nvi for serious hacking

[Gary Kline]

On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 02:46:56AM +0400, Oleg Petrov wrote:
> Hello, FreeBSD people.
> 
> First thing to mention is that I'm very experienced Emacs user. I was using it
> for 4-5 years or so. But sometime ago i began to feel myself so uncomfortable
> with it for some reasons: first, i use many different systems and emacs isn't
> default application for FreeBSD or any other *BSD\Linux distribution. Second,
> remote machines aren't powerful enough to start Emacs fast. I tried many small
> Emacs clones like jed, joe, uemacs and several others i just can't remember.
> But for different reasons i disliked all of them. Later I noticed default 
> `nvi' editor, that has some nice features: it comes with FreeBSD by default 
> and according to documentation it has powerful editing mechanism.
> 
> So, my question goes to all FreeBSD hackers who uses `nvi' as their general
> editor. Is it possible to do serious hacking with it? More accurate:
> 
> * What programming features it support? (Does it have something like etags?
> Does it have interface to gdb? And such other things..)
> 
> * Is it possible to use it comfortable with Dvorak layout? (I noticed some
> bindings that relies on keys arrangement)
> 
> * How to setup it to standard FreeBSD C code indentation? And don't use
> tabs as well.
> 
> It's hard choice for me to switch old good Emacs to something new, so please
> give me your opinions.
> 
> I'm not subscribed to list, so please CC me.
> 

	vi was the first screen/cursor-based editor in computer 
	history.  Written by Bill Joy when he was in his early 20's.
	I've  been using vi almost since Bill released his first
	draft; my fingers know it by default.  And even after 
	almost 30years there are still things I don't know.

	Nutshell, I've hacked hundreds of thousands of line using
	vi; millions of words of prose.  I've used *tags, debuggers,
	and other tools with it.  Have tried *emacs; just can't 
	get the hang of it.  

	With tools like [n]vi and ctags, plus a debugger you've got
	your own IDE.

	Since you've learned emacs, you'll learn vi in a flash.

	gary kline




-- 
   Gary Kline     kline at thought.org   www.thought.org     Public service Unix