# Writing text



## Alain De Vos (Jun 4, 2021)

How do you prefer to write text


----------



## ralphbsz (Jun 4, 2021)

Depends. All of the above.

I'm old and old-fashioned, so a lot of what I do is cleartext (ASCII, with a carriage return every <80 characters). That's for example what I use for e-mail format.

At work, a significant fraction (perhaps 25%) of my writing is source code, so there I use Python, C++, Java, SQL, Go, whatever language is appropriate, typed into emacs or a GUI editor.

A lot of stuff that has to be shared is in word processor formats. Used to use a lot of Word, but today it is mostly Google Docs, because it is much more convenient (no need to install any software, no need to get a license or an extra account). For work (where most of the writing actually happens), I use whatever my employer recommends or requires (since I work in the computer industry, that ends up meaning: whatever my employer builds).

I still use LaTeX occasionally for scientific documents: Research reports, conference submissions, and so on.


----------



## Alain De Vos (Jun 5, 2021)

I found myself with the following mixed feeling.
Writing a very large document in latex and then finding out markdown can be converted to many more formats including html+ajax.
Once I had a boss who told me MS-Word was the company standard.


----------



## BostonBSD (Jun 5, 2021)

Wow, I was just casually was reading this, never having used latex for any practical purpose, then I looked up the "gummi" latex editor.  And realized this is a perfect way to compile out of print books from archive.org.

Just download the plaintext version of the book and recompile it in latex to make it look however you want.


----------



## BostonBSD (Jun 5, 2021)

So this turns into this {see attached}.
The kile latex editor assists better with syntax {i never used latex syntax before}.


----------



## tuxador (Jun 5, 2021)

*Org-mode* is my way to go since 5 years.
It's the kind of things that you regret not giving a shot years ago when you first heard of it because you thought it's too nerdy.
I use Org-mode with Emacs, Emacs doom is my favourite distribution with evil mode enabled.
In my smartphone orgzly is my (org-mode) note taking app, I sync my notes via Dropbox to my workstation.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jun 5, 2021)

In a text editor, like editors/leafpad. It's all I use for anything text and switching from Notepad was seamless.


----------



## zirias@ (Jun 5, 2021)

Agreed, in a text editor. editors/vim for me.

Format depends on the purpose. Might be plain text. Otherwise:

Markdown for something to flexibly publish in different target formats, e.g. HTML
LaTeX for a print document where I want full control over the final layout


----------



## Cthulhux (Jun 5, 2021)

Markdown for README, org-mode for structuring, an actual text processing software for letters and stuff.
(I recently started using WordTsar for that. Lovely!)

Typesetting is a waste of time in my opinion.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jun 5, 2021)

Zirias said:


> Format depends on the purpose. Might be plain text. Otherwise:
> 
> Markdown for something to flexibly publish in different target formats, e.g. HTML
> LaTeX for a print document where I want full control over the final layout


I can't help but ask. When did they start calling HTML markdown? When Markup started sounding so old and a new buzzword was agreed upon?

Because I only saw it recently for the first time, but have been writing Markup Languages over 20 years. Not once in that time did it ever occur to me to write extra code to make notes to myself on Leafpad when I could just open it and see what I typed. 

Seems like less work, not to mention quicker. My speed as a syllable slinger is the stuff of water-cooler song and many the young tech savvy typist that have come to test their vi Copy&Paste skills against me, only to be left lying in the left margin, typing fingers twitching their final text...failing validation their final faceplam folly.... 

What a burden to bear.

I don't need indentation formatting to write Markup either. I'm pretty sure that's a Markdown thing Docker users came up with to make life more "simple".


----------



## kpedersen (Jun 5, 2021)

When I write the few academic papers a year I tend to use LaTeX and (n)vi. The typical `!}fmt` series of keys becomes like a compulsion for me!

That said, sometimes I work with a number of other authors and some of them don't know what LaTeX is or even version control making it a little more of a painful experience. This isn't an age thing either, I work with older and younger guys and there is no real correlation. For this I tend to use Office 2003 in Wine.

I refuse to engage with services like Google Docs or Office 365. I just can't get motivated to start writing when using their services. It isn't that they are awkward to use as such, I have this weird niggling feeling in the back of my mind that I have been using computers for a while now so therefore I just deserve better. I have diminishing passion for my trade when I use them. A bit strange I know. I can't really explain it.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jun 5, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> When did they start calling HTML markdown?


Markdown isn't HTML. It's text that contains formatting instructions within it. It was created by John Gruber


----------



## Cthulhux (Jun 5, 2021)

That was the point, I guess.


----------



## zirias@ (Jun 5, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> I can't help but ask. When did they start calling HTML markdown?


Never? But Markdown is a nice input format to generate a lot of output formats from, _for example_ HTML. That's what I'm doing (using textproc/hs-pandoc) to create for example things like this:


			A beginners' guide away from scanf()
		



			Advocacy: Why I personally prefer FreeBSD over Linux


----------



## Alain De Vos (Jun 5, 2021)

I currently use geany to edit .org mode files. The make command is set to "pandoc test.org -o test.html"
I'm a vi & emacs simpleton.  The falcon browser
file:///usr/home/x/Test/test.html
refreshes automatic.
$ a^a $ renders latex.
Complex math i still must figure out.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jun 5, 2021)

I was a little confused with your meaning of "Markdown for something to flexibly publish in different target formats, e.g. HTML" and still am, but that's me in a nutshell. Not to be confused with me in the nuthouse.

Looks very neat and organized. That area of design never was my strong point. Something XHTML Frameset 1.0 allowed me to compensate for exceedingly well. I still have Markup that checks valid to taunt my Homie the Honorable drhowarddfine with.

The first thing I did was scanned what you had written: 



> _FreeBSD_ *never* holds your hand (if you don’t count the excellent documentation). There’s no automatic configuration. The defaults mostly match a server workload; if you want to use it on a desktop, you have a lot of manual work to do and of course install many packages.



This should be like a checkbox on the Installation media for FreeBSD so when people complain how it's not like Linux we could say "You did read the Terms of Use before signed the waiver, didn't you?" That could be our standard thread-killer response to lay the blame where it belongs.

