Thesis Writing Help By Professional Team of PhD Writers

[Steve Firth]

Didn't exist, I used ed to write my thesis, and ROFF.

[Huge]

I expect teco was available, given that emacs started as a set of teco macros.

[Tim Streater]

So *that* is why it's so s**te! Well I never.

[Owain]

Although I didn't do a thesis, my university's best offering at the time seemed to be vecce

Owain

[Huge]

Ooh, a religious war!

(Actually, I've never used emacs, so have no opinion on it. I regard learning a new text editor with the same joy as open heart surgery, so only do it when I must, and of the half-dozen I know, I hate them all for one reason or another. (Current top dislike; the way gedit won't open files with what it regards as unknown characters in them)).

[Tony Bryer]

Yes, I know. Waiting for a 'quiet day' (a legal fiction, your honour)

[Huge]

Nonsense. This is only true for Mickey-Mouse editors. Unless you're only talking about Mickey-Mouse functions - start the editor, delete a line, save the file and exit.

[Tim Streater]

I have all my source files (about 100) permanently open in TextWrangler, since I'm more or less continually working on them. If I restart the machine TW remembers what was open and reopens them all, a handy feature that the OS does these days for all apps.

And mickey-mouse editing is what one does, 99% of the time. What sort of actions do you consider to be non-Mickey?

[Bob Eager]

I did actually use teco to write parts of mine...but only in upper case on a teletype...so I still needed the typist!

[Huge]

Searching and replacing non-printing characters. Searching for a string and joining the line containing it to the next/previous one. Having the ability to call external tools on selected pieces of text (and the ability to choose what those tools are). That sort of thing.

[Huge]

[Tim Streater]

Mmm. TW search/replace should be able to do all that. Plus it can compare files and do synchronised scrolling of the two source windows.

I know TW can run external scripts etc but I've never looked into that.

But it still only took me 5 minutes or less to be productive, which is the salient point. If it takes me 20 mins of poking round on the Internet to quit something that makes it bit-bucketable in my book.

[Andy Champ]

Mine wasn't technically a thesis, as I only did Bachelor's. But Teco feeding into Runoff printed on a daisywheel... I couldn't do bulk entry on a teletype, the keyboard was too hard.

Things _have_ got better! (whaddya mean, coloured syntax highlighting?)

Andy

[Huge]

But it isn't what you said.

And neither is that.