From: Christopher Croughton <crough45 AT amc DOT de>
Message-Id: <97Nov27.144912gmt+0100.17026@internet01.amc.de>
Subject: Re: vim5.0 for DJGPP
To: ao950 AT FreeNet DOT Carleton DOT CA, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 13:47:56 +0100
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ao950 AT FreeNet DOT Carleton DOT CA (Paul Derbyshire) wrote:

> "Smith A. Cat" (imbe AT primenet DOT com) writes:
> > This is an unofficial announcement of the unofficial Homepage for VIM
> > for DOS!
> 
> What the heck is that? A detergent?

Since he told you in the next paragraph, what's your point?

> > VIM is the improved version of the vi editor that probably shipped with
> > your linux distribution (usually version 4.6 is shipped).
> 
> ACK! NO! THE VILE EDITOR!

Wrong.  Vile is a different implementation of vi (as is elvis).  Vim is
not related to any of the others, it is a re-design and new implementation.

> > Version 5 of VIM supports syntax highlighting, excellent online help,
> > and a *macro* language that should be quite comfortable to GNU software
> > users.
> 
> Vile with online help? This I gotta see.

So download it.  It compiles "out of the box" (no official executables
are available as yet, since version 5 is still in Alpha).

> > version 5 release *p* will compile *right-outta-the-box* with the base
> > distribution of DJGPP, and everything seems to work splendidly.
> 
> Well I should hope so!

I would /hope/ so with lots of things, but few programs actually do (J-Lib 
springs to mind).

> > release *q* MAY have a bug which causes insert mode to get "stuck",
> > making it impossible to quit the program! (release *p* does NOT have
> > this bug).
> 
> Every version of Vile I've ever seen has bugs where you can get stuck
> unable to edit or even unable to exit.

Quite possibly, I've never used vile.  From my experience vi, elvis and
the released versions of vim do not have this problem.  As I said, vim
version 5.0 (all lettered variants, now up to 'r') is an Alpha test version,
the beta version is expected very soon.  And as ALPHA software it has already
proven to be far less prone to crashes than the RELEASED commercial software 
from certain big companies.  I've been using vim 5.0 alpha versions 
exclusively for all my editing for several months, on Dec Alpha, Linux and
on DOS, and it has crashed only once in that time.  By comparison, when I
was using emacs on the Dec Alpha I had to reboot (yes, reboot a Unix machine!)
at least every couple of weeks to get rid of emacs crash remains.

> > find out where to get VIM5 at:
> > 
> > http://www.primenet.com/~imbe
> 
> Nah, I'd rather not. I have RHIDE >;-)

So stick to whatever makes you happy.  Some of us like an editor which doesn't
require several megabytes of disk and RAM to run, and which has an interface 
common to every Unix machine (OK, there possibly are a few Unix machines
vi, possibly even some without ed, but very few) and a lot of non-Unix ones
as well.

Chris C