Vim 7.2 Released

sanguisdex writes "After fifteen months of work: a brand new Vim release! This is a stable version. There are many bug fixes and updated runtime files. The only new feature worth mentioning is support for floating point. Upgrading from a previous version is highly recommended: a few crashing bugs and several security issues were fixed. For the details see the announcement or go directly to the download page."

Comments

in addition to the new release...

[yagu]

O'Reilly released the latest new version of their vi book, (now "Learning the vi and Vim Editors") last summer with seven new chapters devoted to vim!

Vi has two modes ...

[Anonymous Coward]

beep constantly, and break everything

Am I crazy?

[liebeskind]

Am I crazy - or has vim 7.2 been out for a while?
The date on the announcement is from August 8, 2009.
Also:
~$ vim --version
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.2 (2008 Aug 9, compiled Nov 11 2008 17:20:43)

Re:Am I crazy?

[gardyloo]

The date on the announcement is from August 8, 2009.

      Eek! The Large Hadron Collider's effects have started leaking to other slashdot dimensions!

Re:Am I crazy?

[SpaceLifeForm]

Smells like an EMACS conspiracy.

My Time Machine Works!

[Spasmodeus]

I've gone back in time six months!

have you guys heard about this?

[gEvil (beta)]

Hey! Check out this post I came across while browsing usenet. Have any of you heard anything about this? Sounds like it might be kinda cool.

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT
Keywords: 386, preliminary version
Message-ID:
Date: 5 Oct 91 05:41:06 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 55

Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying
to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you
finding it frustrating when everything works on minix? No more all-
nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just
for you :-)

As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of a
minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage
where it's even usable (though may not be depending on what you want),
and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution. It is
just version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already), but I've successfully
run bash/gcc/gnu-make/gnu-sed/compress etc under it.

Sources for this pet project of mine can be found at nic.funet.fi
(128.214.6.100) in the directory /pub/OS/Linux. The directory also
contains some README-file and a couple of binaries to work under linux
(bash, update and gcc, what more can you ask for :-). Full kernel
source is provided, as no minix code has been used. Library sources are
only partially free, so that cannot be distributed currently. The
system is able to compile "as-is" and has been known to work. Heh.
Sources to the binaries (bash and gcc) can be found at the same place in /pub/gnu.

ALERT! WARNING! NOTE! These sources still need minix-386 to be compiled
(and gcc-1.40, possibly 1.37.1, haven't tested), and you need minix to
set it up if you want to run it, so it is not yet a standalone system
for those of you without minix. I'm working on it. You also need to be
something of a hacker to set it up (?), so for those hoping for an
alternative to minix-386, please ignore me. It is currently meant for
hackers interested in operating systems and 386's with access to minix.

The system needs an AT-compatible harddisk (IDE is fine) and EGA/VGA. If
you are still interested, please ftp the README/RELNOTES, and/or mail me
for additional info.

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be
out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got
minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed doing
it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for
their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and
modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.

I'm also interested in hearing from anybody who has written any of the
utilities/library functions for minix. If your efforts are freely
distributable (under copyright or even public domain), I'd like to hear
from you, so I can add them to the system. I'm using Earl Chews estdio
right now (thanks for a nice and working system Earl), and similar works
will be very wellcome. Your (C)'s will of course be left intact. Drop me
a line if you are willing to let me use your code.

                Linus

PS. to PHIL NELSON! I'm unable to get through to you, and keep getting
"forward error - strawberry unknown domain" or something.

Re:have you guys heard about this?

[Abreu]

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix.

Everytime I see this, I don't know whenever I want to laugh or cry...

Re:have you guys heard about this?

[gEvil (beta)]

That's the beautiful thing about it. It's just as true today as it was 18 years ago.

Re:have you guys heard about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that within the year all desktops will run be running this amazing, new technology!

Please...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work daily with humongous text files. I have found no other editor that performs as well when you work with text files that are in several gigabytes range. All the other major shell text editors cough instantly (tried for instance Emacs, it loaded one of those files for 30 minutes before I got bored of waiting) and most of the shiny new GUI editors are even worse. For instance gedit practically dies instantly on the stuff I work with.

