In article <116670034@otter.hpl.hp.com> sfk@otter.hpl.hp.com (Steve Knight) writes:
>> So what is your over all conclusion Robin? Perhaps oneof():
>> 1) Ved should be extended to offer more of the functionality of EMACS.
>> 2) Pop11 should be separated from the editor, to allow full user choice.
>
>Surely (2) should refer to POPLOG and not POP-11? I don't see how POP-11
>and VED are connected in any interesting way (unless you count the fact
>that VED is largely written in POP-11.)
>
Good point. To turn the problem on its head for a bit, something I'd like
to see is the converse - a (cut down) version of xved which contains no
Poplog functionality :-) OK, so that's not actually possible, I accept,
but I'm not *totally* off my trolly, I'll explain: since I use xved as
my editing interface much of the time, I often use ved or xved as the
screen editor for other programs (I'm doing so now, as it happens).
However, as is currently instantiated there are two problems with this
arrangement: 1) ved takes ages to start up (a problem shared by emacs,
btw), and 2) On my SPARCStation, there often isn't the memory for more
than one ved to run at once (or at least for more than one xved). Hence
you get mailers etc. barfing because there isn't enough free memory to
run the editor, and I gat all cross and send people rude messages :-)
Were the "separation of church and state" :-) discussed above
instituted, then many of these problems would disappear - and Pop as a
whole would IMHo be made much more flexible.
Of course it would be even nicer if these "mothership" applications
could be taught to just send a message to a server saying "give me an
xved window" instead of just merrily running a new editor, but that's a
unix issue....
-Andy
--
&ndy Holyer, School of Cognitive and |Due to recent events in the USA,
Computing Studies, University of Sussex, |I find I can no longer use this
JANET: andyh@cogs.sussex.ac.uk |.sig quote. Normal service will
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