7 Jan
2020
7 Jan
'20
7:57 p.m.
McIlroy:
[vi] was so excesssive right from the start that I
refused to use it.
Sam was the first screen editor that I deemed worthwhile, and I
still use it today.
Paulsen:
my sam build is more than 2 times bigger than Gunnar
Ritter's vi
(or Steve Kirkendall's elvis) and even bigger than Bram Moolenaar's vim.
% wc -c /bin/vi bin/sam bin/samterm
1706152 /bin/vi
112208 bin/sam
153624 bin/samterm
These mumbers are from Red Hat Linux.
The 6:1 discrepancy is understated because
vi is stripped and the sam files are not.
All are 64-bit, dynamically linked.
7 Jan
7 Jan
8:17 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
No point here, other than showing the size of sam in its native Plan 9 habitat.
ehg% size /bin/sam /bin/aux/samterm
95,514t + 8,764d + 75,868b = 180,146 /bin/sam
145,093t + 28,708d + 59,508b = 233,309 /bin/aux/samterm
The size gives me a better idea of the code complexity. For completeness, here's the
size of vi on my Mac.
bwc-downtown:~ bwc$ size /usr/bin/vi
__TEXT __DATA __OBJC others dec hex
1,585,152 163,840 0 4,295,012,352 4,296,761,344 1001b6000
Good thing the Mac has shared libraries? (Commas added for clarity)
Again, no point, other than a data point.
Brantley
On Jan 7, 2020, at 2:57 PM, Doug McIlroy
<doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
McIlroy:
[vi] was so excesssive right from the start that
I refused to use it.
Sam was the first screen editor that I deemed worthwhile, and I
still use it today.
Paulsen:
my sam build is more than 2 times bigger than
Gunnar Ritter's vi
(or Steve Kirkendall's elvis) and even bigger than Bram Moolenaar's vim.
% wc -c /bin/vi bin/sam bin/samterm
1706152 /bin/vi
112208 bin/sam
153624 bin/samterm
These mumbers are from Red Hat Linux.
The 6:1 discrepancy is understated because
vi is stripped and the sam files are not.
All are 64-bit, dynamically linked. 
8:47 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Tue, 07 Jan 2020 14:57:40 -0500 Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
McIlroy:
A source code comparison
$ cd 2bsd/src/ex # this is a snapshot of May 9, 1979
$ wc *.c | tail -1
17176 56138 331865 total
$ cd $PLAN9/src/cmd/ # what works today
$ wc {sam,samterm}/*.[hc] | tail -1
11366 27236 201666 total
$ cd /usr/src/contrib/nvi # what works today
$ wc */*.[ch] | tail -1
51978 202926 1297043 total # actual count is slightly smaller
I use nvi or acme. Haven't touched sam in ages. Having taught
my fingertips nvi 37 years back, I can edit the fastest in it.
But some things are easier in acme + with its multiple panes
and smaller antialiased fonts it makes much better use of a
retina display. iterm/screen + nvi can't match that.
Until about 95 I used nvi & the Rand Editor (later Dave Yost's
version). The latter was the easiest to use + it did multiple
editing windows much before nvi or vim.
[vi] was so excesssive right from the start that
I refused to use it.
Sam was the first screen editor that I deemed worthwhile, and I
still use it today.
Paulsen:
my sam build is more than 2 times bigger than
Gunnar Ritter's vi
(or Steve Kirkendall's elvis) and even bigger than Bram Moolenaar's vim.
% wc -c /bin/vi bin/sam bin/samterm
1706152 /bin/vi
112208 bin/sam
153624 bin/samterm
These mumbers are from Red Hat Linux.
The 6:1 discrepancy is understated because
vi is stripped and the sam files are not.
All are 64-bit, dynamically linked.
1579
days inactive
1579
days old
2 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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Bakul Shah -
Brantley Coile -
Doug McIlroy