Quick Survey of Useful Editor Features

[Rudy Bazelmans]

For  a class  paper, I  am researching  the capabilities of
programming  text  editors  which  practitioners  consider
useful.  I would greatly appreciate  it if  you could  spend a couple
minutes replying to this message.  

When you reply, please save this message in a file so you can read it back into
your reply.  I will summarize the results if there is sufficient response.

Thanks alot.   Rudy Bazelmans

Which editors have you used? (edt, wordstar, vi, emacs, teco ...)
Which editors do you like? 

For each of the following  editor capabilities,  please indicate your
opinion of the usefulness of the capability by typing  a character at
the end of the line.  Type "y" for yes, "n" for no,  and "?"   is you
are not sure what I mean.  

Full screen editing?
Multiple windows?
Support for simultaneously editing multiple files?
Support for arrow keys?
Use of function keys?
Use of the numeric keypad?
The ability to bind commands to keys of your choice?
Regular expression pattern matching?
Cursor movement over words?
Cursor movement over sentences?
Cursor movement over paragraphs?
Backward cursor movements to match all forward movements?
Undo of any command?
The ability to abort an edit?
Automatic backup of the unedited file?
Automatic backup files during an edit (checkpointed files)?
A tutorial manual?
A reference manual?
A reference card?
On-line documentation?
On-line command summary?
Delimiter matching support for programming (e.g. (){}""...)?
Automatic indentation for control structures (e.g. within if stmts)?
Syntax directed editing?
Built-in extension language?
Macro support?
Automatic initialization of editor at startup?
The ability to bind a command to any key?

Any other features? (Please list them)

Do you prefer modeless editors over modal editors (vi's insert mode)?

Thanks for your help...Rudy
-- 

Rudy Bazelmans - Wang Institute, (617) 967-2609
[apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!bazelmans