[ltp] linux web publishing tool ??

[Tod Harter]

> Well there's always two sides to the story...  If you once get used to
> vi (whose commands are definitely not intuitive) it rapidly becomes a
> VERY useful tool.  The commands are simple, powerful and do exactly what
> you want them to do.  They might not be where you think they should be,
> but once they're in your head they work wonderfully.  I've used vi since
> maybe '88 and wouldn't part with it for anything these days.  Sure, I
> use other editors when my needs aren't plain text editing (Word docs or
> HTML pages), but for fast and powerful editing of text vi is awesome.
> Show me another editor that harnesses the power of regular expressions
> to do powerful search and replace functions in a few keystrokes.
>
There are 2 sides to the story, but compare the way nano works vs the way vi 
works. I bet 1 weeks wages that you can put virtually anyone that can type in 
front of nano and they can figure it out in 5 minutes flat. Conversely you 
need to be some sort of rocket scientist to figure out vi. That to me is the 
difference between good UI and bad UI. Its not like nano is harder to use 
either once you're expert with it. It holds up perfectly well against vi. 
Honestly I just mostly think vi is antique. It was a first pass at designing 
a screen based editor and it lived in a world with constraints that most of 
us don't experience anymore (limited keystroke environments). Even in that 
environment I suspect better designs are possible. 

> I'm sure your same arguments could be used to knock PhotoShop too... but
> that's still undeniably a great tool for people who master it.
>
> Rob

-- 
Tod Harter
Giant Electronic Brain
http://www.giantelectronicbrain.com