The second thing I always do is View the Source. Here are your metatags::

```
<meta charset="utf-8">  
<meta name="generator" content="pandoc">  
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes">  
<meta name="author" content="Felix Palmen felix@palmen-it.de">  
<meta name="dcterms.date" content="2017-06-08">  
<title>A beginners' guide away from scanf()</title>  
<style type="text/css">code{white-space: pre;}</style>  
<style type="text/css">
```

Here are the metatags I've picked up and carried over through the years:

```
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=yes" /> 
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8" /> 
<meta name="description" content="How to build a FreeBSD Operating System desktop from scratch." /> 
<meta name="keywords" content="FreeBSD,BSD,UNIX,Linux,Windows,desktop,tutorial,guide,how to,OS,Operating System,computer,firewall,security,window manager,fluxbox,fluxbox styles,ports,portmaster,Ethernet,MAC,Media Access Control,spoof,hexadecimal,LAN,Internet Protocol Address,wallpapers,Trihexagonal,Demonica" /> 
<meta name="author" content="Trihexagonal" /> 
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" /> 
<meta name="robots" content="all" /> 
<meta name="revisit" content="7 days" /> <meta name="distribution" content="global" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" /> 
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> 
<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
```

Are MSSmarttags no longer a thing? I thought that used that to steal your content, or some soul stealing sorcery to ward off with use of that talisman.

Good content listing of keywords are the black art of SEO. Spamming them with words not included in the content an abomination to Great Google to be cast out of Righteous Ranking Results.

Then, the true trial by fire of all web designers.Validation of your soul as spotless:






						Showing results for http://sekrit.de/webdocs/c/beginners-guide-away-from-scanf.html - Nu Html Checker
					






					validator.w3.org
				








						Showing results for http://sekrit.de/webdocs/freebsd/advocacy.html - Nu Html Checker
					






					validator.w3.org
				




Repent and turn away from your content generator blaspheme so that it may be well with thee and sin no more, Brother.

Live Long and Prosper.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jun 6, 2021)

Note: HTML does not use and does not need or require a closing slash on any tag and never has in any HTML specification.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jun 6, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> XHTML Frameset 1.0 allowed me to compensate for exceedingly well. I still have Markup that checks valid to taunt my Homie the Honorable _*[FONT=monospace]drhowarddfine[/FONT]*_ with.


Yes. Drives me insane. I was writing XHTML 1.0 Strict when you were still in diapers boy!


----------



## Alain De Vos (Jun 6, 2021)

I found a way for complex math.

```
pandoc -s test.org -o test.tex
pandoc -s test.tex -o test.html
```


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jun 6, 2021)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Yes. Drives me insane. I was writing XHTML 1.0 Strict when you were still in diapers boy!



Your Mother uses Dockers.

I was writing valid XHTML Transitional 1,0 at GeoCities when you were still hanging out at Wash U trying to pick up undergrads cutting class.


----------



## Vull (Jun 6, 2021)

Vi or vim for software and documentation. If I want word-wrap, usually Pluma or Kate. Rarely I'll use LibreOffice if I want to get fancy-schmancy.


----------



## zirias@ (Jun 6, 2021)

Trihexagonal I'll try again to better clarify my two bullet-points above 

Markdown is a simple format and I really like how it's still well-readable as `text/plain`. There are thousands of parsers and renderers, and with software like e.g. pandoc, you can convert it to anything you like; that's what I meant with "flexibly publish in different target formats".
For printing, I still prefer LaTeX, for several reasons. The typesetting it does automatically is still top notch, and it optionally allows you to exactly control the layout.
I don't really care about the meta tags, it's not like I'm doing business here  And well, I _know_ HTML, but I think life is too short to write all your content directly in HTML . The "source" for the two documents I linked above looks like this: https://github.com/Zirias/webdocs/

From your validation results, I see I probably made a mistake in my custom CSS, will have a look at this


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jun 6, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> Your Mother uses Dockers.


And your father smells of raspberry-pi


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jun 6, 2021)

When I write something I want to keep it looks just like this when I open it again in Leafpad, even years later in any text editor.

```
<?xml version='1.1' encoding='utf-8'?>
”."><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Note To Self</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
</head>
<body>
<p>I really don't see the point in writing all that extra stuff.</p>
<p>Not to mention it's a lot easier to open a text editor than open an .html page in Firefox to read the text file formatted like a webpage.</p>
<h1>Don't forget to get some coffee and sugar when grocery shopping.</h1>
</body>
</html>
```

But I want my site #1 Google ranking back so I'll sacrifice what it takes to satiate Great Google so as to not cast the Don't Be Evil evil eye my way.

The Russian Federation was my #2 biggest visitor next to the US.


----------



## zirias@ (Jun 6, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> When I write something I want to keep it looks just like this when I open it again in Leafpad, even years later in any text editor.
> 
> ```
> <?xml version='1.1' encoding='utf-8'?>
> ...


This looks like a perfect example of a document that would profit from Markdown.

E.g. when I open my FreeBSD advocacy doc in a text editor, it looks like this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Zirias/webdocs/master/freebsd/advocacy.md

I think that's _much_ better readable than something sprinkled with (XML or SGML) tags.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jun 6, 2021)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Note: HTML does not use and does not need or require a closing slash on any tag and never has in any HTML specification.


Well XHTML is more orderly than HTML and Order Out of Chaos is the Agent Way.



Zirias said:


> This looks like a perfect example of a document that would profit from Markdown.


"Don't forget to get some coffee and sugar when grocery shopping" _was_ the body of the Document.


Zirias said:


> E.g. when I open my FreeBSD advocacy doc in a text editor, it looks like this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Zirias/webdocs/master/freebsd/advocacy.md


Very nice. 

Leafpad doesn't do that for you. What you type is what you get. It looks the same in View Source or Leafpad, but my markup is readable as that plain text for me.

I have all the Markup I've ever written somewhere and reference what I've already written to cut and paste into my new writing. I made a new Frameset site demo 2-3 years ago that still checks valid. Only index.html uses frameset. All other pages use Transitional and are linked to fill the frames.

I spiraled in offset frames to a tiny one inch frame in the center that said "Hi" or something once as an exercise in futility to see if I could do it.

