vi vs. emacs

[PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu]

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From:     garvin at UHCCUX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU
Subject:  vi vs. emacs
Comments: To: INFO-UNIX at brl.arpa
Comments: cc: gwyn at brl-smoke.arpa
To:       PAAAAAR at CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE.EDU

    Doug Gwyn  <gwyn at brl-smoke.arpa> writes:
>   > ^H is a mnemonic for `help', and makes as much sense as most editing
>   > commands.
>   Funny, mine says "BACK SPACE" right on the key cap.  That doesn't
>   suggest "help" to me...


    Emacs uses some commands  which are of  the form  Control + letter.
    ^H  means hold down  the control  key  and  type  the letter  H.
    'H' for    Help.  Does this make sense?  Some other commands are:

    Control-F for Forward  one character    Control-K for Kill line
    Control-B for Backward one character    Control-D for Delete forward
    Control-N for Next     line        Control-E for End of line
    Control-P for Previous line        Control-Q for Quote a char
    Control-S for Search            Control-O for Open new line
    Control-R for Reverse Search        Control-T for Transpose chars

    The guy who said that the  'BACK SPACE' meant 'Help' shouldn't have
    said it in that  way.  He was just  referring  to the fact that the
    backspace  key happens to  puts out  the ^H character too.  This is
    like saying that 'TAB' means  insert in some (hypothetical) editor:
    it   doesn't make  sense until you  realize  that TAB happens to be
    Control-I.

    My keyboard does not have  any key  labeled  'BACK SPACE'. I  have
    only  a key labeled 'Delete' and   it  puts  out  the ^? character
    (Control-question mark).

    You might like to know  that the  previous gentleman's remark about
    'backward-delete-character' did not  have anything to do with paper
    tape and he was not implying that the original ASCII  DEL or RUBOUT
    characters did any backing up.  He was referring to the name of the
    FUNCTION  in emacs  which backs  up and  destructively erases   the
    character   to    the     Left  of   the   cursor.     It is called
    'backward-delete-character'.

    When I hit my  key labeled 'Delete', it calls   this  FUNCTION.  I
    could just as well tell  Emacs that I want some  *other* key to run
    this function instead.  In your instance, you  might prefer to have
    your  Backspace    key  (^H) invoke the 'delete-backward-character'
    function if your Backspace key is more conveniently located on your
    keyboard.  That's one of  the nicer things  about the Emacs editor:
    If you don't like it, CHANGE it.

    You really ought to give Emacs a chance, it's quite good and you
    might like it.


P.S.    Ok, I'll go along with things like vi's

        "ayL (Double-Quote-Small-a-Small-y-Capital-L) means:
        *Yank text from  cursor to end  of screen  into buffer "a"*


    But don't pick on Control-H = Help too much until you can come up
    with a good story for why:

        ZZ (Capital-Z Capital-Z) is a good mnemonic for:
        *Write (save) and quit file*.

        :-)

        -Jay

         egrep `echo "yajmorf^ahola" rev` `echo sdrow/tcid/rsu/ rev`

       /\   /\    /\    /\    ____/\   ____/\
      / /  / /   / /   / /   /\___\/  /\___\/
     / /  / /   /_/   / /   / /      / /                      Jay Garvin *
    / /  / /   ____  / /   / /      / /              Computer Specialist *
   /_/  / /   / __/ / /   /_/      /_/               Computer Consultant *
 ______/ / __/ / __/ / ______/\ ______/\
 \_____\/  \_\/  \_\/  \_____\/ \_____\/
  University of Hawaii Computing Center    garvin at uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu *

===== Reply from Richard Botting <PAAAAAR> ===========================

a good story for why:

        ZZ (Capital-Z Capital-Z) is a good mnemonic for:
        *Write (save) and quit file*.


ZZ  = Go to sleep:-)