ed

#include 

int main( void )
{
    char *strin;
    for(;;)
    {
        printf( "- " );
        scanf( "%s", strin );
        printf( "?\n" );
    }
}

I saw this in a Holy War that somehow got cross posted to comp.sys.mac.advocacy a while back... Thanks to sbeitzel, who informs me that he has seen a copy of the posting dating from 1991, attributed to Patrick J. LoPresti.

When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi and Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like, 'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time. Ed, man!

!man ed

ED(1)     UNIX Programmer's Manual    ED(1)

NAME
     ed - text editor
SYNOPSIS
     ed { - } { -x } { name }
DESCRIPTION
     Ed is the standard text editor.

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed because it's ED!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x  1 root          24 Oct 29  1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t  4 root     1310720 Jan  1  1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  5.89824e37 Oct 22  1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system I administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which:

1. Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG;
2. reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and
3. RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem$ ed
?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all. ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!! TEXT EDITOR.

When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard. Ed is for those who can remember what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

?

• Tom Cavanaugh as Ed Stevens
• Julie Bowen as Carol Vessey
• Lesley Boone as Molly Hudson
• Josh Randall as Mike Burton
• Jana Marie Hupp as Nancy Burton
• Michael Ian Black as Phil Stubbs
• Mike Starr as Kenny
• Rachel Cronin as Shirley
• Justin Long as Warren Cheswick
• Martin Chatinover as Dr. Jerome

ed n.

"ed is the standard text editor." Line taken from original the Unix manual page on ed, an ancient line-oriented editor that is by now used only by a few Real Programmers, and even then only for batch operations. The original line is sometimes uttered near the beginning of an emacs vs. vi holy war on Usenet, with the (vain) hope to quench the discussion before it really takes off. Often followed by a standard text describing the many virtues of ed (such as the small memory footprint on a Timex Sinclair, and the consistent (because nearly non-existent) user interface).

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

The first thing to note about ed is how it deals with errors. ed was designed to be run on teletype printout terminals, so it is very brief in reporting errors (to save ink). If you do something wrong, it prints out "?" but does not say specifically what you did wrong. To find out, use the 'h' command. eg.

?
h
Invalid address

You can invoke ed with a filename to load (ed filename.txt) or to start with an empty file (ed). If you start with an empty file you must first use the 'a' (append) command to enter some text before you can do anything. eg.

a
in ad 2101 war was beginning
what happen?
cant sleep, tustin will eat me!
.

While entering text like this you are in "insert" mode, similar to insert mode in vi. To finish entering text type a line with only a period (".").

While in ed you always have a particular line in the file you are currently at. When you jump to a different line it usually shows the contents of that line. Here are some ways to jump to other lines:

• Entering the line number: This jumps to particular line in the file. eg. 27 to jump to line 27.
• $ jumps to the last line in the file. $-1 jumps to the next to last line in the file, $-2 to the second to last, etc.
• - Jumps to the previous line.
• + Jumps to the next line. You can also simply type an empty command (hit enter)
• You can use regular expressions to search within the file. This is also similar to vi: use /regexp/ to search forward and ?regexp? to search backwards.
• If you lose track of where you are, typing a "." will redisplay the contents of the current line.

You can perform various operations on the current line, for example use regexps:

.
cant sleep, tustin will eat me!
s/tustin/clown/
.
cant sleep, clown will eat me!

There are various other things you can do to work on lines:

• d deletes the current line.
• c goes into insert mode, replacing the current line.

q will exit ed. You may have to type it twice if you have a file with unsaved changes.