Minimal skills

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 22:30:41 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 21:23:36 +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> >Again, the primary tool here is a text editor. Advanced editors
> >[...] are able to display and edit shell scripts [...] in a
> >convenient way.
> 
> An important feature is "syntax highlighting".

Definitely true - it helps a lot.



> FWIW there's nothing
> wrong with using a GUI editor and keeping your goal in mind, you
> probably should take a look at IDEs.

Depends. In my experience, IDEs tend to add complexity for no
real benefit, especially in the realm of shell scripts and
Makefiles. However, in more complex projects, especially in
relation to Java and Android development, they can be quite
useful. While some people suggest to _start_ with IDEs, I
would rather say the opposite: Start with simple pieces that
you can understand, see how they work together; understand
the UNIX philosophy. If you have done so, move to a more
complex world where those tools are integrated (the 'I' in
'IDE'), so you know what's happening "under the hood", which
is important to know (!) if you want to be a port maintainer.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

And if your focus is manpages, there's another interesting
option: The Midnight Commander has a built-in manpage viewer,
and its editor has syntax highlighting for manpages (and I
even have my own custom colors for that): Move the cursor
to a manpage source file, press PF4 and edit it; save and
exit, then press PF3 and see how it renders. Of course there
is nothing wrong with utilizing mcedit and mcview in combination
with a FAM (file alteration monitor) so you can see the update
immediately after saving your changes.

"Computer: Alterieren!" ;-)



> Non-GUI editors are more or
> less only required for emergencies, in the worst case only Vi is
> available on UNIXoid platforms, so it's worse to use it for a few
> days, before possibly migrating to another editor. YMMV!

Well, vim in a X terminal is a non-GUI editor, but I would
hardly call it "for emergencies". :-)

Additionally, there's always gvim; it adds icons and hierarchical
menus, and you can still have all the power of regular vim.

And don't get me started of how emacs, being a TUI editor,
is one of the most powerful development environments, because
it is hard for me to explain this because the magic and power
of emacs never really occured to me (I'm too stupid for that),
and I have developed into a "vi person", but that doesn't make
me "look down" on emacs - it's the opposite: it's such a great
and powerful tool that I don't even understand it. ;-)

By the way, FreeBSD has both vi and ee (more obvious user
interface!) in the standard system for decades, so whenever
you have a problem, "ee /etc/rc.conf" is probably the more
convenient thing to do than "vi /etc/rc.conf"...




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...