Re: elit.el, a listing generator in the spirit of "@"

[Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <address@hidden>]

   From: Dorai Sitaram <ds26@gte.com>
   Subject: Re: elit.el, a listing generator in the spirit of "@"
   Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 14:21:28 -0400 (EDT)
   Cc: ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu
   
   vi, by no means dead yet, has the same commitment
   to one-letter commands.  

"The *same* commitment"?  Okay, let's try this
little comparison: Write a bit of vi that reads
an integer from the editor buffer, just after the
cursor, then inserts after that integer the
characters "! = " and then the factorial of that
integer (it's okay if it only works for integers
from 0 to 11).  Also, it's tasteful for the code
not to clobber any other global state.

Here's how I would do it in TECO:

[8[9 \u8 1u9 <-q8; q9*q8u9 q8-1u8> i! = $ q9\ ]9]8

Does vi exhibit "the same commitment to one-letter
commands" for this simple task?

--Guy