Re: web inherits UNIX console?

[Michal Suchanek <hramrach%centrum.cz@localhost>]

On 30 September 2011 06:22, Mouse <mouse%rodents-montreal.org@localhost> wrote:
>>> This reinvents some of the worst problems of GUI interfaces:
>>> specifically, unscriptability and the inability to manipulate things
>>> that cannot be displayed.
>> Something that I can manipulate that I cannot display---is that a
>> riddle? :-)  Seriously, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
>
> Anything that does not have a useful display form.  A compiled
> executable and a multi-gigabyte file of pretty-much-anything are the
> first two examples that come to mind.
>
> Traditional Unix does not display such things without sokme kind of
> explicit comkmand to do so; it displays references to them - most
> often, names of files they are stored in.
>
>> Regarding (1), the UNIX principles: you don't actually get to use
>> your preferred tool, and lots of tools are less specialized than they
>> may appear.  $EDITOR is a great example of this.  The essential
>> $EDITOR functions (move cursor & viewport, insert & delete text) are
>> replicated all over the system.
>
> They are.  But rather than have a half-dozen editors, a few of which
> you can replace and most of which are specialized to be especially good
> at editing for a particular purpose, you propose to replace them all
> with one editor which you can't replace at all and which, since it is
> necessarily one-size-fits-all, is at best mediocre for most tasks.

I totally disagree with this. Most specialized editors are totally
lame and get away with it only because
1) most are anyway so there is no high standard to look up to
2) they are minor part of a program doing something completely different

I would totally replace them with $EDITOR if I could.

Thanks

Michal