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Re: [Nmh-workers] Ditch autoconf selection of pager?

2013-01-14 16:50:46
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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