"John Bailo, Texeme.Construct" <jabailo@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> On Aug 5, 2:54 pm, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Poll shows majority favor Vi as their editor of choice
>
>> Is Simple Software Always Better?
In the majority of cases, the simpler the better. There are of course
exceptions as emacs proves. Far from simple, BUT when it's mastered to a
relatively competent level then it makes other tasks simple. This is,
of course, the reason we use SW.
Personally I think the love of vi isn't so much what it can do - but
rather how difficult it is to learn how to do it. vi is not a "simple"
editor. vi requires savvy to understand its modes, its regular
expressions and its terse command family.
Most people I know who profess a love for vi only do so because it was a
murderous beast to master and now they have done so, they wont let it
go. It's the equivalent of a scout badge in the IT world. Brief or
slickedit or much better programmers editors. Emacs is the master of
them all if you know how to customise it and bring 3rd party package
since it covers so much.
>
> I was thinking that this weekend when listening to the NYTimes Tech
> Talk. Although I mentioned it was fair, they did do the obligatory
> bit about "well, OSS if free, so you get what you pay for, no printed
> manuals, or 800 support number".
>
> But then I was thinking -- what about Firefox. The browser is the
> most used piece of application software on the planet, bar none.
>
> Do people have to be trained to use it? Read a book? A manual?
>
> No.
Probably because it's a bloody web browser. Granny Smith can click
links. It's hardly Blender now is it?
>
> The browser correctly implements the presentation style that almost
> all people in the world can master easily.
Err, whatever that means.
>
> The web page can range from simple to complex and yet how often do you
> hear requests from people to help them "run a web page".
Never. Which is why your point is irrelevant to the point about needing
decent documentation for the rest of the worlds complex SW.
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