Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!iscuva!carlp
From: carlp@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Carl Paukstis)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: vi-like
Summary: In defense of vi
Message-ID: <2386@iscuva.ISCS.COM>
Date: 5 Mar 89 10:15:41 GMT
References: <12406@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <958@starfish.Convergent.COM>
Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, WA
Lines: 33

In article <958@starfish.Convergent.COM> jerry@starfish.Convergent.COM (Gerald Hawkins) writes:
>However (no flame intended) why the heck would you want
>such an abomination?  vi is horrible and unfriendly ...  I've used lots
>of editors and vi is almost the worst.

EDITOR WARS!
I use vi because I work on lots of different systems, and lots of different
terminals.  It's a least-common-denominator solution.  I can sit down at
practically any UN*X system, with practically any terminal, and use
essentially ALL the features of vi.  I don't have to get PD source code and
'make' it (for a 5-minute editing job on a mchine I'll never see again).  I
don't have to carry a keyboard-definition file around with me, or customize
it for a braindamaged terminal.  If I did much PC work, I suppose I'd have
to carry around a diskette, but that's not currently a problem.  (I can
also use 'ed' on UN*X and 'edlin' on the PC, if I have to.)

As for "unfriendly", vi is hard to LEARN, not hard to USE.  I assure you, I
can be quite productive with vi - especially for quick jobs.

Sure, vi has some drawbacks; mainly it's outweighed by special-purpose
solutions.  BRIEF is quite good on the PC, and I tend to use Micro-EMACS
for larger, prolonged, complex multi-file editing.  But I can't compile on
my PC with M-E loaded; and I don't want to start it up again to correct a
semicolon - so I fall back on vi.  And that tends to increase my reliance
on vi:  I use it all the time, so I know the keys and commands.  I still
have to look things up for EMACS if I want to do anything complicated.  And
if I'm using somebody else's key bindings, I'm totally screwed.  Why is the
sequence 'dw' to delete a word "unfriendly"?
-- 
Carl Paukstis    +1 509 927 5600 x5321  |"The right to be heard does not
                                        | automatically include the right
UUCP:     carlp@iscuvc.ISCS.COM         | to be taken seriously."
          ...uunet!iscuva!carlp         |                  - H. H. Humphrey