| Pronouns | it/they |
| ed(1) | the standard text editor |
In my faffing about with text editors, I ran into something kind of funny:
So, there's not a straightforward way to install vi (not vim) on termux. There is, however, a copy of ed in the base install.
And so I started poking at it. Amusingly, it turns out to be a surprisingly decent editor for the constraint that is grumpily poking at a piece of glass with my thumbs.
I'm sure @ed1conf will be delighted.
,n and ,ln are also becoming favorite #ed commands.
Of course, also w !less --wordwrap -N 😅
Russ Sharek
R.L. Dane 
🍵 
David Beazley
Justine Smithiesed(1) that I've ordered a copy of @[email protected] "Ed Mastery". Fun times ahead! 😉@justine @mwl it's so much fun!
In a quiet rebellion, I recently set my $EDITOR to "rlwrap ed". So far I think the biggest thing I've written from scratch in it is the "slide deck"[1] for a talk I'm giving on Thursday:
https://ox.ogeer.org/event/the-next-floss-frontier
[1] actually a small menu system written in bash.
Click to Join the Talk (19:00, 4 June 2026) [https://ogeer.org/ox/meet/tnff/] LLMs are revolutionising coding: * Empowering non-programmers to solve previously intractable problems. * Shovelling toxic agentic asbestos into our digital infrastructure * Making existing professional programmers hundreds of times more productive * Destroying the jobs market and causing layoffs * Finding CVEs and making us more secure * Wasting ecosystem-changing quantities of electricity and water As a professional programmer and lover of Free and Open Software, should I be embracing GenAI or boycotting it? Member Gareth Smith [https://www.kindness.city/blog/] is here to give their thoughts, in a talk and Q&A. ATTENDING Open to anyone in the city, whether a free software expert or newbie. Just turn up or join online [https://ogeer.org/ox/meet/tnff/]; no registration required! If you can't make it, we should also record the talk. As always, our code of conduct [https://ox.ogeer.org/p/code-of-conduct] applies to all attendees, organisers, and speakers, in-person and online. VENUE DIRECTIONS Make your way to Magdalen College Porters' Lodge on the High Street and follow this map [https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Magdalen-Main-Site-July-2021.pdf] (the event is immediately under the room labelled R). In brief, once you have entered the College from the Lodge, take a sharp right and head under the archway into Chaplain's Quad. The Terry Newport Room is in the building facing the archway, on the ground floor (directly under the Sophia Sheppard Room we have used in the past). There will be someone at the door to let you in at the start of the event; external attendees will also be provided a code by the porters for access to both the building and the room. ACCESSIBILITY There is step-free and wheelchair access into the building and to the room, but not to the Lodge itself --- if you require assistance, please ring the bell outside the Lodge and the porters will be happy to assist! There is an accessible toilet on the ground floor, close to the lift and near the room. The room is fitted with an induction loop. More information on accessibility is available on the University Access Guide [https://www.accessguide.ox.ac.uk/magdalen-college#tab-3036696], and on Magdalen College's website [https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/visiting-magdalen-college/accessibility-information/] (which unfortunately does not mark headings correctly, assistive technology users). Please note that the information about toilets in the "Access Guide" must be out of date and the information above takes priority. STICKER EXCHANGE After the talk, we will be (somewhat unrelatedly) exchanging stickers; I (Oliver) have a lot with the Software Freedom Conservancy [https://sfconservancy.org/]'s logo. ATTRIBUTION Cover image [https://betterimagesofai.org/images?artist=WesCockx&title=AIlargelanguagemodels] CC-BY-4.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode] Wes Cockx [https://cream3d.com/] for Google DeepMind.
I came across a problem in #ed where I couldn't change a url, because it was full of slashes, which made the substitution command fail. I popped into vi to make that change, but then thought about how I might do it in ed in the future.
What I realized is that I could split the lines where the URL stops and ends, replace the line that had just the URL itself (pasting in the new URL without having to backslash-escape the slashes), and then re-join the lines.
Of course, NOW I just realized I could've done s,([^)]*),(new_url), instead, but whatevs, lol
gdsrld@Intrepid:~$ ed
a
Here is some text
I need to change [this link](https://example.com/some/stuff/here), ok?
some more text
.
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](https://example.com/some/stuff/here), ok?
3 some more text
2s/(/(\
/
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://example.com/some/stuff/here), ok?
4 some more text
3s/)/\
)/
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://example.com/some/stuff/here
4 ), ok?
5 some more text
2a
https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up
.
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up
4 https://example.com/some/stuff/here
5 ), ok?
6 some more text
4d
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up
4 ), ok?
5 some more text
2,4j
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up), ok?
3 some more text
ed(1) is freaking cool. XDTIRED: Using VSCode like some kind of monster
WIRED: Using (neo)vim like a proper human being
INSPIRED: Using vi/nvi like it's 1979
TRANSLATED: Using ed(1) like it's 1974
P.S., emacs is good, too. Don't get your feathers ruffled, LISPy friends ;)