On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 07, 2000 at 09:21:43PM +0000, David Brownlee wrote:
> > On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Jukka Marin wrote:
> > 
> > > Hmm.  There's this place using NetBSD, where no-one knows how to use
> > > vi.  It's always a challenge to get a new machine up and running when
> > > you have to guide them keystroke by keystroke on the phone when they're
> > > editing /etc/rc.confor /etc/group or doing vipw to get the system up so
> > > I can log on from the network.
> > > 
> > 	Another good argument for having a simple editor present.
> > 	
> > 	Attempted summary of discussion to date:
> 
> And a nicely biased summary, at that.
> 
> A "simple editor" -- which means, AFAICT, an editor with a user
> interface tuned for f-ckwits -- is a SUBSTANTIAL ANNOYANCE to the
> experienced Unix user, AFAICT.  It certainly is to me, and as far as
> I can tell it is to plenty of others as well, to hear people groan
> when confronted with 'ee' on a FreeBSD system.  I'm *not* an idiot.
> I do *not* want a machine, when in its default state, to present
> me with 'ee' when I type 'vipw'.
> 

Exactly what OS gives you `ee' when you enter `vipw'? FreeBSD 2.1.7.1 
and 4.0 (and perhaps all versions inbetween) do not by default. 

> I think the full-on stupidest suggestion in this thread was the
> one that ee 'not be the default for anything, just set EDITOR=ee
> and VISUAL=ee in /.profile'.  That's *exactly* the default that
> is so irritating on FreeBSD.
> 

This is the default /.profile of FreeBSD 2.1.7.1

PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
echo 'erase ^H, kill ^U, intr ^C'
stty crt erase ^H kill ^U intr ^C
export PATH
HOME=/root
export HOME
TERM=cons25
export TERM

And this the one of 4.0 current:

PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
export PATH
HOME=/root
export HOME
TERM=${TERM:-cons25}
export TERM
PAGER=more
export PAGER     

No mention of `ee'. As far as I can remember `ee' is only used during
install when keying in the greeting message for anonymous ftp and
/etc/exports, if you choose to have nfs and anonymous ftp. 

> Also, I build machines with NetBSD installed on 8MB and even 4MB
> flash disks.  100K of new bloat that I have to cut out is hardly
> welcome in this application...
> 
> Appealing to naive users is great.  But please, let's not forget
> that most such users will just use Windoze or Linux anyway, and
> that most of our _existing_ userbase is quite Unix-savvy and
> has no need for this particular crutch.
> 

`ee' was nice for me when I came to Unix a year ago. I am not sure why
I don't use it anymore. Probably partly because I cannot use it on the
other BSD's :-)

--
Marc Schneiders

marc@venster.nl
marc@oldserver.demon.nl

propro         	  4:56am  up   8 days,   6:45,  load average: 2.03 2.07 2.04