I need to trim my CSS file down now that I'm not using the button code on my sites.


----------



## tingo (Jun 6, 2021)

This is a trick question, right? Obviously I prefer to write text as ... text! Now, if you ask how I like to format any texts I write, the answer would be Markdown.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Aug 21, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> But I want my site #1 Google ranking back so I'll sacrifice what it takes to satiate Great Google so as to not cast the Don't Be Evil evil eye my way.


Top of the World, Ma!





Cooltrainer thought it was Neo on his way to rescue Trinity from hitting the ground when I went by them.


----------



## grahamperrin@ (Aug 22, 2021)

Too late to vote. 

I'm happier with Markdown than (here) BB code. 

Office 365 can make life easy. I don't have a personal subscription, but I do make frequent use of things such as Excel online.


----------



## hruodr (Aug 22, 2021)

It depends for what I have to write text:

(1) ascii.
(2) utf8.
(3) very primitive, old html.
(4) Plain TeX, for generating ps or pdf.


----------



## astyle (Aug 24, 2021)

Depends on the task.

I absolutely hate Office 365, it makes file opening/saving clunky. But LibreOffice (or Office 2019) is great for an outline. I like Kate (or Notepad++) for ASCII/UTF-8 text, because with those editors, even plain text can look nice and organized.  I tried LaTeX when I was in college - it was an interesting way to do typesetting of math/chemical/statistical formulas, and made my homework look neat, but just making things line up and look like something that can be followed along - that was a pain.

And I don't care what they ask me to use at work - If they ask me to use a tool, they're supposed to provide me with a tool that actually works.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Aug 25, 2021)

astyle said:


> I like Kate (or Notepad++) for ASCII/UTF-8 text, because with those editors, even plain text can look nice and organized.


UTF-8 is what I write, a text editor is all I've ever used and went straight from NotePad to editors]/leafpad without missing a beat.


----------



## hruodr (Aug 25, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> UTF-8 is what I write, a text editor is all I've ever used and went straight from NotePad to editors]/leafpad without missing a beat.


It is OK as long as it is only text, without formatting, without math, etc.

BTW, I managed to combine the the wiki of:

https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki

with






						MathJax
					

Beautiful math in all browsers.



					www.mathjax.org
				




I think it works also with the forum. It is ideal for a small wiki for technical purposes.


----------



## tux2bsd (Aug 25, 2021)

nvi.    If I need to make something formal that'll save to a PDF so I can reliably print nicely then I'll use Libreoffice.

kate is good for some stuff too.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Aug 25, 2021)

hruodr said:


> It is OK as long as it is only text, without formatting, without math, etc


Yes, you're right.

The other day I Copy & Pasted what I'd typed in Leafpad into an online email form. It displayed what had been typed to show it had been sent. It didn't format at all and everything ran together with no paragraphs beginning to end.


----------



## astyle (Aug 25, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> The other day I Copy & Pasted what I'd typed in Leafpad into an online email form. It displayed what had been typed to show it had been sent. It didn't format at all and everything ran together with no paragraphs beginning to end.


Tons of systems try to do that. The worst offenders are the systems tasked with extracting data from uploaded resumes or systems tasked with posting job announcements. Blocks of text that pollute listings, provide no real actionable information, and frankly fail at even having the intended effect. . Back in 80's and early 90's, Russian legal documents looked like that, except that it all was on paper back then.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 25, 2021)

So many guys I work with use this:
https://www.overleaf.com/

Personally, just like any "cloud" thing, Office365 or Google Docs, I will avoid. However I do like that it is just standard LaTeX so it doesn't in theory tie you down to their nonsense.

Though it still baffles me how people can use this kind of stuff without a "normal" version control system. Heck I would even take CVS over some weird proprietary web based thing (I cheat because I actually like CVS ).


----------



## hruodr (Aug 25, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> Personally, just like any "cloud" thing, Office365 or Google Docs, I will avoid.


And


kpedersen said:


> Though it still baffles me how people can use this kind of stuff without a "normal" version control system.


My combination of fossil-scm with MathJax was not intended for writing articles, for substituting TeX,
but only for collaborative work, for web publishing.


----------



## Profighost (Aug 25, 2021)

short answer: LaTeX with Vim

Wordprocessors are easy to start with but highly ineffiecent.
Sadly Word became the widely used standard, so most are forced to use this $4!t or it's comparison of libreoffice.
With the effect that several hundreds of years of experience and science within typesetting - make the text best readable - are washed down the toilet within one decade for presumptive better looking but really worse readable text, because of typestting is done by people who even don't know, that something like this even exists, doing typesetting when they should write text....  
(You may search for: "Wordprocessors: Stupid and Ineffiecent" for more and better details about this topic.)

Give Vim a closer look!

Long answer:
For someone really, really, seriously looking for an professional, powerful text editor there are only two choices really:
emacs or vi/Vim

I've worked with emacs many years. It's really productive,....but....
It not the question of "worse" or "better" (or even religious), it's the question "How are you structured? How do you think (top-down vs. bottom-up)?"

Most people avoid vi/Vim because without a couple of hours training you even can't do sh!t with it.
I think most ever rooted within a unix-like system knows the typical situations:
Your system does not fully come up for whatever reasons, all you need to do is to just add a single comment character before a line in a text file,
and all you got is this d@mnmotherdf0gging vi-crep!!1!!!1...'§"%$§=?§?$=!!!!!!!1111....
...looking for another - working - machine, 
cursing, 
looking for a vi-cheat-sheet, 
swearing, 
helplessly fiddling, 
getting tourette-disorder
...it's known.

That's why most people don't give vi even a closer look.
And that's - maybe - the reason why the default editor on FreeBSD is not vi.
However:
With emacs I was not really completely satisfied. Personal taste.
It's not big, it's huge! Especially if you do the common emacs-noob's mistake and install directly ALL possible add-ons....("it's free..." - bad mistake, at least for a start with emacs! If you start with emacs, just stay at the basic-editor, which is very powerful for itself indeed, and only if you feel well versed in its using *ONLY* add, what you really need. 
Otherwise you'll just drown in possibilties and non default-setting, wondering about which editor is the tutorial about 

So I was looking for an alternative and again found many people praise vi/Vim.
After vanquishing my personal aversions against Vim I made the tutorial shipped with it.

