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I mean this with all sincerity, but did I understand this correctly? Using Terminal to sift thru HN articles, only to open them up in a web browser via the "c"

by mmorett 14y ago

I mean this with all sincerity, but did I understand this correctly? Using Terminal to sift thru HN articles, only to open them up in a web browser via the "c" key or the Enter key? I fail see the point. If you have a browser, you don't need the less usable Terminal version. I tried thinking about who could be the target audience for something like this and had images of 1960s-era IBMers who worked exclusively with character-based terminals hooked to the mainframes (ignore the lack of browsers in that time period for the moment). But today, barring specialized defense related jobs and the like, everyone has a browser. Hell, many of us have browsers in our pockets via smartphones. I guess I just don't understand the fetish with 1960s-era technologies in 2013 (up to and including vi/vim vs. more powerful editors). Is it nostalgia?

habitue 14y ago
I spend most of my day in a terminal. I might use this just to have one less context switch. But I agree that opening the actual article in the browser sort of defeats the point. As far as vi/vim versus "more powerful" editors... you mean emacs right? Because IDEs aren't necessarily more powerful than vim/emacs, they are just easier to learn.
- mmorett 14y ago
  "you mean emacs right?" Lol. I'm not taking that bait. :-) FWIW, I had never tried emacs before and decided last week, ironically, to try it for the first time. I fired it up, poked around, tried to do something useful and then wanted to quit. I couldn't find a way to quit the app. As best as I can remember, I don't remember seeing an obvious way to exit so I closed the entire Terminal window. lol But that same exercise on TextMate was not even close. I was immediately productive in TextMate, having never used it before, and was able to get things done. Even better, I was able to exit "properly" without killing the program. TextMate required no memorization of any kind. But it also doesn't make one out to be a genius for simply being able to use it. Those archaic command-line editors do. My gf has to use nano because she can't navigate using vi. I use vi (barely), and I can't navigate it either. lol. vi, for me, is like a one night stand...get in and out as fast as possible. I hate using it. But many people swear by it...in 2013. Because ":wq" is so obvious.
  - udzinari 14y ago
    > I had never tried emacs before and decided last week, ironically, to try it for the first time The fact that Emacs and Vim lack features attractive to newcomers tells nothing about their value. Musicians and Craftsmen invest years in learning their tools or instruments [1]. One is left to wonder what a Guitar or a Saxophone would be like, if the concern of the designers were ease of use for someone who picked it up the first time. A famous quote comes to mind [2]: A computer is like a violin. You can image a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it. Marvin Minsky, "Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated Ideas" I further refer you to fine writing of Eric Naggum [3] who had more to say on a similar topic, and I daresay he does it way better than I ever would. [1] http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html [2] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html [3] http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum.no.html http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum....
    - mmorett 14y ago
      "The fact that Emacs and Vim lack features attractive to newcomers tells nothing about their value. Musicians and Craftsmen invest years in learning their tools or instruments." Those editors have value to folks that have invested time in learning them but they are not intuitive. Using an editor, or any tool actually, should not require memorization. Functionality should be discoverable. I can't speak for you or your usage pattern, but I don't have the time, nor the capacity, to memorize commands for every program I use. This would include shortcuts for GUI apps. I use a lot of apps and code in a few languages and use more APIs than I care to. I'm spread thin. I'm not a sysadmin type spending all day in vi, or emacs. For the languages I code in, I don't know all the features in and out. Ditto for the frameworks/APIs I use. Hell, I don't even know all the features of my IDE. There's too much to know/deal with. For me, personally, I don't want a text editor to be "something that requires knowledge to use". I just need to use it occasionally, and I just need to make a few edits. Editing a simple text file in vi/vim is excrutiating. Some people code in that thing. lol. Perhaps a hex editor wasn't readily available.

by mmorett 14y ago

habitue 14y ago

I spend most of my day in a terminal. I might use this just to have one less context switch. But I agree that opening the actual article in the browser sort of defeats the point. As far as vi/vim versus "more powerful" editors... you mean emacs right? Because IDEs aren't necessarily more powerful than vim/emacs, they are just easier to learn.

mmorett 14y ago
"you mean emacs right?" Lol. I'm not taking that bait. :-) FWIW, I had never tried emacs before and decided last week, ironically, to try it for the first time. I fired it up, poked around, tried to do something useful and then wanted to quit. I couldn't find a way to quit the app. As best as I can remember, I don't remember seeing an obvious way to exit so I closed the entire Terminal window. lol But that same exercise on TextMate was not even close. I was immediately productive in TextMate, having never used it before, and was able to get things done. Even better, I was able to exit "properly" without killing the program. TextMate required no memorization of any kind. But it also doesn't make one out to be a genius for simply being able to use it. Those archaic command-line editors do. My gf has to use nano because she can't navigate using vi. I use vi (barely), and I can't navigate it either. lol. vi, for me, is like a one night stand...get in and out as fast as possible. I hate using it. But many people swear by it...in 2013. Because ":wq" is so obvious.
- udzinari 14y ago
  > I had never tried emacs before and decided last week, ironically, to try it for the first time The fact that Emacs and Vim lack features attractive to newcomers tells nothing about their value. Musicians and Craftsmen invest years in learning their tools or instruments [1]. One is left to wonder what a Guitar or a Saxophone would be like, if the concern of the designers were ease of use for someone who picked it up the first time. A famous quote comes to mind [2]: A computer is like a violin. You can image a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it. Marvin Minsky, "Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated Ideas" I further refer you to fine writing of Eric Naggum [3] who had more to say on a similar topic, and I daresay he does it way better than I ever would. [1] http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html [2] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html [3] http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum.no.html http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum....
  - mmorett 14y ago
    "The fact that Emacs and Vim lack features attractive to newcomers tells nothing about their value. Musicians and Craftsmen invest years in learning their tools or instruments." Those editors have value to folks that have invested time in learning them but they are not intuitive. Using an editor, or any tool actually, should not require memorization. Functionality should be discoverable. I can't speak for you or your usage pattern, but I don't have the time, nor the capacity, to memorize commands for every program I use. This would include shortcuts for GUI apps. I use a lot of apps and code in a few languages and use more APIs than I care to. I'm spread thin. I'm not a sysadmin type spending all day in vi, or emacs. For the languages I code in, I don't know all the features in and out. Ditto for the frameworks/APIs I use. Hell, I don't even know all the features of my IDE. There's too much to know/deal with. For me, personally, I don't want a text editor to be "something that requires knowledge to use". I just need to use it occasionally, and I just need to make a few edits. Editing a simple text file in vi/vim is excrutiating. Some people code in that thing. lol. Perhaps a hex editor wasn't readily available.