an editor that doesn't require any esc or control keys to be used...

Adam S. Moskowitz adamm at menlo.com
Thu Aug 15 21:28:48 EDT 2002


"Derek D. Martin" <ddm at pizzashack.org> wrote:
> - automatic code formatting
> - paragraph justification
> - automatic word wrapping

I claim these are all "word processing" of one sort or another and not
editing. Besides, with fmt and indent, you can shove the ed buffer
through them and get the same result.

> - editing macros (AFAIK)

You can do a crude form of these in ed. :-)

> - syntax highlighting

OK, ed can't do that -- but that's a development environment or coding
tool, not a text editor.

> There's not much difference between a text editor and a word processor.
> They both have the same basic purpose: insert and edit text in a text file.

I beg to differ: Text editors focus on the contents of the file, word
processors on the appearance of the contents. The best ones each do
their job well and the other job anywhere from less well to poorly.

AdamM



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