Seeking an alternative to vi and emacs, I've been giving Acme a try (acme-sac, actually). After reading the articles and man pages and playing with it for a few days, I'll admit I don't see how Acme could be even remotely competitive with vim/emacs for editing code.

Searching the 9fans archive, I found admonitions that you have to learn Acme's very different operating paradigm, but no specific advice. So I'm posting here a list of editor features I miss in Acme. For each item, what is the Acme way of approaching it?

I hope that the replys in this thread will serve as a reference for others trying to learn Acme.

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Wendell xe yahoo.com> wrote:

You have to learn it.

If you want emacs and vi, you won't get them with acme -- besides, you
already had them, remember?

Acme is a very nice tool. But you have to climb the learning curve,
and there's no escaping it.

I don't know how else to put it. Most times, I use acme, but still use
emacs and vi as well. They are different.

FWIW, there's lots of people who think emacs and vi are a joke for
code use, and use the more sophisticated IDEs out there. To each his
own.

ron

i don't see how any of these would be useful
to me. in particular, i especially do not want
a ruler or any ascii-graphical bits. if i want a
typesetter, i'll use one.

Going by your list, I would conclude your code is something in the
vein of Java plus web stuff, maybe even J2EE, or maybe the scourge of
the editing world, Python.

If that's the case and you have to deal with other people's code, Acme
is probably not going to help you very much. In fact Acme will make
the shortcomings of any code you are looking at a lot more obvious.

For me, that's a crucial thing. Keeps my code in check purely through
the text of it.

Acme's strengths lie in navigating, writing and changing code that is
of a certain standard.

Just my thoughts,
Robby

This is all as far as I know how to use acme (mind you I haven't
stretched acme out as far as the other guys might have)...

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Wendell xe yahoo.com> wrote:

Isn't "I don't see how Acme could be even remotely competitive..."
seem a tad harsh? :-) It is just a little different than what you
normally use. Acme is pretty powerful. And how I answer your questions
below might shed light with you on how it is used.

You can't. It always wraps lines around.

Edit ,x/\n/ c/\n/
Undo

:-)

Write shorter lines.

You can go to a specific line with :n and
find out the current line with Edit =

If you really care, you can make a little file called ruler
that contains the text you want and then just open the
file in a window above the one you are editing.
But the Acme way is not to care what column you're on.
Just say no.

On Aug 19, 2008, at 11:52 AM, Wendell xe wrote:

Acme is not an IDE. It is a text editor. If you want these facilities,
implement them yourself. That's what the source is provided for.

Some of your ideas can be implemented as external programs.

If I understand what you are saying I find this is really interesting.
I many of the prople I work with use syntax highlighting editors and I
often find their code difficult to read (I use sam).

In the way that the labs used to keep (I believe) an old alpha system to keep
the code "honest" (64bit and endian clean), I print out my code from
time to time to make sure its readable, to keep it honest.

perhaps its my age.

-Steve

Typically handled by 'guide' files. I.e. a file, open in an acme window,
full of B3-able search strings. E.g.:

foo.c:/^main

Also useful with B2-able command strings:

grep -n 'where_is_this_function_called_from\(' *.c
slay program | rc

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 5:22 PM, Pietro Gagliardi mac.com> wrote:

rest in peace file2.

iru