On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:02:44 +0100, Tom N wrote:

> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and then contacted
> Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who has provided this package for
> Slackware in the past, and he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>
> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>
> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the bells and whistles
> that don't do anything but confuse me. I just want a decent editor.

You can say that again - not to speak of that monster, white
elephant that is vim.

On 2008-01-19, Ivar Rosquist wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:02:44 +0100, Tom N wrote:
>
>> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and then contacted
>> Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who has provided this package for
>> Slackware in the past, and he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>>
>> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>>
>> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the bells and whistles
>> that don't do anything but confuse me. I just want a decent editor.
>
> You can say that again - not to speak of that monster, white
> elephant that is vim.

:-)

The only thing I can think of worse than vim is emacs. Though I've
never tried either. Just a glance at the contents of the packages
and the docs is enough to give me a headache!

At least I can edit an HTML file with nvi without it going into
some weird mode where nothing works normally anymore, which is
what happens with elvis.

That's one character who should just stay dead!

:-\

Thanks, Ivar,

Tom

--
calhobbit
at gee mail dot com

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:03:58 +0100, Tom N wrote:

> On 2008-01-19, Ivar Rosquist wrote:
>> On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:02:44 +0100, Tom N wrote:
>>
>>> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and then
>>> contacted Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who has provided this
>>> package for Slackware in the past, and he was good enough to build it
>>> for 12.0:
>>>
>>> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>>>
>>> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the bells and
>>> whistles that don't do anything but confuse me. I just want a decent
>>> editor.
>>
>> You can say that again - not to speak of that monster, white
>> elephant that is vim.
>
> :-)
>
> The only thing I can think of worse than vim is emacs. Though I've never
> tried either. Just a glance at the contents of the packages and the docs
> is enough to give me a headache!

Well, I don't dislike emacs myself. I use it every so often,
although I don't agree with its do-it-all philosophy. For most of my
requirements, however, vi is good enough.

The problem with vim is that, an emacs wannabe as it is, it
collects the worst of both vi and emacs under the same roof. If I have
ever seen a piece of software that fills out a well-needed gap, it is vim.

> At least I can edit an HTML file with nvi without it going into some
> weird mode where nothing works normally anymore, which is what happens
> with elvis.
>
> That's one character who should just stay dead!

Agreed.

> :-\
>
> Thanks, Ivar,

Any time.

Tom N wrote:
> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed

Thats because you are a noob.

Tom N wrote:
> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and
> then contacted Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who
> has provided this package for Slackware in the past, and
> he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>
> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>
> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the
> bells and whistles that don't do anything but confuse
> me. I just want a decent editor.
>
> The size really surprised me. 32K for vi and 32K for ex.
> Elvis is 432K.

Why don't you use ed?
http://dreamcode.org/

On 2008-01-20, D Herring wrote:
> Tom N wrote:
>> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and
>> then contacted Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who
>> has provided this package for Slackware in the past, and
>> he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>>
>> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>>
>> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the
>> bells and whistles that don't do anything but confuse
>> me. I just want a decent editor.
>>
>> The size really surprised me. 32K for vi and 32K for ex.
>> Elvis is 432K.
>
> Why don't you use ed?
> http://dreamcode.org/

I've tried! Have you? It's at the other end of the spectrum:
Too simple. Too primitive. And it's 3/4 the size of
ex and vi together.

The situation with a lot of software, it seems to me, is
similar to that of the hammer:

The stone hammer was too primitive. It breaks and the
head comes loose and its impossible to get the weight
and shape just right.

The steel hammer is just perfect.

Anything more complex (and a thousand inventors
have tried) has more liabilities than benefits
when compared to the steel hammer.

People who write computer programs often seem to
just keep on adding to the complexity of them
because they don't have anything else to do.

So they end up wrecking excellent software.

There's some weird belief that bigger and
more complex is superior.

Hang on, I'll check out that link...

That's ****ing _hilarious_!!!

"Eat flaming death"

Reminds me of the times I tried to use /bin/ed!

Thanks for the laughs, DH. I'll bookmark that
link for the next time I'm down in the dumps.

:-)

Tom


--
calhobbit
at gee mail dot com

On 2008-01-20, Tom N wrote:
> On 2008-01-20, D Herring wrote:
>> Tom N wrote:
>>> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and
>>> then contacted Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who
>>> has provided this package for Slackware in the past, and
>>> he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>>>
>>> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>>>
>>> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the
>>> bells and whistles that don't do anything but confuse
>>> me. I just want a decent editor.
>>>
>>> The size really surprised me. 32K for vi and 32K for ex.
>>> Elvis is 432K.
>>
>> Why don't you use ed?
>> http://dreamcode.org/
>
> I've tried! Have you? It's at the other end of the spectrum:
> Too simple. Too primitive. And it's 3/4 the size of
> ex and vi together.

