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From: wcs@ho95b.UUCP (Bill Stewart)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.usg
Subject: Re: fun bug in vi
Message-ID: <422@ho95b.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-May-85 19:28:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ho95b.422
Posted: Fri May 24 19:28:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 09:05:49 EDT
References: <124@iclbra.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 22

Wayne Allston at ICL had some comments about the "vi-startup-mode" feature:
	1)  It's undocumented
	2)  It also accepts ei: and vx: in addition to ex: and vi:
	3)  It's more of a misfeature than a feature (paraphrased.)

Well, 2) is clearly a bug, and "somebody" ought to fix it.   I just checked
the source for version 3.9, and the offending lines of code are still there
in checkmodeline().

However, the startup mode is not undocumented, and it's not a misfeature.
Admittedly, the documentation isn't in the manual page, it's in the file
vax/ex.news in the source directory, but this applies to any features added
since the vi 3.5 version came out.  (Hope you've got source! :~)

Whether it's a good feature is somewhat of a religious argument, but I like
it.  However, it would be nice to have a modelines/nomodelines option that
you could set in $EXINIT, to make it safer to edit important files, or other
files where the magic sequences might occur.
-- 
			Bill Stewart	1-201-949-0705
			AT&T Bell Labs, Room 4K-435, Holmdel NJ
			{ihnp4,allegra,cbosgd,vax135}!ho95c!wcs