There is a place for vi*. You use them when the tool has to work. They are pain in the ass to use, but they manage things others do not.

Re:Please...

[Waffle Iron]

If the files you are editing are *that* big, then a text editor is not the correct tool.

Ok. Let's assume that you've been given a plain text file of that size, and you need to modify something in it. What tool do you suggest?

I can think of the stock answers:

"Load it into a database" - lots of hassle and probably overkill

"Filter it with a custom script" - maybe, if you're a programmer

"sed" - could work, but why bother if vim works? Personally, I can never remember the sed syntax.

"Don't use text files that big" - Assumes facts not in evidence

Any other suggestions?

Re:Please...

[lewiscr]

"sed" - could work, but why bother if vim works? Personally, I can never remember the sed syntax.

*sputters* You can't remember the sed syntax? It's the same as vi.

Mostly likely, if you're editting a several gig text file, you're doing bulk edits, not single edits. ala:

:%s/hamburger/cheeseburger/g

Well, here's the sed script to do that:

sed 's/hamburger/cheeseburger/g' < infile > outfile

They're so similiar, I suspect that they're related... yup. The Sed History says that "Sed was first written in 1977 as a stream adaptation of the ed editor".

And since vi is just a fancy tui on top of ed, you already know sed.

Why bother? Just because vi can edit large files, it's still painfully slow. Large and/or many edits are very slow to apply and undo. The same commands executed in sed can be done order of magnitude faster. I believe (but have never taken the time to prove it) that it's related to the undo buffer. And yes, my anecdotal evidence took place on machine with enough RAM that no swapping was required for vi or sed.

Now if you want to get really productive, we can talk about taking your vi commands, wrapping them in a sed script, then running it through sed2perl. Oh the Thinks you will have Thunk.

Re:Please...

[Mad Merlin]

There is a place for vi*. You use them when the tool has to work. They are pain in the ass to use, but they manage things others do not.

Not really, I use Vim in preference to every other editor. Once you're used to Vim you can edit at least 10x faster than with an "easy" GUI editor.

we learned one thing from this story posting...

[Leto-II]

We now know for sure kdawson is not a Vim user.

Re:Do they have a real vi compatible mode?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry. That was me. I asked for color. My bad.

Re:In Soviet Russia..

[Jurily]

:q!

Great News!

[PPH]

I've been waitti^H^H damn! ^H^H ^Q ^[ .... :w :q :wq :wq! ^d
exit X Q ^C ^? :quitbye CtrlAltDel ~~q :~q logout save/quit :!QUIT
^[zz ^[ZZZZZZ ^H man vi ^@ ^L ^[c ^# ^E ^X ^I ^T ? help helpquit ^D
man quit ^C ^c ?Quit ?q CtrlShftDel "Hey, what does this button d..."

Note from a VIM user...

[sd.fhasldff]

come on now, it's a great editor for deleting things from files!

Go to the character of interest, hit x. Go to the line of interest and hit dd.

Of course, if you want to do more than delete, you are better off with notepad.

I was very tempted to use my mod points to mod this TROLL, but I try staying far away from anything that even smells like "modding down stuff you disagree with", so I'll Feed the Troll, instead...

How do I search-replace SMARTLY (i.e. with regexp) in Notepad?

Does notepad support syntax highlighting?

Does notepad support "jumping" to the last position when reopening a file?

Does notepad support auto-indentation? Language-dependent auto-indentation?

Does notepad support multiple buffers? (cut-n-paste)

Does notepad support variable tabstops? Using spaces as tabs?

Does notepad support collapsing/folding sections into a single line?

These features are just a tiny fraction of what I use in VIM *every single day*. Notepad does none of these. I used to use emacs, because the insert, command and visual modes confused me. It really didn't take long to get used to, however, and I generally prefer VIM now (although I'm perfectly happy using emacs instead).

I feel I should now come up with a car analogy, comparing VIM and Notepad, but the only word that comes to mind is Yugo. And that would be Notepad, in case you were wondering.