[plug] Editor choices: the keys to the matter

[Christian]

On Sun, Oct 01, 2000 at 12:49:38PM +0800, BillK wrote:
> gotta take issue with that - as someone who has (and has to) use vi on
> both a number of unix's including different Linux distributions, vi is
> anything but standard once you get past a few basic sequences. 

I never said it was standard (it is "the standard" but not necessarily
standard).  But, I think you're wrong.  Picking up the "Learning the vi
editor" book from O'Reilly, you'll see that the majority of the book is
not tailored to *any* particular version of vi (there are three separate
chapters later in the book on three common specific implementations,
vim, elvis and vile).  Anyone could pick up this book, read three or
four chapters and know enough about vi to use it highly efficiently on
virtually ANY vi implementation.

> Everbody, distro's as well as individual users sets it up differently. 

I've never seen it set up substantially differently.  All the basic key
combinations, which make it such a good editor, remain the same.

> It is also hard to use/learn, and the learning curve is made all the
> more difficult because if you dont use a command everyday, its hard to
> find in the extensive help.

The help in vim is pretty easy to use.

> vi fails from trying to be everything to
> everybody, and fails, paritcularly with new users.  It seems highly
> inefficent UNLESS one has spent many hours researching and writing
> customized macros for your own purpose.  

What are you talking about?  vi doesn't try to be everything to
everybody at all.  It especially doesn't try to be anything special to
new users.  It's highly efficient without ANY "customized macros" at
all.  I think maybe you've got it confused with emacs!

> No, vi is a good programmers
> editor, useful because it is on just about every unix system, but in my
> opinion, and many many others (just see what flak this gives on mail
> lists when it comes up!), vi is past its useby date as the default
> editor - seems a good opensource project to come up with a standard
> editor interface that takes into account human interaction, newbies (how
> does a newbie edit a file on his fresh installed Linux system with
> something as non-intuitive as vi? - look at the number of questions to
> lists on this subject!).  The best solution may be a macro on top of vi
> (havent seen one thats any good yet!), but something needs to be done as
> Linux is moving from nerdland into mainstream.

I think that an easier editor probably should be the default on some
distributions but vi is still the most efficient editor out there.

> Now having started an editor war, I'll sit back and watch who bite's

Are you saying that what you posted was a troll?  Given that your
criticisms (with the exception of the "vi is hard for newbies to use and
shouldn't be default" one) don't seem to make any sense at all to me,
then I guess it could be...