It will take you at least 2 hours to even do the rudimentary basics badly, and it will cost you app. additional 20...30 hours to use ist nearly usable.
You have to force yourself to use it, otherwise you'll never learn it. 
Yeah, it may be a little painful at the start.
But it's worth it!
And after 10..20 you've already managed the worst.
From then you start to master it.

After the first couple of hours you get a feeling, where the journey goes:
It's not that the editors a completely otherwise. 
It's the fundamental principle how text is to be edited, that differs completely.
You better have to forget all what you've ever learned about texteditors ever, and completely start naive at absolute zero, trying to do as you never ever edited any textfile before.

To put it in a simplified picture:
emacs is like a big workshop with a vast range of tools.
For every editing task you have at least 3 tools (keyboard, GUI, scripting) plus additional tools for similar jobs.
So what your going to do is, look for and leran the suiting tools for you current editing task.
If you need/want  another tool, you add more tools from a toolshop or mostly even a whole additional workshop.
You can use emacs directly from the start without knowing anything about it, because most editors are using the same concept:
editing and writing at the same time with a GUI.
But to be efficient - doing much editing work in lesser time - you'll have to learn the keyboard shortcut commands.
And you'll keep on learning for every new "tool" in your workshop.

vi/Vim is more like a small toolbox.
You cannot really do much with the tools alone.
And you have to learn them most of them first, before you can anything useful with it.
But you quickly can build with them any powertool or machine you need or want.
And there is no big effort in this.
Because you are sitting in front of an powerfull automation system.
Use it that way!

Another picture may would make it understand better:
Imagine you have never seen any written text nor even characters, and not the stupiest idea how to note you language.
If somebody shows you the alphabet, you'd say:
"That's a complete stupid load! First you have to learn all signs before one can do anything with it and second there are only 26 of them?! Are you completely mad?
Draw pictograms showing its meaning obviosly! You have to do no learning at all."
...and one day you figure out: Your drowning in thousands of signs, every single one either much work to paint or hard to recognize and distinguish. 
And you receive additional problems like words cannot be painted, grammar etc....

The way looking easy for the start may not be the best chosen in the long term.

Understanding two things
1. The most efficient for editing lies in the power of the keayboard - whatever editor one uses.
2. Most of the time you are not writing - entering new text, but edit it.
That brings you to the idea of vi:
First editing is done - and only done - with the keyboard only.
(don't looking at GVim at this moment, because it's not a good idea to start with - you'll never grep the concept and Vim stays Ugh! for you.)
Second vi strictly distinguish between editing and writing.
And because editing is the most work you do, editing mode is the default mode that comes up at its start.
(The Esc-Key will be the most used key, because it brings you always back into mormal (editing) mode.)

The strict distinction between the two modes are very strange and Urrgh! because completely unfamilar for most users.
But is have a very great - not to be underestimated advantage:
Single keys are now editing commands.
So instead of cruising with your mouse around to menus or learning and pressing many more or less complex keycombinations, you simply have a dozen of very simple commands.
Those commands cannot do much for themselves alone, but you can combine them to quickly typed chains and so generate not only way more powerful commands but rather the exact edition command you need for this individual editing task at the very moment.

After I got the hang on Vim (yeah, it's not just coming to you - it's a hard way for a start, especially if you fall back trying to use your old editor habits) 
I knew:
This is the editor I ever wanted.
It's small.
It's smart.
It's flexible.
It's tailorable.
It's customizable.
It's very logical.
It's intuitive.
It's powerful.
Very powerful!
And above all:
It's fast.
It's darned fast!
With no other editor you can become as nearly so fast as with vi/Vim.
Not a chance.
If you don't know Vim and convinced you are fast, try to get a chance to watch an experienced Vim-User at a couple of editing tasks.
You did not yet had even the slightest idea what fast really is!


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 26, 2021)

Profighost said:


> And that's - maybe - the reason why the default editor on FreeBSD is not vi.


The default editor for FreeBSD is indeed vi. Luckily this hasn't changed (I think it is even dictated by the Single UNIX Specification).


----------



## gpw928 (Aug 26, 2021)

As a  matter of history, I believe that Bill Joy used code from the original AT&T ed(1) with his innovative screen editor vi(1), so that when The Regents settled with Unix System Laboratories (USL), vi(1) became the property of USL.

BSD Unix was therefore without the most famous of all Berkeley enhancements!  Keith Bostic stepped in to fill the gap, and created nvi for use with BSD Unix.

Vim is an independent implementation by Bram Moolenaar, released under GPL, and widely used on Linux.

So, technically, FreeBSD uses nvi(1), but it's called vi(1).

I work on both Linux and BSD systems, so I'm prepared for both nvi and vim at all times to behave as (I believe) it should:
	
	



```
[ritz.193] $ echo $EXINIT
set shiftwidth=4 nowrapscan ai magic
[ritz.194] $ cat .vimrc  
set compatible ai sw=4
set t_ti=
set t_te=
set nowrapscan
```


----------



## memreflect (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> The default editor for FreeBSD is indeed vi. Luckily this hasn't changed (I think it is even dictated by the Single UNIX Specification).


vi and ex are among the "user portability utilities", which are optional.  ed is mandatory, and the functionality of `set -o vi` may be disabled entirely:


> It need not be possible to set vi mode on for certain block-mode terminals.


----------



## astyle (Aug 26, 2021)

This is a bit old-school for me, but the design of those text editors was also a matter of technical feasibility at the time. The very idea of placing a cursor in any given point on the terminal screen *and* making it possible to type text from that point on - that idea probably took hold in late 1980s. In early 1990s, I remember seeing some programs that can be best described as "beefed-up Nano" - still terminal-based, but offering features like opening up Midnight Commander-like file manager to save text files in a directory you browse to. Early word processors on Apple II that I saw in mid-90s - those were easier to look at, but the logic of file saving was strikingly similar. Not that I can recall names off the top of my head. If I were motivated enough, I'd do some research and put up links to good descriptions...


