vi `ei:' (`modeline')

[John Woods]

In article <7052 at ki4pv.uucp>, tanner at ki4pv.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) writes:
> In article <176 at csd-v.UUCP>, bak at csd-v.UUCP (Bruce A. Kern) writes:
> ) Just a note to report that the entire [modelines] feature seems to
> ) be absent in the Microport V/AT 2.3-U version of vi.
> 
> The same misfeature is present in most (all?) xenix releases.
> Talking to the vendors provides the information that "vi" is crippled
> that way for your own good.
> 
Another vendor that supplies this "crippled" vi is AT&T.  The System V
Release 2.0 source tape, straight from AT&T, which we have here does not
have this hell-spawned modelines feature.

First we have someone who claimed that files with lines longer than 512
characters are not "text" files because vi can't edit them.  Now we find that
password files containing users whose name ends in "ex" aren't "text" files
either.  Yet another feature added without any thought whatsoever.

Consider by contrast the various EMACSen (in particular GNU EMACS) which allow
you to set the major modes for editing with distinctive strings like
-*- Text -*- but DON'T try to interpret random nonsense as editor commands
just because you got the 1 in 3600 occurance of an encrypted password ending
in "ex" (for those VI-philes who are going to argue that you should just avoid
login names like w3mex or whatever it was)...
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john at frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw at eddie.mit.edu

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