this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Programmer Humor

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I regret nothing. Say what you want.

Edit: I just saw the two typos. If you find them, you're welcome to keep them.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ed is the most user unfriendly text editor ever created.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It is a text editor from the 50s or 60s, so right off the nat you aren't getting a product you're at all familiar with. Its been a while since I cracked it open but from memory you can only view one line of code at a time. You have to specify the line of code that you want to view, the commands are esoteric, and there is no help available in the application itself. As I recall it was pretty much immediately replaced with better editors, such as og vi.

Its sort of like programming in sed. Sure, you can, but why?

From Wikipedia:

Known for its terseness, ed, compatible with teletype terminals like Teletype Model 33, gives almost no visual feedback, and has been called (by Peter H. Salus) "the most user-hostile editor ever created", even when compared to the contemporary (and notoriously complex) TECO. For example, the message that ed will produce in case of error, and when it wants to make sure the user wishes to quit without saving, is "?". It does not report the current filename or line number, or even display the results of a change to the text, unless requested. Older versions (c. 1981) did not even ask for confirmation when a quit command was issued without the user saving changes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(software)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes, was poking fun at Ed's only error message being a relatively unhelpful ?.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago
[–] rbos 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I remember ed! He's the talking horse from that old black and white show, right?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No one can code with a horse, of course. That is of course, unless the horse is the famous mr Ed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Perfect! Though we shouldn't give Netflix and co any ideas on more classics to dredge up and ruin.