Aucbvax.1564
fa.info-cpm
utzoo!duke!mhtsa!ucbvax!AFITGORDON@BBNB
Mon Jun 8 13:39:50 1981
An Editor Philosophy
Hi, Everyone,
The recent discussions over the weekend have been quite
enjoyable and interesting, and I have been noting an inordinate (my
opinion, of course) amount of interest and enthusiasm for the Word
Star text editor/formatter.
What I wanted to bring up in this note is a question of
philosophy. I currently use both Word Master (which runs for around
$150) and Word Star (which runs for around $400+), and have edited
files as large as 170K with each (to emphasize that size is no
problem). Over a period of time and after some experimentation, a
basic philosophy has developed which may be of interest --
1. For the largest extent of my work (software
development), Word Master is generally
preferred
2. When document preparation is the objective,
Word Star is DEFINITELY preferred
Why? User interaction is the key. My basic objective in
using an editor is to compose the text as quickly as possible and move
on to the assembly or compilation. Although Word Star is admittedly
phenomenal in its capabilities, for strict text work with no
formatting, Word Master exhibits the following traits:
1. WM is generaly FASTER (no overlays to load,
no drastic refreshing of screen displays
during global and local substitutions,
extreme ease of use in the video mode [there
are only 7 commands I really use
frequently])
2. WM exhibits capabilities not found in WS
[counterpoint -- WS exhibits many
capabilities not found in WM]; the WM
extensions, such as macro command definition
and execution and the ED subset (I actually
like ED, being that it was my first CP/M
editor) which lends itself to repetative
operations which don't waste my time by
refreshing the screen each time one is
performed or can be made to just reprint the
edited or modified line and then go on
3. WM provides very little overhead (10K
editor, 4K HELP file) and, aside from saving
disk space, provides a larger memory buffer
than WS (is this true???) that decreases
the frequency of disk accesses
In sum, the core of what I am trying to say is to not view WS
as a panacea; I feel that the editor should be selected for the
intended application. I also use EDIT-80, and have selected it for
use by remote users who dial into my system because it is (1) disk-
based, (2) NOT terminal dependent, (3) relatively responsive, and (4)
provides little disk overhead. EDIT-80, WM, and WS are all
outstanding editors, and I am sure that this is just a subset of the
good editors out there. Each should be judged on its own merits and
should be selected for your particular (each particular) application
based on its responsiveness (minimum delay when a command is issued)
and applicability and utility in a particular situation.
________
By the way, I am the one with the long uname at BBNB, and you
may address me more simply by sending mail to CONN at MC (such mail is
automatically forwarded to BBNB).
Rick Conn
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