[Toybox] [PATCH] optional fatter cat(1)

[David Seikel]

On Sat, 3 Jan 2015 23:31:38 -0500 Rich Felker <dalias at libc.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 02:24:19PM +1000, David Seikel wrote:
> > On Sat, 3 Jan 2015 23:07:55 -0500 Rich Felker <dalias at libc.org>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > > If vi/uemacs/joe/nano are trivial extensions of the same basic
> > > > infrastructure (sort of true modulo vi command mode), I have no
> > > > problem implementing lots of sets of keybindings. But the first
> > > > target is vi because it's the only one actually in posix.  
> > > 
> > > My guess is that this is not so easy, and that attempting to do it
> > > this way would have a lot of subtle failures that would just annoy
> > > users. But it might be a lot less annoying than being stuck with
> > > nothing but vi...
> > 
> > It was actually quite easy once I had done my homework.  I don't see
> > how it "would have a lot of subtle failures that would just annoy
> > users."
> 
> The how/why is just past experience, e.g. joe -- jmacs feels nothing
> like emacs and it's frustrating because your brain has to be in "emacs
> mode" to use it, but then nothing actually works like emacs. The only
> emacs workalike I've seen that actually fits my emacs workflow is mg,
> and even then only until I have a non-ASCII file, in which case it
> breaks horribly...

Wellll, my research didn't include "how does this feel to experienced
users of these editors".  Not actually being an emacs user these days,
I'll have to rely on people like you to report how you think the "feel"
might need adjusting.

Rob has mentioned a few times about Linus Torvalds maintaining his own
emacs fork, and how it would be great if the toybox emacs could convert
Linus.  Certainly feedback from him be welcome as also.

> > Though my design wasn't "start with vi and bend it to look
> > like other editors", it was "research all the targeted editors /
> > pagers, figure out what's common and what's not, then come up with a
> > generic infrastructure that can handle them all".
> 
> That might work a lot better. I'd love to see it work out. I'm just
> not holding my breath.. :-)

I stopped holding my breath two years ago.  Though with this fresh
discussion, there might be some movement on this soonish.  In fact I
just had an idea I'll rush off to add to the boxes TODO right now.

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
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