From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-08-14T18:43:38+09:00
Subject: Re: About ruvi

On Saturday, August 14, 2004, 7:26:08 PM, Alexander wrote:

>> For example, my attempt just then to write a file /tmp/xyz resulted in
>> an exception.  There appears to be no recovery mechanism.  After
>> starting afresh, I discover there's no macros, no command-line
>> history, not even a "set" command, no :normal, no :help, not even
>> search and replace!  Undo is broken, 'gg' doesn't do anything, neither
>> does 'dd', 't', 'f', ...  'w' and 'b' wrap the document, 'p' doesn't
>> place the cursor correctly, 'C' is buggy.  I would go on but it just
>> crashed for the 5th time because I pressed the down arrow.  (Funny, it
>> liked the down arrow a second ago.)

> i'm not sure what version your using exactly... w/b wrap
> the document on purpose. :set works. search and replace i 
> find stupid anyway. undo broken? no recovery? what sort of
> broken ruby implementation are you running it with? :P gg 
> works dd works t and f i find unimportant. in what case is 
> p broken? no command line really so why have a command line 
> history?  :P macros are in latest .11 version as i said in 
> the email starting this thread... anyways. all trivial stuff.

ruby 1.8.2 (2004-05-16) [i386-cygwin], with latest available ruvi gem
(0.4.10).  I don't think Ruby's the problem, although it's probably
not a stable release.

A linewise paste with 'p' should put the cursor at the beginning of
the first newly created line.

>> I point these out not to complain or any such thing (lest dross order
>> me to send patches or some such dross); rather to suggest that all the
>> fixing and implementing required to get it anywhere near vim will
>> require lots of time, and most importantly motivation.  I'm confident
>> that wrapping vim would start to look easier.

> total disagreement, but then thats logical really given
> that i started and its as good as complete...

>> It's an awful scripting language, but people have used it to create
>> powerful features, like remote editing (over FTP/SSH, etc.) and text
>> alignment.  So long as someone else is writing it, it's great!  Given
>> this, you shouldn't say it's not useful.

> free speech... its just not useful enough. just like i
> would say perl is a useless pile of crud. vimscript is
> a useless pile of crud. :)

"Free speech" is a lazy defense.  You might as well just say "I feel
like saying X, so I'm damn well going to say X."

Anyway, using Ruby as an extension language will kick vimscript's
butt, so I guess you've got a point, even if I have to make it for
you :)

>> Seriously, though; a text editor extensible in Ruby is a great thing,
>> so I don't care if you drop the whole "vim clone".  Should you ever
>> need reminding what a bold claim that is, though, just drop me a line.
>> :)

> still don't find it a bold claim...

How's this for a bold claim, then?  ruvi is a vim clone that
implements about 1% of vim's functionality.

> would "best editor ever written with vi/vim bindings subset"
> make you happier? :P

A "vi clone with arbitrarily unsupported features" would be most
accurate :)

>> P.S. I'd *really* *really* *really* like for you to place the
>> indentation code into a separate library that could be reused by other
>> editors (typically as an external command).  Any chance of that?

> sure i'll look into seperating it out.

Awesome.  Get it into a gem/RPA/RAA/RubyForge library and I'll help
maintain it.

Cheers,
Gavin