chad wrote:
On 14 Jan 2013, at 14:05, Paul Fox
<pgf(_at_)foxharp(_dot_)boston(_dot_)ma(_dot_)us> wrote:
ken wrote:
Ok, this means I get to ask a question of greybeards that I've always
wondered about.
What is the deal with VISUAL and EDITOR? I always set EDITOR; I've never
set VISUAL. I've never understood what the difference is. I'm fine with
making the hierarchy Editor: -> $VISUAL -> $EDITOR (and I think a default
of 'vi' is fine), but I've always wondered why there are two environment
variables.
not all terminals were capable of doing the cursor addressing needed
for any given screen-oriented editor. so the user was given the ability
to configure two editors -- likely "ed" and "vi", though some folks may
have used emacs or "se" :-). some programs had separate commands for
invoking the two. (for instance, see ~e and ~v in the mailx man page.)
I used one of these regularly, with mh, on a Palm V with an early
cellular modem, around 1998-2000 or so. I really doubt there are
people doing this any more.
As a matter of practical old-fogey-ness, I wonder if people regularly
use nmh on systems where vi isn't vim.
<cough>vile<cough>
but maybe that's just me. ;-)
=---------------------
paul fox, pgf(_at_)foxharp(_dot_)boston(_dot_)ma(_dot_)us (arlington, ma,
where it's 42.4 degrees)
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