Beginning Shell Scripting

Appendix A. Answers to Exercises

Chapter 2

1. It is good to learn vi and emacs, if only because those editors are available nearly everywhere. Which you choose depends on your preferences. Don't worry if you dislike the choices made by your colleagues. The key is to find an editor that works for you.

   Some criteria that may help choose an editor:

   • Does it work on the platforms you need to use? For example, at a university, does the editor work in the computer labs as well as on the computers you have available where you live?

   • Is the performance good enough? Some editors, especially high-end Java Integrated Development Environments, or IDEs, can run painfully slow on systems without at least 1 GB of RAM.

   • Do you like the "feel" of the editor? This is very subjective but quite important. You may never quite get into the feel of emacs, for example.

2. Vi can be a real pain in the rear end. It can also be very, very productive. Some of the best features of vi include:

   • Its speed. Vi starts fast and runs fast.

   • The dot command (.), which repeats the previous operation. This can be very powerful.

   • The ability to execute a command a number of times, such as 4yy (yank four lines) or 100dd (delete 100 lines).

   • All the enhancements in vim. Vim really creates a new, and much better, editor.

   Emacs can be a real pain in the rear end. It can also be very, very productive. Some of the best features of emacs include:

   • The multiple buffers. You can really make use of separate buffers when performing complex edits.

   • The integrated ...