you've probably never: 1. been forced to use a system with nothing but vi, ed, and ex, which was common for commercial unixes until the 90's 2. had to make th

you've probably never: 1. been forced to use a system with nothing but vi, ed, and ex, which was common for commercial unixes until the 90's 2. had to make thousands of edits to thousands of files in minutes without access to a scripting environment or other more advanced tools 3. had to edit and debug a program under the above conditions on a super laggy dialup internet connection vi is a force multiplier for operating a terminal under duress in adverse network conditions. that's literally why it was developed. i say it does an even better job of it under good, modern conditions and unless you look at it through that lens, it's never going to make much sense to you. and those adverse conditions still pop up now and then, especially with wireless networks and public cloud shitstorms. "[Bill] Joy explained that the terse, single character commands and the ability to type ahead of the display were a result of the slow 300 baud modem he used when developing the software and that he wanted to be productive when the screen was painting slower than he could think." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi