Editor wars, every platform has one. Emacs vs. vi for Unix and for RISC OS, it's StrongED vs. Zap. Despite the fact that people have for years (at the best of times) rabidly ranted on the subject, sorry we mean, discussed the following question for literally years, people still need to ask, "which is better?" This very question is being asked on iconbar.com's frontpage this week/month/century and you're invited to vote on which you think is best in their simple poll. What really is the point? Before you start, this isn't a dig at NoughtPointOne, far from it.
We welcome the new online poll because it's a change in topic. A change in conversation. Something else to talk about, hopefully, when everyone finishes voting for StrongEd. You see, from what started out as innocent chatter about expected RISC OS machines and current RISC OS machines, on drobe and usenet, progressed rapidly into bitter arguments and other commentary. Yeah, 'cos we all need that. It really kicked off when drobe editor Peter Naulls raised a personal concern over technical support for Omega users as a developer considering the end userbase; it's not like he was trolling nonsense. Yes, we mean you Tarquin.
Oh, this isn't going to be a "let's just be excellent to each other for the good of the platform" speech because we can leave that sort of thing to John Cartmell but we could point a finger at the real reason why no one really knows what's going on and we're unfortunately left to guesswork; you know what we mean.
Ok, actual news now
Recent drobe comments have turned around with some readers uncovering some interesting information, such as the Iyonix motherboards on sale from Castle are only spares for current Iyonix users and a select group of users linked to arcsite.de have gotten hold of a few Omegas. We say select because they've found that the Omega runs RISC OS 4.33 without too many problems (or at least that's what we've been told). So sensible discussion can take place and we love it so. As for Zap vs. StrongEd, there's nothing to discuss. StrongEd wins hands down, naturally.
Links
Ok, if the above waffle didn't make you smile, maybe this will. When a friend first showed me this, I thought the site had been hacked.
Comments / Flames welcome
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