Re: Assisting Elise S with editing grub.cfg

Quoting Alan Davis (alan3davis@gmail.com):

I am not a programmer. I have not learned vi. Nano is enough for config files. Vi reminds me of the Dvorak keyboard: an entire different muscle memory adventure. Someday maybe.

This special usefulness of Emacs is overlooked in most of the Vi vs Emacs debates. One is an exacto knife, the other is a swiss army knife. Or more. IMHO one size does not fit all.

The range of available *ix text editors for config files, "competent sysadmins", and "special usefulness" for programmers/non-programmers sort of raises a related interesting point:

Is it better to learn new technologies -- when nobody may be immediately around to guide you though them ....

1) by Taking Baby Steps ?

-or-

2) by the Sink or Swim Method ?

(non-original terms :-\)

Similar in a sense to choosing a Beginners' Linux distribution, IMHO, Nano is super-easy to learn by oneself as a first Baby Step (when using the commandline/terminal) without an explicit need for taking a tutorial such as Michael P's fine vi tutorial/guide/quickrefs at http://www.mpaoli.net/~michael/unix/vi/

Emacs, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, can cause first-time users to rapidly Sink like deadweight when they can't figure out how to Save files or even Exit the editor (happened to me too, as in "where the heck is my darn META key for crying out loud?? Arrrrgggh, stupid editor!!!!")

It's mandatory, or it really should be, for both beginner and lapsed Emacs users to take the inline Emacs tutorial ASAP!

But I'll tell you what..... after going through all the uphill struggles to finally grasp using Emacs in all its modes and customizations, it's just incredibly efficient for

so many things...

vi/vim are -- as Michael P continues emphasize for vi -- excellent more intermediary editors that are universally found on all *ix's (at least for 'vi'/'nvi' ;-)

Not exactly Baby Steps, since someone learning vi (or vim) still has to learn the few most common modes and the ':'/'ex' sequences out-of-the-box (i.e., via some sort of guide or tutorial).

But far enough away from being Thrown into the Deep End and thus Sinking by being able to essentially get up and running to perform simple tasks with minimal guidance and not getting lost in all those never-ending multiple sequences of META+<something> and/or CTRL+<something> that Emacs relies upon.

Also see part of the first posting, below the xkcd link.

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 11:16 PM 'Rick Moen' via BerkeleyLUG <berkeleylug@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Quoting goossbears (acohen36@gmail.com):

> Given vim's direct relationship to vi, that immediately brings to mind
> the widely known xkcd 'Real Programmers' cartoon https://xkcd.com/378/
> ;-)

Previously, I wrote:

Instead of using the slightly more difficult to use 'Vi' editor, might I suggest that 'Nano' is and would have been a better choice to use in this case? For the one or two of you reading this who weren't aware of this already, "Nano is the default terminal-based text editor in Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions" [1].
~~~~~~~~~ quoting [2] ~~~~~~~~~~~
[Nano is] part of a family of text editors that includes the more robust (but significantly more complex) vi and emacs. For most uses, nano is easy to use and it doesn't require a significant learning curve. Just as with the 1980s-era text-based word processors like WordStar, nano offers a dynamic two-line command reference at the bottom of the terminal window.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Using 'nano' likely also fulfills the role (again, in the particular case with Elise's simpler editing tasks) of the KISS Principle (see [3], [4], [5] and similar references.)

References/excerpts
[1]https://itsfoss.com/nano-editor-guide/
[2]https://www.lifewire.com/beginners-guide-to-nano-editor-3859002
[3]http://principles-wiki.net/principles:keep_it_simple_stupid
[4]https://people.apache.org/~fhanik/kiss.html
[5]https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/kiss-keep-it-simple-stupid-a-design-principle
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-Aaron

Time-Dilation Formula: observer time = proper time / sqrt(1 - (v/c)^2)