[SunRescue] Should an editor require you to think?

[BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

> > in our culture feel comfortable with natural stream of consciousness writing
> > in a word processor.
> 
> None of Vi, Pico, or Emacs are Word Processors the way that term is
> generally used.  They are, in the case of the first two, strictly text
> editors.  The Emacs Operating Environment is not just a text editor, but
> it doesn't have a worthwhile word processor (amateur desktop publishing
> is more acurate).  For editing config files, any of these editors is
> just fine, but for writing things like a resume, or a report for school,
> they're really not the right tool for the job.

Why is the ``word processor'' approach so important to UNIX?

What's wrong with something cannonical like vi+troff or vi+TeX for
being the right set of tools for things like resumes, reports, books,
etc?  I have used them for upwards of 20 years for everything from
manpages to books to slide generation for talks, etc.  Although they
are not fancy, they do work, but do require, also, some proper mindset
orientation.

I suspect the problem lies in something to the effect that the new
generation of computerists are pointy-clicky types, and don't have
a proper grasp on things like markup approaches to document prep.
It is more of a mindset thing than anything else.  That is a little
harsh, but, consider that some folks aboard were not even born when
vi and troff were born.  Where did these later folks learn computers?
Not on command line boxes like we did, but on pointy-clicky boxes.

That tends to shade how they think on UNIX.  That is not good, nor bad,
nor ugly, but just the way it came to pass.  Trying to get pointy-clicky
types oriented to commandline approaches, is not really an easy thing.
I tried it a couple of times with our secretarial crewe.  YIKES!
Where did mouse go?  Where do I click on adding the charts?  Etc.
They just learned to think in different patterns.  It is a different
mindset, entirely.

Shudder.... I hope I won't ever have to install Word on my servers.
Well, we have WP8 and we have StarOffice, maybe that will come to
pass, someday, too.....

Bob

(Now back to a busted 4/330 with.... you guessed it.... a bad nvram chip!)