🚀 go-pugleaf

Stephen J Bevan (bevan@cs.man.ac.uk) wrote:
: In article <OZ.92Nov6170912@ursa.sis.yorku.ca> oz@ursa.sis.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) writes:
:    Neil Weisenfeld writes:
:       Is anyone using Sam? ...
: 
:    Yes, many of us picked it up from the toolchest sometime ago. Nice to see
:    that it is now available to public at large.
: 
: I don't want to start a war here, but why do people like Sam?  I've
: tried it out and although I think the file as a stream (no newlines)
: is a good idea and the undo is excellent, I don't actually like using
: it.  Specifically, the reliance on the mouse for almost all operations
: drives me nuts.  Given that Pike thought long and hard about the
: design, I can only assume I'm one of the great unwashed who hasn't
: seen the light yet.  So to speed me along would anybody care to
: explain why they think the interface is good?

(1)	It's small 
(2)	It's fast
(3)	It has an orthogonal command structure
(4)	It does what I want it to do, without the need for me to write
	a pile of silly macros or Lisp functions.

Before I started using Sam I was a dedicated vi addict -- I still use vi for
editing mail and so on, but for _writing_ on Unix boxes sam is the most 
transparent tool I've ever come across.  

Actually, there are things in it which could be better; I agree that it
could do with some keyboard shortcuts, like the cursor keys working in the
windows and so on.

At a more philosophical level, If you've read Rob Pike's paper on his
new shell/windowing system/environment/editor help (in the Plan 9
documentation) you can see what he's been up to recently -- I'd like an editor
combining the power of sam with the flexibility of help. _That_ would be
truly impressive...

Pete
--
*Peter Fenelon -- Research Associate -- Software Safety Assessment Procedures*
Dept. of Computer Science, University of York, York, Y01 5DD (+44/0)904 433388
EMAIL: pete@minster.york.ac.uk `There's no room for enigmas in built up areas'