9 ms·

vi is not Vim.

by nsajko 11y ago

vi is not Vim.

baldfat 11y ago
Vim stands for vi improved and started on the Amega in 1991 so almost 25 years old. Certain people still use vi which was an improvement over ed August 1969 (Though I have been known to use ed in scripts from time to time).
- Syssiphus 11y ago
  Nonetheless he is right. As far as I remember Vim is based on the code of an editor that was similar to vi, and not vi itself.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    Vi is a standard not a specific implementation. There was an original Vi, but since it's a standard unix tool, it got cloned by everyone who ever made a unix clone after it was added to BSD. Vim can be invoked to conform to the vi standard, although usually it only gets used that way when a vim user is on an unfamiliar machine.
    - Syssiphus 11y ago
      Interesting view. I've never seen vi as a standard. But it makes sense.
      - bch 11y ago
        Technically something can't call itself Unix(tm) without vi(1) [0][1] [0] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xcu/vi.html http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xcu/vi.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification
  - baldfat 11y ago
    Well I made his short two word answer into an explanation.
  - groovy2shoes 11y ago
    I believe it was Stevie (a vi clone for the Atari ST).
- groovy2shoes 11y ago
  If you ever wind up booting the OpenBSD ramdisk kernel (typically used for installation and system rescue), the only editor available is ed. Luckily, if you're reasonably comfortable with vi, you'll find that most of the 'colon commands' work, and the other commands are pretty familiar ('i' for insert, 'a' for append, etc.). If you're an OpenBSD power user, it behooves you to have a hardcopy of the ed manpage handy ;)
  - blueblob 11y ago
    The OpenBSD ramdisk doesn't provide busybox vi?
    - na85 11y ago
      But ed is the standard Unix text editor.
    - groovy2shoes 11y ago
      Nope. The OpenBSD ramdisk doesn't provide busybox anything. I just double-checked on 5.8. I also doubt that they'd ever switch to using busybox given their aversion to the GPL. They also have their own tool (crunchgen) that packs a bunch of binaries into a single "Swiss army knife" executable.
coldtea 11y ago
Actually it is. Not only in the sense that Vim is a clone of vi (with added stuff), but more specifically in that in lots of distros the vi command is just vim (with some special flags). Old BSD vi today is, and has been for over a decade or so, dead.
- lottin 11y ago
  It's not dead, it's finished. It's got all the features of the original vi, therefore mission accomplished. Software doesn't need to be developed ad-aeternum to remain 'alive'.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Software doesn't need to be developed ad-aeternum to remain 'alive'. Actually it does, as architectures, APIs, etc change, and if the software doesn't catch up, it can get impossible to run it, or it will need BC compatibility layers, to run 5-10-15 years down the line. Not to mention big changes in how we use the software, e.g. the need to handle utf-8, which didn't exist in Bill Joy's time. >It's not dead, it's finished. It's got all the features of the original vi, therefore mission accomplished. Huh? "got all the features of the original vi"? We ARE talking about the original vi.
    - lottin 11y ago
      I thought we were talking about nvi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi
      - groovy2shoes 11y ago
        Afaik, nvi actually doesn't have all the features of the original vi. According to Wikipedia, "The aspects of nvi that are still marked preliminary or unimplemented are, for the time being, likely to remain that way." Moreover, nvi had been developed for a little while after the various BSDs stopped syncing with upstream due to licensing issues after version 1.79. I honestly think the reason no one develops it anymore is because no one cares. It's good enough for use in emergencies, and beyond that, it's either good enough for the people who use it, or they just use a more featureful editor.

vi is not Vim.

by nsajko 11y ago

vi is not Vim.

Vim stands for vi improved and started on the Amega in 1991 so almost 25 years old. Certain people still use vi which was an improvement over ed August 1969 (Though I have been known to use ed in scripts from time to time).

Syssiphus 11y ago
Nonetheless he is right. As far as I remember Vim is based on the code of an editor that was similar to vi, and not vi itself.
- adrusi 11y ago
  Vi is a standard not a specific implementation. There was an original Vi, but since it's a standard unix tool, it got cloned by everyone who ever made a unix clone after it was added to BSD. Vim can be invoked to conform to the vi standard, although usually it only gets used that way when a vim user is on an unfamiliar machine.
  - Syssiphus 11y ago
    Interesting view. I've never seen vi as a standard. But it makes sense.
    - bch 11y ago
      Technically something can't call itself Unix(tm) without vi(1) [0][1] [0] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xcu/vi.html http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xcu/vi.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification
- baldfat 11y ago
  Well I made his short two word answer into an explanation.
- groovy2shoes 11y ago
  I believe it was Stevie (a vi clone for the Atari ST).
groovy2shoes 11y ago
If you ever wind up booting the OpenBSD ramdisk kernel (typically used for installation and system rescue), the only editor available is ed. Luckily, if you're reasonably comfortable with vi, you'll find that most of the 'colon commands' work, and the other commands are pretty familiar ('i' for insert, 'a' for append, etc.). If you're an OpenBSD power user, it behooves you to have a hardcopy of the ed manpage handy ;)
- blueblob 11y ago
  The OpenBSD ramdisk doesn't provide busybox vi?
  - na85 11y ago
    But ed is the standard Unix text editor.
  - groovy2shoes 11y ago
    Nope. The OpenBSD ramdisk doesn't provide busybox anything. I just double-checked on 5.8. I also doubt that they'd ever switch to using busybox given their aversion to the GPL. They also have their own tool (crunchgen) that packs a bunch of binaries into a single "Swiss army knife" executable.

coldtea 11y ago

Actually it is. Not only in the sense that Vim is a clone of vi (with added stuff), but more specifically in that in lots of distros the vi command is just vim (with some special flags). Old BSD vi today is, and has been for over a decade or so, dead.

lottin 11y ago
It's not dead, it's finished. It's got all the features of the original vi, therefore mission accomplished. Software doesn't need to be developed ad-aeternum to remain 'alive'.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Software doesn't need to be developed ad-aeternum to remain 'alive'. Actually it does, as architectures, APIs, etc change, and if the software doesn't catch up, it can get impossible to run it, or it will need BC compatibility layers, to run 5-10-15 years down the line. Not to mention big changes in how we use the software, e.g. the need to handle utf-8, which didn't exist in Bill Joy's time. >It's not dead, it's finished. It's got all the features of the original vi, therefore mission accomplished. Huh? "got all the features of the original vi"? We ARE talking about the original vi.
  - lottin 11y ago
    I thought we were talking about nvi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi
    - groovy2shoes 11y ago
      Afaik, nvi actually doesn't have all the features of the original vi. According to Wikipedia, "The aspects of nvi that are still marked preliminary or unimplemented are, for the time being, likely to remain that way." Moreover, nvi had been developed for a little while after the various BSDs stopped syncing with upstream due to licensing issues after version 1.79. I honestly think the reason no one develops it anymore is because no one cares. It's good enough for use in emergencies, and beyond that, it's either good enough for the people who use it, or they just use a more featureful editor.