Monday, May 22, 2000, 8:36:38 AM, Frank wrote:
> I'm using joe for many purposes. The only feature I miss is syntax
> highlighting in C. Are there any hints for such a small and fast editor in
> Debian with that feature built in?
I'd highly recommend vim. I was die-hard set against any vi or vi clone
and very much set in my joe ways. I had used joes since my very first
entrance into unix when Netcom was still around and sold shell account far
cheaper than they did PPP accounts. What, '90? Anyway, early last year I
stared in on my new job which included a large increase in perl coding. I
came to the conclusion that the time I was losing by not having syntax
highlighting was going to be greater than the short term loss of speed I'd
have from my fingers being tied up in a different editor.
I looked at jed but I wasn't pleased with the idea that every
customization had to be programmed and there was little in the way of real
documentation of slang to help people with even the most basic of changes.
Emacs ain't small, it was right out.
That left me looking at vim with the vi keys and cringing in fear.
A year later my speed on vim is about on par with my speed in joe. The
only thing I miss from joe is ESC-N and ESC-L for quick spell checking. Vim
worked well for me because it has a /very nice/ help system (:help [keyword])
that is hyperlinked to hell and back. It comes with a quick vi/vim tutorial
that helped me learn the keys associated with the functions I was used to
working with in joe. To be honest, the first 2-3 weeks I was slower than one
could imagine. The next 2-3 weeks I picked up speed as I learned things that
helped me perform operations that were 2nd nature under joe. After about 3
months I was zipping along at a comfortable pace.
So /if/ syntax highlighting is that important to you, take a good look at
vim. Realize that it'll take a good 2-3 months to get any decent speed
compared to how fast you're most likely in joe if you've used it as
extensively as I had. However, the first time you use % to find a misplaced
brace, paren or curley bracket will munch a lot of that time away. When you
get comfortable with vi even if the overall typing/edit speed is lower, the
niceties it packs in for coding will balance it out.
BTW, I still dislike vi with a passion, prefer nvi if I /need/ to mess
with "stock" vi and still highly recommend joe to any unix newbie.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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