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From Wikipedia:
Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files, documentation files and programming language source code.
From Wikipedia again:
Richard Stallman founded the GNU project in September 1983 with an aim to create a free GNU operating system. Initially the components required for kernel and development were written: editors, shell, compiler and all the others
From these quotes, it seems that a text editor is required in an OS.
When I used Windows, there were only a few occasions that I had to actual edit any system files myself, and I would have to believe that the average user never ends up opening a text editor to edit system files.
In Unix/Linux, and maybe Windows, you can edit a text, such as appending, file using commands without even opening a text editor, so a editor would not even be necessary. I'm not sure if you can put text in the middle of a file, so perhaps that's where a editor would come in place.
Is it the operating system that uses the text editor in the background for system uses? So, whenever a file needs to be changed, the OS will in the background invoke something such as$emacs someFile and then edit it, without us seeing, if there is some way to hide it.
Update: Are the downvotes because it's a very obvious answer, or because the question is inappropriate?
Abdul
Posted 2015-07-13T14:00:06.293
Reputation: 121
1I didn't downvote but I would expect that the votes are because the question is not a good fit for superuser. Any answers will be primarily opinion based and would lead to long protracted discussions rather than one clear best answer. – EBGreen – 2015-07-13T14:06:40.427
@BigChris That is why I asked, as the quotes made it seem necessary, but in you rarely see standard Windows/OSX users ever edit system files. – Abdul – 2015-07-13T14:08:20.457
@EBGreen Isn't this question straight forward though? It would either be system or human. BigChris's comment answered it with system, as he said the system doesn't need an editor. – Abdul – 2015-07-13T14:11:45.263
1Humans and software use the text editors. Note that on Windows, most applications use installers to write data to the windows registery, and store their configuration files per user, because windows is mostly for end users. Linux does not have a central registery, and is commonly used as a server, so applications and services are configured in Text documents that are global to the server (eg configurate is per server, not per user). Either way, having a text editor is one of the earliest requirements computers ever had, and as a result, every modern os implements one or more. – Frank Thomas – 2015-07-13T14:19:30.590
@FrankThomas Chris answered my question, and you explained it further. Thanks. – Abdul – 2015-07-13T14:24:48.440
So Chris deleted his answer – barlop – 2015-07-13T14:41:48.097
@barlop He essentially said that the system doesn't need an editor to edit a file. – Abdul – 2015-07-13T14:43:25.737
@Abdul yes that's right. Stallman is very eccentric "philosophical" person.. he was calling GNU an operating system when it was just software some no kernel, because he was going to write a kernel. It's a bit like if you write some software packages which you call XYZ and you say XYZ is an operating system you just haven't written the operating system part yet. He wanted to calll it GNU but people knew it as Linux so he compromised as Gnu/Linux which also means in his mind, GNU OS with the linux kernel. He has since written Herd (the kernel he intended) so that would be GNU/Herd – barlop – 2015-07-13T14:44:44.607
@barlop So the GNU OS project basically had all the components an OS needs, which I'm reading about currently, which included a text editor, but it didn't have the heart, the kernel. – Abdul – 2015-07-13T14:47:25.080
@Abdul I don't think that technically an OS necessarily needs any of the things the GNU OS project had. Linux existed without it before GNU found Linux. Though it'd be a nuicance to use without them. The OS is really the kernel! So Stallman's definition was/is very eccentric. Everything other than the kernel is extra stuff. Everybody thought of the OS as Linux and still think of the OS as Linux but with some GNU utilities. Some(not stallman) may look at GNU/Linux as GNU software suite with Linux Kernel. – barlop – 2015-07-13T14:47:59.717
Sorry I deleted my comment; I re-read the question and saw that it related to system files - some of which are editable, some are not (binary/compiled) - I misunderstood the context. The question is about text editors, so I'll assume system configuration files that can be edited by users. An editor is clearly for human use as it provides a means of a user creating, seeing and/or editing a file's contents. A system would not invoke the editor to then use the file - this would be difficult and very inefficient as the system could simply use the file contents directly from storage. – Kinnectus – 2015-07-13T14:52:06.167
@BigChris well, indeed, computer programs don't use text editors to edit files. I don't think the OP was saying they did. – barlop – 2015-07-13T14:53:34.713
@barlop I did not think they did, but I was unsure, due to the emphasis the 2 quotes I provided seemed to put on text editors, yet I rarely see humans use the text editor provided for essential things on Windows. So this made me think if humans don't use it, then it must be the system. However, FrankThomas' answer differentiated between the need in Windows and Unix/Linux – Abdul – 2015-07-13T14:57:52.393
You seriously have rarely seen humans use the text editor provided for essential things on windows.. What humans have you been watching? Your grandmother? Chimps in the zoo? It's used by technical people on windows all the time, and of course on *nix by anybody that knows how to use a command line .. Even on Windows by people that don't even know how to use a command line. – barlop – 2015-07-13T14:59:58.603
I suppose it might be less common on Windows than it was, because you no longer have boot.ini editable..Now that may be partly edited with clicking special buttons that make the edits. And prior to that you used to have autoexec.bat and config.sys in DOS and of course windows doesn't have that. An essential OS file, yeah humans use a text editor. There are still many things though. Editing the HOSTS file for example. – barlop – 2015-07-13T15:02:28.467
@barlop Let me clarify my comment; I have rarely seen non-technical people, who are the majority, ever use the text editor to edit essential files. That is why I was wondering how important the text editor is...to Windows. – Abdul – 2015-07-13T15:03:57.783
@Abdul well if technical people use something and non technical people don't then if anything, it should tell you that it's important. If the system has a serious problem then who is going to look at it and deal with the essential files. The technical people obviously. Do you think the technical people do things of no important to the computer and the people that do the important essential stuff for the computer to function, are graphic artists? – barlop – 2015-07-13T15:05:36.167