MB VSZ and 7MB RSS megabytes in my little measurement. emacs-nox is 94/22.
  - anthk 4y ago
    "emacs -nw -q" can be pretty fast too. Not light on resources compared to jmacs, but at least it loads faster.
- microtherion 4y ago
  There is also GNU zile.
  - a_e_k 4y ago
    Or Mg, which is even smaller.
    - anthk 4y ago
      The parent had issues with Unicode, which jmacs doesn't.
  - NelsonMinar 4y ago
    Does not support Unicode.
xxpor 4y ago
I wonder how much of the base data structures that are always in memory are pointers, and if it'd be more fair to say it's really the equivalent of 3 mb virtual/1.5 mb resident (or even 1.5/.75 for 16 bit!)
4y ago

distantsounds 4y ago

Nano is _by far_ easier to use as a first-timer on the command line. Emacs is an amalgamation of a scripting language that happens to have a text editor built in.

newswasboring 4y ago

Honestly the main reason seems to be that it looks less intimidating. Open vi and no help is offered in terms of commands, it's just an empty screen. Same for Emacs i think. Nano looks like something built for humans.

soraminazuki 4y ago
This is the greeting text that is displayed when you launch Vim [1]: VIM - Vi IMproved version 8.2.4133 by Bram Moolenaar et al. Vim is open source and freely distributable Help poor children in Uganda! type :help iccf<Enter> for information type :q<Enter> to exit type :help<Enter> or <F1> for on-line help type :help version8<Enter> for version info Running in Vi compatible mode type :set nocp<Enter> for Vim defaults type :help cp-default<Enter> for info on this "No help offered" or "just an empty screen" is not how I would describe the above text. [1]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/a96edb736d4274fc4aea460800780e06e1510812/src/version.c#L10910-L10929 https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/a96edb736d4274fc4aea46080078...
- vimacs2 4y ago
  OP was specifically referencing vi, not vim
- onei 4y ago
  Most of the time I've seen people get stuck in vim is when they use "git commit" which opens up whatever you have $EDITOR set to. The default value in most distros I've used in vim/vi and I can't recall seeing usage help in that scenario.
  - soraminazuki 4y ago
    True, but at least it points you to the :help command at the beginning of its man page and pressing ctrl-c tells you how you can quit.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago

yaantc 4y ago

I used to use jed instead of nano for quick edits, but same idea really. Then one day I realized that "emacs -nw -Q" starts subjectively instantly, and is also immune to a borked configuration ("-Q" skips it). So I just created a short alias for it and use it. Bonus: one can always load all the configuration later if needed. That doesn't solve point 1 obviously, but then that's never been an issue for me: emacs is always where I need it, and then there's always TRAMP.

codedokode 4y ago

I use nano when I need to edit something from CLI because I don't like ancient editors with modes or non-standard key combinations from 80s. And in nano the most important shortcuts are at least written in the bottom of screen. While nano supports some standard shortcuts (arrows, Ctrl + arrows, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn), others are non-standard and I don't understand why. For example, "save" is Ctrl + O instead of common Ctrl + S, exit is "Ctrl + X" instead of "Ctrl + Q", Esc doesn't work when you want to cancel search, and so on. What a nonsense. Why should someone use different shortcuts for the same function.

klyrs 4y ago
This made me chuckle. Pico was the first non-BASIC editor I used because the public library BBS used Pine. As a descendant of Pico, I'd say that Nano is an ancient editor, and it comes with all the historical baggage fueling your complaints.
soraminazuki 4y ago
It's not a good idea to use Ctrl + s and Ctrl + q as default keybindings for any important functionality on the terminal because terminals traditionally used them to stop/resume terminal output. Some terminal emulators still do this, so making people press those keys unwittingly would be problematic. So no, nano developers aren't being non-sensical here.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  Yep, pressing Ctrl-S in a terminal and having it freeze up is extremely confusing at the best of times. Because I often (used to) press Ctrl-S as a reflex against certain crashy software, I'd not even really recall pressing it and then I'd wonder what the hell was going on. Then again, I have saved :wq into a few text files too!
  - cesarb 4y ago
    > Yep, pressing Ctrl-S in a terminal and having it freeze up is extremely confusing at the best of times. At least some terminals (IIRC, KDE's Konsole is one of them) show a helpful colored bar telling you that the output is paused and you should press Ctrl-Q to resume. Unfortunately, other popular terminals (like Gnome's gnome-terminal) don't have any visible indication for that.

brimble 4y ago

An editor with always-on help displaying the most common actions one might want to perform, is super-useful not just for n00bs, but for anyone who doesn't work on the command line enough to memorize the commands to operate vim and emacs. Crucially, you don't have to ask nano for help. It helps by default.

throwawayboise 4y ago

> Emacs isn't always on all the systems Nor is nano. vi is about the only editor that can be assumed to be available on a unix-like system.

progre 4y ago
Ed is the standard editor