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 ------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.