Brief (stylized BRIEF or B.R.I.E.F., a

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

for Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility), is a once-popular programmer's

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...

in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was originally released for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

, then IBM

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

. The ''Brief'' interface and functionality live on, including via the ''SourceForge'' GRIEF editor.

History

Brief was designed and developed by UnderWare Inc, a company founded in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

by David Nanian and Michael Strickman, and was published by Solution Systems. UnderWare moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1985. Solution Systems released version 2.1 in 1988. In 1990, UnderWare sold Brief to Solution Systems, which released version 3.1. Solution Systems advertised the $195 Brief as a "Program Editing Breakthrough! / Get 20% More Done". In 1990 Solutions Systems brought in Eric Perkins as technical architect and team lead to port the OS/2 version of Brief to the Windows platform as quickly as possible. The end result was to sell the Solution System assets to the highest bidder. Within 6 months, the team of Eric Perkins, Blake Nelson and Jeff Simpson worked closely with David Nanian and Mike Strickman and ported Brief OS/2 to Windows using an MVC architecture. It was this version that was demonstrated at Spring Comdex 1991 to Borland and others, with Borland later purchasing Brief and the full suite of software tools from Solutions Systems. Solution Systems closed permanently after the sale to Borland. Brief is no longer sold by Borland.

Features

The original product features contain:

Brief for Windows features

* All the features of Brief for DOS and OS/2 * The first programmer's editor to make use of the Windows

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

environment * Color coding of language constructs * Multitask within Windows environment * Full use of Windows memory for caching all files and macros * Ability to spawn off compiles to a DOS box without leaving the editor

Popularity

Both the Brief interface and its functionality had a following, and they live on via SourceForge's GRIEF.

Clones

Some Vim and Emacs packages provide Brief functionality. There was more than one program written to provide Brief-like functionality:

Emulators

The Brief keyboard layout became popular and was implemented in or emulated by other editors, such as ''Lugaru Epsilon'', by providing a remapping of the keyboard shortcuts and editor behavior; dBase, an early DOS-day database, also copied this keyboard mapping.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website

TextEditors Wiki: BriefFamily
Windows text editors Borland software DOS text editors