That was misleading:

ldd /usr/bin/vi (32K)

linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libvi.so.0 => /usr/lib/libvi.so.0 (0xb7ed6000)
libncurses.so.5 => /lib/libncurses.so.5 (0xb7e95000)
libdb-4.4.so => /lib/libdb-4.4.so (0xb7d9b000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7d84000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7c42000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb7c3e000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f31000)

ldd /usr/bin/ex (32K)

linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libvi.so.0 => /usr/lib/libvi.so.0 (0xb7f05000)
libncurses.so.5 => /lib/libncurses.so.5 (0xb7ec4000)
libdb-4.4.so => /lib/libdb-4.4.so (0xb7dca000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7db3000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7c71000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb7c6d000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f60000)

Same dependencies for both of the above, and I'm pretty sure
I don't use any libncurses functions at all. Could be wrong.
I don't cut and paste with vi's functions, I either use X or
or the basic capablilites of vi to do this from the keyboard
with the [y]ank command.

Be interesting to see what vi was like without libncurses...

ldd /usr/bin/ed (40K)
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7dc3000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f0e000)

I renamed /usr/bin/ex and noticed no change at all in the performance
of vi. Could it be that ex is loaded up in memory? 'type' doesn't
report either as being hashed, though I am not really sure what
that means.

.....


Tom

--
calhobbit
at gee mail dot com

Hallo, alex,

Du meintest am 20.01.08:

> Tom N wrote:
>> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed

> Thats because you are a noob.

No - "Tom N" is a troll. Why do you feed it?

Viele Gruesse
Helmut

"Ubuntu" - an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

Tom N wrote:
> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and
> then contacted Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who
> has provided this package for Slackware in the past, and
> he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>
> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>
> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the
> bells and whistles that don't do anything but confuse
> me. I just want a decent editor.
>
> The size really surprised me. 32K for vi and 32K for ex.
> Elvis is 432K.
>
> Thanks again, Kurt!
>
> Tom

Hi

I liked whar you told about nvi, but that package is put together a
bit sloppy (and misses a SlackBuild), so I wrote a SlackBuild for it
and the resulting package is a lot smaller (it does not contain itself
for instance). It also does not overwrite the existing vi/ex/view
files because the binaries in the package were renamed to
nvi/nex/nview. You can always point Slackware's /usr/bin/vi symlink to
nvi instead of elvis.
See http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/nvi/

Eric

On 2008-01-20, Eric Hameleers wrote:
> Tom N wrote:
>> I tried to build nvi from the source code and failed, and
>> then contacted Kurt Wall at http://www.kurtwerks.org/ who
>> has provided this package for Slackware in the past, and
>> he was good enough to build it for 12.0:
>>
>> http://kurtwerks.org/slackwerks/nvi-...-i486-1krw.tgz
>>
>> Works just great. It's like elvis but without all the
>> bells and whistles that don't do anything but confuse
>> me. I just want a decent editor.
>>
>> The size really surprised me. 32K for vi and 32K for ex.
>> Elvis is 432K.
>>
>> Thanks again, Kurt!
>>
>> Tom
>
> Hi
>
> I liked whar you told about nvi, but that package is put together a
> bit sloppy (and misses a SlackBuild), so I wrote a SlackBuild for it
> and the resulting package is a lot smaller (it does not contain itself
> for instance). It also does not overwrite the existing vi/ex/view
> files because the binaries in the package were renamed to
> nvi/nex/nview. You can always point Slackware's /usr/bin/vi symlink to
> nvi instead of elvis.
> See http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/nvi/
>
> Eric

Thanks. Gotta give Kurt a break here. He just started a new job at nvidia....

slackware.com was inacessible the first time I tried, but got the package now.

It sure is a smaller package!

But how did you get the actual executable smaller?

Had a brief power failure a couple of minutes ago. Box just turned off like
a light.

When the power came back on I just rebooted and Slack fixed itself in a jiff.

So did slrn.

So much for all the UPS bull****.

(using ext2 here, and no KDE, so I don't know what it would be like with
KDE and reiserfs/ext3)

Tom

--
calhobbit
at gee mail dot com

On 2008-01-20, Eric Hameleers wrote:
>
> I liked whar you told about nvi, but that package is put together a
> bit sloppy (and misses a SlackBuild), so I wrote a SlackBuild for it
> and the resulting package is a lot smaller (it does not contain itself
> for instance). It also does not overwrite the existing vi/ex/view
> files because the binaries in the package were renamed to
> nvi/nex/nview. You can always point Slackware's /usr/bin/vi symlink to
> nvi instead of elvis.
> See http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/nvi/
>

Outstanding, Eric - you beat me to it
OpenBSD uses nvi by default, so I've been meaning to look
into installing it on Slackware

-RW