----------



## Profighost (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> The default editor for FreeBSD is indeed vi. Luckily this hasn't changed (I think it is even dictated by the Single UNIX Specification).


Er...not really.
If you install FreeBSD freshly and pure I think vi and nvi are already installed, yes.
But the editor coming up as default automatically linked for editing is ee.
That's a good choice for very small editing tasks like emergencies at the very beginning because it's a very small and very simple editor which can be used by anybody without learning effort (see the "vi-trap" I described), since its usage is shown permantly on the screen.
But I wouldn't recommend it to for any advanced editing tasks e.g. writing source code etc.

To make vi or nvi your standard you at least have to edit your .cshrc
Installing Vim (console version) is my very first task everytime I install a new FreeBSD.

It has nothing to do with Linux. Vim is independent.
(Because Bram was missing vi on his Amiga, Vim originally was written by him for AmigaOS, what could be seen as closer to BSD as to Linux, but this may end up completely off-topic in senseless hairsplitting ;-)=
It's nearly a 100% clone of original vi as so far that app. 99,98% you can do like in vi you can do exactly so in Vim (the exception are very few, nearly unnoticable and quickly learned).
And the interface is extended by showing the cursor position, yeah right.
But Vim adds many additional features which make it more powerful as the original vi and makes it more suitable for many current editing tasks, such as coloured syntaxhighlighting to name just a single example.

Of course Vim does not come with by a basic, pure, naked standard installation of FreeBSD.
Because
- it's big (at least bigger as original vi, but not as way far as big like emacs, which can be blown up to be gigantic),
- an editor is a very personal choice - particulary vi/Vim.
- and there may are also be license issues to be respected, what can be included as default common standard installation, but I only presume that but don't really know.



astyle said:


> This is a bit old-school for me, but the design of those text editors was also a matter of technical feasibility at the time.



Well, vi resp. Vim came a long way, and yes, their origin roots are way back in times where primitive text-only terminals are, but no editors exist approximately anything near like something we know for over 30 years, such as showing the whole text on the screen, browsable... - that's what vi means, short for: "visual" - see the complete text and work directly within it.

This may give the impression the usage comes from and belongs to computer's stonage, BUT
if you really get involved in vi, (Vim or another vi-clone) you'll quickly see and understand:
That has nothing to do with "old-fashioned" or such. The concept of usage is timeless and genial.
It's not easy to learn - and you have to learn it a bit to do anything with it-, but once you got hang on it it's just great.

The basic principle of usage is very smart, really sophisticated and extremely efficient.
No need to change that, especially not just because of only time is passing by.
For at least half the people doing much editing but never tried to invest a couple of hours seriously learning and training on vi or Vim I promise:
You'll really gonna love it!
Especially programmers.

If you are rarely doing fewer, smaller textfile-editing or write longer prose texts like a book you are propably better served with another editor like e.g. Geany, ne (nice editor), Proton, emacs or others (Anyhow learn and use them keyboard shortcuts!) - you'll may not catch the benefits of vi quickly, if even.
There will be no advantage for your investing hours in learning to use an editor you only use for a couple of hours.
But within programming - editing any kind of source code - the ball is in vi's court!

But you have to slave a couple of dull hours on tedious training effort before you can even judge.

However, after all which editor to use is absolutely ones personal flavor, of course.
You'll have to work with what comforts you and suits your needs best.
To be efficient in editing you'll have to learn the usage of an editor anyway. Doesn't matter which one you chose.
But most people depending on a good, efficient editor missing the opportunity using the most efficient and fastest editor there is, just because of prejudice don't give it an actual serious closer look.

I've really tried several (emacs I already mentioned to be my standard editor for many years), among others Geany, ne and Proton - which are all very good editors of course (We're not talking MS-Notepad :-D  ) searching for the texteditor that really is worth to be really learned deeply, so I can say:"That's the one for me!"

I just have that feeling that all - or at least most - editors are just trying to copy the basic idea of emacs, but want to make it better - smaller, easier to learn, more suitable for personal needs...whatever.
So there are just three principle types of textediors at all:
1) the line or stream and very fundamental ones, like sed - very useful e.g. within bash-scripting
(btw sed is part of vi/Vim. With : you actually switch within vi to sed. [ Next time, you'll give vi another chance, don't use the often mentioned :qw but the original vi-command ZZ to close it   ]
2) vi and a handful of vi-clones
3) emacs and zillions of editors doing something likewise emacs

For way over twenty years I also was avoiding vi/Vim, because of all the arguments brought up immediatly everytime the ugly v-words are just mentioned anywhere, and gave up every time again after a couple of minutes when I tried to give vi another chance.
Once I've bitten through my initial training (Vim's tutorial may be recommended to be done at least) I knew:
vi resp. Vim, that's it!

All I just wanna say:
Give it a chance!
Spent a couple of hours actually trying to learn and understand the concept of vi.
Don't compare it permantely with the editors you already knew and bother "why is not like...?!" - just try to start all over again without any prejudice!
You'll not just have to learn another editor, you'll have to learn a complete other/new/unfamilar concept of text editing.
Once you passed the hard way and get the hang of it most will agree:
It's worth it!
You'll love it!
You'll safe zillions of hours time using the fastest editor there is.


----------



## hruodr (Aug 26, 2021)

Profighost said:


> For someone really, really, seriously looking for an professional, powerful text editor there are only two choices really:
> emacs or vi/Vim


You forgot sam and acme.


----------



## Vull (Aug 26, 2021)

"Other user-level programs, services and utilities include awk, echo, ed, *vi*, and hundreds of others."

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification#2018_Edition


Neither FreeBSD nor Linux are registered under the Single Unix Specification.


----------



## hardworkingnewbie (Aug 26, 2021)

It depends... in my job it's simple, because my company dictates it: Word 365, Outlook. Aside that when just writing some small stuff bbEdit. 

In private when writing more elaborate stuff it's LibreOffice Writer and most of the time for plain text Notepad++/Notepadqq. 

I know about LaTeX, and aeons ago wrote somebody's physics master thesis using it for money. But it's nothing for me where I can just "write away", because I've always got to make up my mind upon certain stuff first. So nothing I normally use, aside some special cases where I would drag it out like texts with lots of mathematical formulas in it. 

