Re: SEUL: Text editors.

[Kevin Forge <forgeltd@pop.netaddress.usa.net>]

Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> 
> > That is my point exactly.  SEUL is for people who already know how to
> > use Windows.
> 
> UNIX is used by very computer illiterate people. For example, every
> college kid uses it to read their mail. Well the ones without computers
> do. So it's not just the windows users who would benifit from a simple
> version of linux.
> 
> Think campuses, preloads, offices, etc.
> 
> > This is how Linux gains users ... And it won't change in
> 
> Linux will gain several moe users through large scale installations.
> 
> > The main point of the story ( that you missed ) is that the user never
> > thought about the editor.  It did exactly what he expected and editor
> > to do.
> 
> ditto with pico.
>
For someone who has used pico. 
>
> You raised this edit.com thing on C.O.L.A. a while ago and there as well
> as here, no-one enthusiastically backed the view that edit.com was worth
> cloning. Several ease-of-use advocates and even newbies both read and post
> to that group.
>
Nice that someone remembers :) 
>
> I don't believe anyone wants edit.com under linux except you.
>
This may be true.  So what ? ... Most linux veterans, advocates and
Programers are quite comfortable with vi and emacs.  I am simply 
thinking of the millions of Windows Users who can already use edit.com 
and don't even know it.
>
> The "ease-of-use" people invariably point to pico as an
> easy to use editor. And it is. And with a slight modification (a line
> saying that ^H = control-H ) it is entirely obvious how to use it. More
> obvious than edit.com.
>
Because they all went to colages where pine was THE email, and they 
all are familer with Linux/unix.  My bigest problem was finding an
editor that I culd use to bang around little files.  I had to learn
'joe', and only because I realy cared about Linux ( I had bean biten 
by Bill once too often ).
The people who are familer with pico allready have an editor, what's 
so wrong in giving the Windows > Linux converts an editor they don't 
need to lern ?
>
> I challenge you to explain to the subscribers to this list why pico (with
> the modification I suggested) is not an easy to use editor.
>
It's not "difficult", it's just not intuitive to someone who has never
seen an editor like it before.  All software is like this.  edit.com
is intuitive to Windows users simply because they have already used 
something like it.  
And you can harp all you want about other platforms.  Users on other
Platforms are satisfied with what they have so SEUL will be attracting
12 Windows victims for each person from somewhere else.
Later in its life cycle SEUL will start getting a few "Computer virgins"
Maybe version 3.11 :)
>
> ( A note on pine/pico license: it can be modified and redistributed. The
> catch is that pine is pine. You can't use it to make a product that isn't
> called 'pine'. Can modify but not produce 'derivative works' )
> 
> It seems to be an awful waste of effort trying to clone a DOS tool that
> doesn't suit our purpose as well as the UNIX tools that we already have.
>
It may not be so much work now that I have tryed mcedit ( the edit mode
of Midnight Comander ).  This is a part of the masive 1.7 meg mc
executeble
now all we need to find out is if it can be "extracted" and compiled 
seperatly,  then the modifications wold by minor.
>
> Pick some objective ease-of-use criteria ("Matches windows")  doesn't
> count. And We'll pit a hacked pico / ee against edit.com and see which one
> wins hands down.
> 
Objective ? ... Try this on for size.  KDE, GNOME, SEUL and a few other
gropes have all come to the conclusion that ease of use means similar
look and feel between apps.  Most of them are working on or planing to
use X based editors that look and work like notepad.  Bill in one of his
moments of intelligence ( he has a few ) figured out that whenever 
"reasonably possible" you should carry over the same look and feel to
the
command line tools.  This is why they went out of there way to make
edit.com work like notepad.  
-- 
: "Through the firewall, out the router, down the T1, across the
: backbone, bounced from satellite, Nothing but net."