poll for another vi clone

[Paul Fox]

	I've spent some time and energy converting a copy of
	micro-Emacs into a very useful vi-workalike.  (If I get any
	flames about this I think I'll puke.) It preserves the emacs
	multi-window, multi-buffer capabilities, as well as key
	rebindablility, though I may have broken that somewhat
	and not noticed it -- I've never wanted to use it,
	since what I was after was a vi clone. 

	I think I've succeeded pretty well -- the finger-feel, if you
	will, is very close to that of vi, even if the look isn't all
	there.  But with very few exceptions, the cursor will be where
	you want it when you want it, and the simple ':' commands work
	as expected.  (Not full ex, but the file nameing, reading,
	editing commands, and ":g" and ":s", ":l", and ":p".) Almost
	all vi commands are represented -- the most glaring exceptions
	are the "!" operator (for filtering text), the "@" command for
	executing a named buffer, and the ":map" command.  The set
	options don't map exactly, but the important modes of
	operation are there. 

	I suspect that this new editor (and is definitely _new_, and
	not a simple ifdef from micro-Emacs), which I call "vile"
	(which stands for "VI Like Emacs" :-) has some UNIX
	dependencies that I've introduced, so it probably won't easily
	compile on DOS anymore, but that could probably be fixed. 

	It's pretty stable -- I only find a bug once a month or so,
	and another user is in much the same state.  I'm sure that
	there are more -- they just don't show up with our particular
	usage patterns. 

	I'm _not_ planning on posting it right away, unless the demand
	is overwhelming, and I don't think it will be since everyone
	is still busy drooling over elvis (Congratulations on a nice
	job, Steve...).  What I'm looking for is a few people willing
	to do very friendly beta testing, which means they'll try to
	find and maybe fix the bug, in addition to letting me know. 

	If you have that kind of interest, let me know, and perhaps we
	can work something out. 

-- 
		paul fox, pgf at cayman.com, (617)494-1999
		Cayman Systems, 26 Landsdowne St., Cambridge, MA 02139