On command line it's normally Joe, then Nano. Only VIM when I've got to. Also recently discovered Kakoune, where somebody thought it's a good idea to port Clippy to *NIX. Well... it looks helpful, but also kind of strange to me. 

Also reminded me about Vigor from Userfriendly...


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 26, 2021)

Profighost said:


> If you install FreeBSD freshly and pure I think vi and nvi are already installed, yes.
> But the editor coming up as default automatically linked for editing is ee.


https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/share/skel/dot.profile
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/share/skel/dot.cshrc

Both profile scripts have the default EDITOR variable set to (n)vi.



Vull said:


> Neither FreeBSD nor Linux are registered under the Single Unix Specification.


Very true. Though FreeBSD does still tend to adhere compared to others. For example I was fairly baffled when ed was removed from Debian for the sole reason cited that "users wouldn't find it shocking if it was removed".


----------



## Profighost (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/share/skel/dot.profile
> https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/share/skel/dot.cshrc
> 
> Hmm. Both profile scripts have the default EDITOR variable set to (n)vi.


That may be the case. I don't know that.
I never installed FreeBSD via some script I downloaded from github.
I always install from an iso-file on an usb-stick I've downloaded from freebsd.org.
Also there within .cshrc EDITOR is set to vi.
yes.

But when I type edit in the shell or do something else which automatically brings up the file with a texteditor, by default ee is loaded.
Doesn't matter if FreeBSD 10...12...13 

I have to set an alias for edit on vim (after installing it, of course) and change EDITOR to vim.
Then Vim is used as my standard editor, but not in the pure, naked, basic, default installation, no matter what's written in .csrhc.
There clearly stands:
stenenv EDITOR vi - yes.
But except I type vi  ee is loaded by default.
Don't aks me why. I'm just an user. And I just can tell what I observe.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 26, 2021)

Profighost said:


> I never installed FreeBSD via some script I downloaded from github.
> I always install from an iso-file on an usb-stick I've downloaded from freebsd.org.


Ah that isn't some script. They are links to the FreeBSD source code repository. Those files end up on the official FreeBSD release .iso images.

Looking at the `edit` / `ee` man page. It seems that `edit` is just an alias for `ee`. It can't be changed or adhere to the standard EDITOR variable so isn't really necessarily the default editor of the system. It is kind of similar to how `view` opens up `vi` (in read-only). It isn't necessarily the default "viewer".

If I recall, this is different to how Linux works. There, I believe edit actually uses the EDITOR environment variable to select what text editor to run. Though all distros do everything different. Debian has some weird "sensible-editor" program and weirdness like that.


----------



## Vull (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> ... I was fairly baffled when ed was removed from Debian for the sole reason cited that "users wouldn't find it shocking if it was removed".


Certainly found vi on every un*x I've ever used. It was the only editor available to us on AIX in 1990, so we had no choice but to learn it. DEC, SCO, Red Hat, Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint all had it too. Older systems made us retype the whole line just to change a single character, with the exceptions of some Hazeltine terminals' with "line editor" mode, and MUSIC system's panel editor terms.


Profighost said:


> That may be the case. I don't know that.
> I never installed FreeBSD via some script I downloaded from github.
> I always install from an iso-file on an usb-stick I've downloaded from freebsd.org.
> Also there within .cshrc EDITOR is set to vi.
> ...


Thanks for pointing that out. I've never used edit before. /usr/bin/ee and /usr/bin/edit are two separate files, but identical. Doesn't seem to have too many features, but easy to use, and would do the trick in a pinch.

For programming purposes it would be well worth learning vi instead. JMO  Same goes for /bin/ed. Having learned vi, might as well use the best editor available, and vi is the one.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 26, 2021)

Vull said:


> Older systems made us retype the whole line just to change a single character, with the exceptions of some Hazeltine terminals' with "line editor" mode, and MUSIC system's panel editor terms.


Eeek. I have only had a play with some of these things and in my experience, it would just seem like the dark days of computers. I would get so frustrated but I suppose if you work with them daily, you get used to it(?). Even today, I find ed (and ex) great for scripting, but as a day to day driver, I always gravitate back to vi.

I suppose I was lucky that I started with DOS with Watcom Vi (feels like a weird mix of (n)vi and vim) and IBM's editor for PC-DOS called 'E'. I had it easy* 

* other than the fact that all the DOS Extenders for Watcom Vi (dos4g/w) and DJGPP (cwsdpmi) would conflict and cause all sorts of mess making calling the compiler from Vi's :shell flaky as hell.


----------



## Profighost (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen
I don't have the problem.
On all my systems vi/Vim is the default editor.

But I just have to change that, because without any changes by default ee is brought up.
Yes, although in /.cshrs and /root/.cshrc is written:
setenv EDITOR vi
Don't ask me why, by default ee comes up.

And I don't know how it works within Linux, because I never looked that "deeply" in any Linux-Distribution.
I never even looked for any kind of .bashrc or looked into it.


@hardworking newbie
The Joke is very good. ("Userfriendly" is always good. There is also one contained in O'Reilley's "learning the vi and Vim editors")
So I am not the only one who hated those useless, stupid and annoying only MS Paperclips )


----------



## Profighost (Aug 26, 2021)

hruodr said:


> You forgot sam and acme.


Indeed.
Thanks for pointing that out!

I cannot say anything about them, because I never worked with neither of them.
But looking at the names listed on the wikpediapage who all used those, they cannot be bad.


----------



## astyle (Aug 26, 2021)

Vull said:


> "Other user-level programs, services and utilities include awk, echo, ed, *vi*, and hundreds of others."
> 
> Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification#2018_Edition
> 
> ...


Reading through the wikipedia link,  macOS is no longer a proper UNIX. And, it looks like a given FreeBSD machine can achieve SUS/POSIX compliance just by installing some pre-packaged ports. But I'm flabbergasted that macOS was ever considered a UNIX at all - it's about as antithetical to UNIX proper as it gets. Command line takes some getting used to, but macOS totally treats it like something you shouldn't even think of looking at, much less use.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 26, 2021)

astyle said:


> macOS is no longer a proper UNIX. And, it looks like a given FreeBSD machine can achieve SUS/POSIX compliance just by installing some pre-packaged ports.


