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From: badri@ur-valhalla.UUCP (Badri Lokanathan)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: e - the friendly interface to vi. version 1.1
Message-ID: <1085@ur-valhalla.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Oct-87 11:52:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ur-valha.1085
Posted: Sat Oct 24 11:52:13 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 04:13:26 EST
References: <4912@ncoast.UUCP> <937@woton.UUCP>
Reply-To: badri@ur-valhalla.UUCP (Badri Lokanathan)
Organization: EE VLSI Graduate Research Facility, UR, Rochester NY 14627
Lines: 42

In article <937@woton.UUCP> riddle@woton.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle ) writes:
>
>No, I don't want those features myself, but they might make vi a whole lot
>more palatable to some of our beginning and non-computeroid users, who very
>correctly complain about the non-mnemonic nature of vi's command set. 
>Powerful vi may be, but easy to learn it ain't. 
>

When somebody comes to me for help with vi, I find it very easy to
describe its mnemonics, contrary to what Prentiss says:

a:append
c:change
d:delete
i:insert
o:open
r:replace
s:substitute

In fact, at least to me, this is more intuitive than emacs (no, I do
not want to start another editor war, but can anybody tell me why ^X^C
is more clear/intuitive/understandable than :quit in vi?)

Regarding documentation, I find that often people stop at man vi, from
which they learn nothing. When I needed to learn about vi features, I
looked at our 4.2 docs and found nothing. Our 4.1c docs however had
Bill Joy's 30 page description of vi (with Mark Horton's revisions.)
I read it once and since then have had no reason whatsoever to complain
about vi documentation. I have also found detailed vi documentation
in all our 4.3 unix docs (not in the man pages, though :-)

If taught "properly", I believe vi can be learnt in a day, since with
less than 20 commands it is possible to perform many complex tasks.
I am not suggesting that vi is the best editor around; however
I think that most complaints about it such as lack of documentation are
unfair. There is documentation for those who are willing to go to the
trouble of finding it.
-- 
"I care about my fellow man            {) ur-valhalla!badri@rochester.arpa
 Being taken for a ride,              //\\ {ames,caip,cmcl2,columbia,cornell,
 I care that things start changing   ///\\\ harvard,ll-xn,rutgers,seismo,
 But there's no one on my side."-UB40 _||_   topaz}!rochester!ur-valhalla!badri