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luke8086 • today at 2:19 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

OP here, I just paraphrased the announcement:

> To ease the transition for new users, #NetBSD -current now includes an alternative editor to vi(1) and xedit(1) in its base system, atto(1). https://man.netbsd.org/atto.1

> It is a modeless screen-based editor similar to nano, pico, xedit, or emacs. It is only 48 kilobytes, making it suitable for inclusion in the rescue system.

I think it's fair to call it beginner-friendly, in context of BSD and vi, but maybe indeed it shouldn't be a part of the title.


Replies

SoftTalker • today at 2:47 PM

I can't imagine a beginner really knowing what is going on in nano.

Every time I get launched into nano/pico on a new system I find it very confusing. To use the help menu you need to know that ^-X means Ctrl-X and M-X means Alt-X. Why "Write Out" and not "Save"? And when I "Write Out" I'm offered DOS format or Mac format, and options to Append or Prepend (not even sure what that does).

It's completely bizarre if you're used to something like Notepad or Word.

➕ show 6 replies
dang • today at 5:07 PM

Ok, we've removed beginner-friendliness from the title above. It's still interesting!