Once you get rid of the naff UI system of macOS, it is fairly capable as a UNIX platform. Possibly the most tenuous part is that it provides chroot but it is almost impossible to utilise because the rest of the platform is not portable / modular (probably launchd being poorly designed). I am actually a little surprised this didn't affect certification.

But it seems they paid for the UNIX test / registration so I guess they get it. Some Linuxes (i.e Inspur, based on Red Hat) are also UNIX certified. FreeBSD could easily get certified if it was worth the cost which admittedly doesn't provide much benefit.

Since Apple lost interest in servers, I wonder what the benefit of UNIX certification provides. Most typical Apple consumers don't even know what it is.


----------



## astyle (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> But it seems they paid for the UNIX test / registration so I guess they get it. Some Linuxes (i.e Inspur, based on Red Hat) are also UNIX certified. FreeBSD could easily get certified if it was worth the cost which admittedly doesn't provide much benefit.


Well, color me mildly surprised, considering that UNIX is mostly a server OS, and macOS is a desktop OS. Looking at it that way, it doesn't make much sense for Apple to get UNIX certification for macOS, even with the code lineage.


----------



## Vull (Aug 26, 2021)

astyle said:


> Reading through the wikipedia link,  macOS is no longer a proper UNIX. And, it looks like a given FreeBSD machine can achieve SUS/POSIX compliance just by installing some pre-packaged ports. But I'm flabbergasted that macOS was ever considered a UNIX at all - it's about as antithetical to UNIX proper as it gets. Command line takes some getting used to, but macOS totally treats it like something you shouldn't even think of looking at, much less use.


I still have a Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard "Macbook" which was their first SUS registered version. It's considered SUS-compliant because it can compile SUS-compliant code. Using its native bash shell, I've compiled PHP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and PureFTP with it, along with a few other things I can no longer remember off the top of my head. I didn't want to pay for Apple upgrades so I don't use it anymore, but I still have it. It has a hybrid NeXT project XNU kernel which is itself a mashup of the 4.3BSD and Mach kernels. After Apple bought NeXT they spent a ton of money on it and stirred in some additional code from FreeBSD and the Open Software Foundation's OSF/1 kernels. This was a big expensive feather in their cap, and put a lot of distance between Apple and Microsoft's Windows OS which was still pretty hobbyist-level at the time. So XNU -> Darwin OS -> MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, Apple TV, and so forth -- all this stuff still has a bit of BSD in it, and owes a lot to POSIX.


astyle said:


> Well, color me mildly surprised, considering that UNIX is mostly a server OS, and macOS is a desktop OS. Looking at it that way, it doesn't make much sense for Apple to get UNIX certification for macOS, even with the code lineage.


I think it all has much more to do with software standards compliance than it does with any sort of server vs. workstation dichotomy.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 26, 2021)

astyle said:


> Well, color me mildly surprised, considering that UNIX is mostly a server OS, and macOS is a desktop OS.


Back in the day Apple used to do actual server versions of Mac OS X
https://landonf.org/static/images/tiger_vmware_patched.png

Now, they just have some random server utilities installed from the AppStore (yuck). https://www.apple.com/uk/macos/server/

I guess it is quite a good example of the fact that there is rarely such thing as a Desktop vs Server operating system. An OS can be used as either (as many do with FreeBSD).


----------



## astyle (Aug 26, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> Back in the day Apple used to do actual server versions of Mac OS X
> https://landonf.org/static/images/tiger_vmware_patched.png
> 
> Now, they just have some random server utilities installed from the AppStore (yuck). https://www.apple.com/uk/macos/server/
> ...


I actually remember OS X Server... it never really took off, not even in places that were dyed-in-the-wool Mac shops. And, even if an OS can be used as either, it has to be able to handle the duties. An OS may be installed on capable hardware, but it may not be able to properly juggle the threads of process execution. Sure, the software flaw is fixable, but the fix may be difficult to apply. A capable server is, IMHO, a bit of a 'marriage'  between quality hardware and software that can actually take advantage of the hardware features. Progress has been made to separate the two, and you can install FreeBSD on consumer-grade desktop hardware, but the said desktop hardware cannot exactly handle the duties of being a web server, even if you install all the right software. Looking at it in reverse (In a ridiculous theoretical scenario), a Xeon can easily handle a Win98 install, but Win98 is unable to take advantage of all the features a Xeon offers.


----------



## hardworkingnewbie (Aug 27, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> Debian has some weird "sensible-editor" program and weirdness like that.


Debian in total is just weird. This is how it has earned its nickname Debilian. 

Talking about editors - how comes nobody has some love for mighty ed? 





__





						[OT] The Mighty Ed
					





					board.issociate.de


----------



## hruodr (Aug 27, 2021)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> Debian in total is just weird. This is how it has earned its nickname Debilian.


I am running it on a small server, I am not happy, but I do not know a better Linux alternative. Do you know one?


----------



## gpw928 (Aug 27, 2021)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...


+1 for sed(1).  Real men do editing in one pass.

The ICL 1900 had a one-pass "stream editor" called XMED. It used punched cards to edit a text file on disk or drum.  I used it, a lot.  
When I was in a hurry (no time to send coding sheets to the typing pool), I even punched the cards myself on a small portable machine.

ed(1) was an absolute delight by comparison.  I'm still extremely fond of it, and routinely use it in ex(1) mode.

The advantage of learning ed(1) is that the mysteries of sed(1), grep(1), and even the regular expression bestiary of perl(1) unfold in all their glory.


----------



## hruodr (Aug 27, 2021)

On 2.11 BSD:



> ED(1)                General Commands Manual             ED(1)
> 
> *NAME*
> ed - text editor
> ...



On Plan9:



> ED(1)                General Commands Manual             ED(1)
> 
> *NAME*
> ed - text editor
> ...



On FreeBSD 13.0



> ED(1)            FreeBSD    General    Commands Manual             ED(1)
> 
> *NAME*
> *ed*, *red* --    text editor
> ...



It went from "the standard text editor" to "a venerable text editor" for ending just as an "utility" that happens to be "a line oriented text editor".


