Re: OT: Unicode and vi(m). Was Re: Great SWT Program

In article <1190746148.924189.41270@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<bbound@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 24, 7:06 am, blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This begs the obvious question:

Raises the question? Prompts the question? I guess you're not
the stickler about language usage I thought you might be.

It's a widespread, easily understood usage; unlike, say, "NTTAWWT". ;P

Easily understood, I suppose, but irritating and perhaps a bit
ambiguous to the language-usage pedants, who still think "begs
the question" should retain its older meaning, roughly "engages
in circular reasoning".

what is a "terminal emulator" for, if
not to provide an environment for genuinely archaic software to run?
Apparently, to run recent but intentionally "retro" software. What,
however, is the attraction to deliberately "retro" software that
hearkens back to the bad old days of limited system memory and
performance and the consequent terrible, terse and cryptic user
interfaces?

Hey! Some of us *like* .... Go ahead and tell me I'm weird;
I won't mind.

I can see possibly enjoying such a user interface as a puzzle to be
solved, or a game to be played. It's when it comes time to do
productive work and instead of being able to simply sit down and start
working, this puzzle gets pushed into your face that will take three
and a quarter hours to unscramble, that it gets to be a pain. Puzzles
and games should be separate applications identifiable as such, rather
than masquerading as (or worse, substituting for) the system's window
manager configurator, text editor, newsreader, mailreader, or
whatever. :)

Just being able to sit down and use an application with no training
is appealing. If the tradeoff is that the application is less
powerful, less reliable, less something, than an application
that requires some learning up-front, I don't know, sometimes
I'd rather spend the time learning in order to benefit later.
I'll agree that the two aren't mutually exclusive, but I'm
not sure I've encountered too many tools that I thought were
really both novice-friendly and expert-friendly.

[ snip ]

--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
.