Subject: The best ascii text editor

15. *****
 Q: What is the best text editor?

 A: These are difficult questions, especially since almost every
user is more or less biased in favor of the program he/she is best
familiar with. In the case of text editors these personal views
easily flare up into what is appropriately termed as "editor wars".
But also objectively speaking there is a good rationale for
defending the editor one is used to. Almost each editor involves a
great number of predefined (or customizable) key combinations, which
at first are difficult to learn, but very natural after one has
gotten used to them after extended exposure. This means, that
changing over to another editor (even a considerably better one)
will involve a high cost of learning. This explains the ardent
defensive positions users tend to take, if they feel that their
hard-learned habits come under threat when someone else puts down
their favorite editor (let alone insists on changing over to their
own editor choice). This is how most editor wars break out.
   Once these cautionary words being said, let me tell you about my
own text editor choices. I would prefer to use only a single editor
to make life easier for me. This is has not been possible since I
have needed editors for several operating systems. These systems
have been MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and at an earlier stage Sinclair QL
QDOS.
   Since I write quite a lot of programs in Turbo Pascal, this has
dictated my choice of the MS-DOS text editor to editors with
WordStar like commands. At one early stage I even used Turbo Pascal
3.02A as my text editor besides as my compiler. Hence the obvious
choice for me has been ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/goldies/qedit3c.zip
SemWare's QEdit Advanced shareware editor later renamed to The
SemWare Editor Junior ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/editor/tsejr4.zip. It
has very similar commands to Turbo Pascal's integrated editor. There
are just two features missing in QEdit which I would like to have.
One is the lack of markers to return easily to a spot. The other is
that I would dearly like to have the possibility of right-adjusted
text. These aside, Qedit has many nice features including
configurability, small size (an important consideration for
laptops), and useful macro programming (not very easy, though). I
also like and need its potential to copy and move columns besides
just rows. I won't make the error of saying here that there aren't
better text editors, but I can recommend this editor as one good
choice. Incidentally, I've written a few macros for QEdit myself.
They are available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsqed18.zip from
Garbo anonymous ftp archives.
   SemWare has made a new editor based on QEdit. It is called The
SemWare Editor. I have had it since its prerelease version. By the
updating of this item it is in version 2.5. It has an advanced macro
language setting right the few inadequacies of QEdit. TSE is the
editor I use the most (including writing this). A demo version is
available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/demo/tsetd2.zip. I have written
a number of macros for TSE in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tstse16.zip
(for version 2.0) and ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tstse17.zip (for
version 2.5).
   In the VAX/VMS environment I earlier used its EDT editor, which
is well suited to MsKermit terminal emulation with the PC keypad
layout. But when we acquired a Unix Sun 4 to our computer centre as
our main computer, I simply had no other viable choice than to learn
to use MicroEmacs. Along with many other former EDT users I still
intensely hate MicroEmacs (even if I am now fully conversant with
it). But as MicroEmacs is available for VAX/VMS I have dumped the
EDT editor in order to get by with fewer text editors. I even
occasionally use MicroEmacs on my PC for special tasks (e.g. very
long lines) which QEdit cannot handle. The point I want to make here
is that the portability of MicroEmacs has been important enough for
me to overcome my aversion of its user interface, even if I still
feel it is overly complicated to use. The VAX/VMS environment is no
longer relevant, however, since I have long since stopped using
other main frames than those running on Unix.
   And what I have written here is typical of editor discussions.
Even if I've tried to be analytical, in retrospect this text much
more emotional than my average text.
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