----------



## hardworkingnewbie (Aug 27, 2021)

hruodr said:


> I am running it on a small server, I am not happy, but I do not know a better Linux alternative. Do you know one?


Well... if it does the job for you all is fine. It's just that for me that Debian had enough times in the past some weird compile settings for some packages, which really was unfun. Also that sometimes what they do consider as "recent" versions are in reality quite ancient. 

If you can install whatever you want: why not use FreeBSD instead? Runs great. If you are stuck with Linux: Devuan is also there, which is Debian minus Systemd. Or instead CentOS, if you want/need something more enterprisy-ish.


----------



## hruodr (Aug 27, 2021)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> If you can install whatever you want: why not use FreeBSD instead? Runs great. If you are stuck with Linux: Devuan is also there, which is Debian minus Systemd. Or instead CentOS, if you want/need something more enterprisy-ish.


It is a small virtual server, preconfigured by the provider, cannot run neither FreeBSD nor OpenBSD.
I have no problems compiling, but packages are practical. I do not want to waste too much time on
the system. Mater of taste if you like it. Debian is more lightweight than other.


----------



## hardworkingnewbie (Aug 27, 2021)

Well as I said upfront:_ Well... if it does the job for you all is fine._


----------



## astyle (Aug 27, 2021)

I used Debian to learn systems/network administration when I was in college - that's what the instructor picked for the class.  We (students and instructor) did have lively discussions about merits of one distro over another, but the point was to learn stuff that is distro-agnostic, like using command line utilities, .conf files, and ifconfig. Some Debian-specific ways to install and configure stuff was unavoidable. I was personally never wild about Debian, but learned a bit about its history, that was interesting to me.


----------



## gpw928 (Aug 27, 2021)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> Or instead CentOS, if you want/need something more enterprisy-ish.


CentOS Linux is dead.


----------



## astyle (Aug 27, 2021)

gpw928 said:


> CentOS Linux is dead.


Distrowatch lists quite a few distros that sprung up to replace CentOS... I never understood what's so 'Enterprise Grade' about *anything* under Linux, because the software functionality is so easy to replicate, for free. Available expertise/brains to solve problems - that's a support package, not some software feature that's exclusive to enterprises.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 27, 2021)

astyle said:


> I never understood what's so 'Enterprise Grade' about *anything* under Linux


Obviously it was all those *enterprise-grade* default background wallpapers


----------



## hardworkingnewbie (Aug 28, 2021)

astyle said:


> I never understood what's so 'Enterprise Grade' about *anything* under Linux, because the software functionality is so easy to replicate, for free.


It's about support and certifications. These distributions are usually supported long time by its creators, and you can get commercial support by them if you want to. A hard requirement for many companies.

Further more some high priced pieces of commercial software is certified to run only on certain platforms and nothing else. So if you really need to run this software, it really narrows down your choice of distribution if you want to get support by the creators of that stuff.


----------



## grahamperrin@ (Aug 29, 2021)

Vull said:


> … If I want word-wrap, usually Pluma or Kate. …





tux2bsd said:


> … kate is good for some stuff …



I'd like to use Kate, but it lacks support for the character composition keystrokes to which I became accustomed after switching from Mac OS X to FreeBSD-based systems. 

So I get things such as this – and this …






– wrong. I can't bear to use the app.



Profighost said:


> the editor coming up as default automatically linked for editing is ee.





kpedersen said:


> https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/share/skel/dot.profile
> https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/share/skel/dot.cshrc
> 
> Hmm. Both profile scripts have the default EDITOR variable set to (n)vi.



Yeah, that's why we have amusements such as this …


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 29, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> Yeah, that's why we have amusements such as this …


Heh, quite true. Though I have also run into so many instances where a colleague has set EDITOR to a GUI editor and got confused why Git has intermittently stopped working. The main culprits are Notepad++, Visual Studio [+code] and Gedit.

Turns out if an instance of the GUI editor is already running, invocation simply sends a message to the original instance and terminates. It doesn't block execution which is what Git / SVN will wait for so instantly fails due to no commit message.


----------



## AngryChris (Aug 29, 2021)

astyle said:


> Reading through the wikipedia link,  macOS is no longer a proper UNIX. And, it looks like a given FreeBSD machine can achieve SUS/POSIX compliance just by installing some pre-packaged ports. But I'm flabbergasted that macOS was ever considered a UNIX at all - it's about as antithetical to UNIX proper as it gets. Command line takes some getting used to, but macOS totally treats it like something you shouldn't even think of looking at, much less use.


macOS is a certified UNIX today, yes. On both Intel and Apple Silicon based computers.

The Register of UNIX® Certified Products (opengroup.org)

It's interesting to note that Solaris isn't here. The whole list is macOS, AIX, HP-UX, EulerOS, z/OS, UnixWare, and SCO OpenServer. EulerOS is a Linux distribution based on CentOS so it's possible that one can call Linux (in some contexts) a "Real Unix(tm)" now. It's interesting seeing z/OS here since it looks nothing like what we think of as "Unix," and yet here it is. But no Solaris? Oracle is really falling down in their stewardship of that venerable OS.

Anyway, I spend most of my working day buried in the command line of macOS. I came to Macs not because they're easy to use or just work, but from the other direction. I came to use Macs because they're spiffy Unix workstations with a great desktop. I don't get any sense that the command line is something you're discouraged from using.


----------



## kpedersen (Aug 29, 2021)

AngryChris said:


> It's interesting seeing z/OS here since it looks nothing like what we think of as "Unix,"


By default it isn't UNIX certified (as you mentioned, it doesn't quite make sense since it is considerably different). However z/OS with *UNIX System Services*, is what was certified I believe.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos/2.3.0?topic=zos-unix-system-services

There is a POSIX layer for z/OS too: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos/2.4.0?topic=ulero-posix

It does make me wonder if they paid enough, could something like Cygwin on Windows get certification?


----------



## grahamperrin@ (Oct 3, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> I'd like to use Kate, but it lacks support for the character composition keystrokes to which I became accustomed after switching from Mac OS X to FreeBSD-based systems.



Support requested.

KDE bug 443242 – Add support for Unicode character composition to Kate and KWrite


----------

