"This is madness!" "No, THIS IS TECO!"
(Exchange between two programmers, ca. 1975... probably)
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So, as i have announced in my last phlog entry, i have started
to look into TECO, a real dinosaur in the kingdom of editors.
TECO has its origins as an editor for tape (as in paper tape)
based machines which is also the origin of its name:

Tape Editor and COrrector

And it shows in its syntax: If you have only a very slow method
of data entry, you want to make the commands as terse as possible,
and, oh boy, TECO is terse. 

After i got safe enough with TECO for regular writing and code
editing (a process that took way less time than i have assumed)
i wanted to look into the programming environment TECO has built
in. Yes indeed: TECO is not only a editor, but has also its very
own, Turing complete programming language with its very, very own
syntax.

Lets have a look at a simple example:

!LOOP!QA-1UAQA"GQA=OLOOP


No, i don't had a stroke and bashed onto the keyboard, this is 
valid teco syntax. Lets brake it down:

!LOOP! <- sets the label for a jump point
QA     <- reads the content of register A (like a predefined variable)
-1     <- subtracts 1
UA     <- stores the result of former equation in register A
QA     <- reads the content of register A again
"      <- if
G      <- greater than zero
QA     <- reads content of register A
=      <- prints the content of the former 
O      <- similar to GoTo
LOOP   <- target for the former

Ok, now its obvious was this little snipped of code does: its
decrementing the content of a variable and prints the content
of the variable on each iteration. 

Its not looking THAT bad if you had previous exposure to some
similar terse programming language like APL or K, but if you
are coming from a more "sane" environment i would call it a
good oportunity for brain jogging.