VIM: HP-41 syntax and file type plugin

[Geir Isene]

For those who use VIM to write HP-41 programs.

The syntax highlighting file:

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1360

The file type plugin:

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1361

[Howard Owen]

Great! A Linux geek in love with the 41. I identify! 8)

Now, how about an emacs minor mode? 8)

[Geir Isene]

emacs? Are you trying to start a flame war here?

>:-)

[Howard Owen]

Perish the thought!

No one could seriously argue that the One True Editor could be compared to something as trite as vi.

8)

Edited: 21 Sept 2005, 11:09 p.m.

[Geir Isene]

VIM is the power of simplicity compared to the bloated mammoth Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Space ;)

[Howard Owen]

I'm going to stop now. 8)

My background is as a systems administrator. In that role I've had to become proficient at both vi and emacs. I may be somewhat unusual in that I will use one or the other editor depending on what I want to do. So, for example, when I need a quick edit of a text file or script, I use vi. (VIM, elvis, nvi, "real" vi, depending on OS.) If I'm writing a larger Perl or C application, I use xemacs for the perldb and gdb integration. So I actually don't participate in the editor flame wars.

[Mike T.]

The 'one true editor' was of course TECO...

Mike T. (Ducking quickly!)

[Howard Owen]

Yes, and Gosling wrote an EMACS version in TECO. I used TECO briefly on a VAX at school. I think you are right about the One True Editor appelation being applied to it first. But EMACS is at least the spiritual heir of TECO, since it's an editor you can write as you use it. Nowadays I don't spend my entire online life in EMACS like I used to. USENET, mail, shell, c compiler. debugger, what more could you ask for? But, like I say, I was a sysadmin, so I had to use vi in order to support vi users. And I needed to know ex and ed also, in case I ended up in single user mode on a Sun 3 or BSD|Ultrix VAX. So I got into the habit of using vi for quick edits. It did start up a lot faster than EMACS. I also found the regex implementation more to my taste. But I didn't start to seriously dig into it until it wasn't really vi anymore, but one of several vi clones. Mainly, that was vim. Vim has lots of interesting stuff hidden inside. I like their syntax highlighting in Perl better than the standard emacs scheme. But highlighting the searched for text in obnoxious brown everywhere it appears on the screen is bogus. ":nohl" does away with it, but I haven't discovered how to turn it off entirely, or preferably modify it to be less intrusive.

Oh, gosh, that's a long ramble on Unix editors on an HP calculator site! But there is a calculator angle, besides Geir's worthy vim mode for the HP41. That has to do with another vi clone - elvis. This is the defult vi on Slackware, which I have installed on my old Compaq Pentium 75 box. That's where I have my HP-IL card and where I run EMU41 and EMU71 to interface my various HP-IL capable machines. Elvis has a great hex/ascii mode it turns out, that it invokes by default whenever there is 8-bit content in the file you edit. So I've been using it to study the HP-75 BASIC file format.

There, the OB calculator reference is accomplished! 8)

[Geir Isene]

The VIM syntax and ftplugin are now a tad more worthy (version 0.2 adds support for alpha labels).

[don wallace]

Hi Geir. Why not use "Forth in a can"? (check my website).

DW

[Geir Isene]

We've had "Starting Forth" and "Thinking Forth". Now we have "Canning Forth". I'm running to the post office...

[Howard Owen]

Coming Forth,

Back and Forth

Excessive Forth (LISP required for that one.)