Sorry for fwd ur mail in list Scott, didn't notice it was in pvt. As for the tyre comparison, I agree with you Nick. Better getting your hands dirty than being laughed at. Which is btw what I did in that nasty event. But I also remember the cold sweat out of it.
Actually I drive an old car which still features a spare tyre, while others being sold nowadays have just repair kits. These latter ones go well for a puncture, not for a wide cut (like it happened to me many years ago in France on the highway). So, my idea is, having understood that the repair kit (ed) is necessary, if the car trunk (bsd.rd, not floppyxx.fs) allows for space, why not also having a spare tyre (vi) in it, so that instead of repairing the tyre in half an hour we can mount the spare tyre in less than 5 minutes? I mean, "plus" instead of "versus", when space is enough, considering that nowadays vi is a widespread standard too (can't think of a modern unix distro without it), shouldn't be asking for the impossible :) (basically not opening a race for "I want this tool too", but reasoning about an update of survival tools) On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Nick Holland <n...@holland-consulting.net>wrote: > On 01/12/13 06:22, Paolo Aglialoro wrote: > > So guys, I perfectly understand (and respect) how much many of you use > and > > value ed. As much as others have a repulsion for it, but this is not my > > point: > > no, it's like the scissor jack and lug wrench in my Jeep. > If I get a flat tire on the side of the road, I'd really wish I had my > hydraulic floor jack with me, along with a spinner wrench or maybe even > my impact driver and sockets. > > 'cept...my Jeep has very limited storage...and a tire goes flat very > rarely. > > But when it does... I have a few choices... > 1) sit and cry, "I want my floor jack!" > 2) wait a few hours for someone else to come and help me. > 3) grab the lug wrench and scissor jack and be back on the road in 15 > minutes. > > ed isn't a contender in the "my favorite editor" contest. I doubt > anyone uses it when another option is available for anything other than > practice. But sometimes, you have a downed system, you need an editor, > you don't have a valid or known terminal config in place or enough > system running to use 'vi'. > > I've had to rescue enough systems with invalid/unknown/messed up > terminal configurations that I'd never support REPLACEMENT of 'ed' with > a full screen editor. > > Some day...you may need to, as well. Spend 15 minutes, and become > capable with ed. You don't need to be fluent...just capable of fixing > an /etc/fstab file, and other basic things. Beats having people driving > by, laughing at you for sitting on the curb crying about the lack of > your favorite tool. > > Nick.
