Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 11:42:50 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Roelof Osinga" <roelof@nisser.com>, "Jason Halbert" <jason@jason-n3xt.org> Cc: <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: vi Message-ID: <001201c0f113$fc324740$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <3B22198F.CB4908A3@nisser.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Roelof Osinga > >> I'm just curious of it's advantages over joe or pico or any of the >> others. > >It was available, the rest wasn't <g>. The edge over emacs was its size >and simplicity. Not to mention its weird attraction on programmers ;). > There's more to it than that. vi is very clever about minimal use of cursor control characters during the file edit. It is possible and comfortable to use vi to edit a file when connected to the UNIX system with no more than a 300 baud modem connection. While few people use 300 baud modem connections these days, if one day you find yourself telneted into a UNIX system that's located in deep South America, behind 3 overloaded 56K links and a satellite connection, then vi is the only thing that your going to be able to use to do any visual editing, all those fancier editors that waste characters drawing menus and such on the screen will be unusable. The actual editing process itself is also very fast because vi extends the minimal character paradigm to the commands themselves, many are no more than 2 keystrokes. The big disadvantage of vi is that it's "not like all the other editors out there" which I suppose makes it "non-intuitive" (someone one day is going to have to explain how human intuition has anything to do with technology, Fagh!) The other editors make things very easy for newbies with features that get in the way of experienced people. vi makes things very easy for the experienced person by subtracting all the gingerbread that makes it easy for newbies to use. As a result, vi's popularity tends to be directly proportional to the experience of the admin. ;-) Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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