4 ms·

There's a long tradition of just naming things what they are. ed (editor) vi (visual) and emacs (editor macros) all stem from this. They're shorter, but when t

There's a long tradition of just naming things what they are. ed (editor) vi (visual) and emacs (editor macros) all stem from this. They're shorter, but when they were released (70s for all of them), there was a 6 character limit on a lot of systems for command names. Or do you mean why is there a space in the name? That would be annoying for launching from the terminal, I can see that.

alanbernstein 4y ago
There is a much shorter tradition of Ubuntu using dumb names like this, which are descriptive yes, but also too generic. "Vi" is not "just naming the editor what it is", it's a relatively distinct short name that doesn't actually mean anything unless you know the reason for the name (which I did not for years after being introduced to it). At some point recently, Ubuntu stopped using "nautilus" as the name of the file manager, and now it's just called "files". Except, wait, that's some kind of alias, so the process name is still nautilus after you start it. If you don't know the relationship between the GUI name alias, and the literal process name, how are you supposed to figure it out? How are you supposed to search for info or help about "files"? It's too generic.
- ByteJockey 4y ago
  > "Vi" is not "just naming the editor what it is", it's a relatively distinct short name that doesn't actually mean anything unless you know the reason for the name (which I did not for years after being introduced to it). But "visual" is was vi is. That's its grand innovation. It took a lot of it's (non-motion) commands straight from ed, but let you see the entire page of text as you changed it. ed didn't do this because it needed to be conscious of teletype machines. It's a direct abbreviation of ex's "visual" command (and used to just launch you into ex in visual mode), and everyone using it at the time would have known what it meant. > If you don't know the relationship between the GUI name alias, and the literal process name, how are you supposed to figure it out? Oh boy. If you do not appreciate doing deep lore spelunking to understand things, the unix/linux ecosystems are going to be frustrating for you. Half of our stuff still pretends it's operating on those old character based teletype machines I mentioned earlier. > How are you supposed to search for info or help about "files"? Do you have the same problem with the "fork" call?
  - alanbernstein 4y ago
    Good job missing the point completely. None of these things are problems for me, now, a computer professional who spends my entire day in a POSIX terminal. What about the people who don't have that advantage?
    - ByteJockey 4y ago
      > What about the people who don't have that advantage? For the text editor? For general help, they will probably google "gnome text editor help" or "gnome text editor docs" like I just did, which returns >80% results for the new application despite it not existing for very long. I also tested this in a private window in case google is tailoring this to my, generally more tech heavy than normal, history. It immediately came up with this general rundown/intro to the editor: https://itsfoss.com/gnome-text-editor/ https://itsfoss.com/gnome-text-editor/ which covers installation and even how to view the list of keybindings. For more specific features, they'd probably google something like "gnome text editor $FEATURE".
jdauriemma 4y ago
I think vi is short for visual-insert
- ByteJockey 4y ago
  It's short for ex's visual command which would allow you to interactively edit text rather than edit with commands. You didn't have to type the entire command to get it to work, just the first two letters (though the long form did work). vi was originally just a command that forced ex to open in visual mode.
  - jdauriemma 4y ago
    TIL, thank you!
    - ByteJockey 4y ago
      Of course. You have a good day.

alanbernstein 4y ago

There is a much shorter tradition of Ubuntu using dumb names like this, which are descriptive yes, but also too generic. "Vi" is not "just naming the editor what it is", it's a relatively distinct short name that doesn't actually mean anything unless you know the reason for the name (which I did not for years after being introduced to it). At some point recently, Ubuntu stopped using "nautilus" as the name of the file manager, and now it's just called "files". Except, wait, that's some kind of alias, so the process name is still nautilus after you start it. If you don't know the relationship between the GUI name alias, and the literal process name, how are you supposed to figure it out? How are you supposed to search for info or help about "files"? It's too generic.

ByteJockey 4y ago
> "Vi" is not "just naming the editor what it is", it's a relatively distinct short name that doesn't actually mean anything unless you know the reason for the name (which I did not for years after being introduced to it). But "visual" is was vi is. That's its grand innovation. It took a lot of it's (non-motion) commands straight from ed, but let you see the entire page of text as you changed it. ed didn't do this because it needed to be conscious of teletype machines. It's a direct abbreviation of ex's "visual" command (and used to just launch you into ex in visual mode), and everyone using it at the time would have known what it meant. > If you don't know the relationship between the GUI name alias, and the literal process name, how are you supposed to figure it out? Oh boy. If you do not appreciate doing deep lore spelunking to understand things, the unix/linux ecosystems are going to be frustrating for you. Half of our stuff still pretends it's operating on those old character based teletype machines I mentioned earlier. > How are you supposed to search for info or help about "files"? Do you have the same problem with the "fork" call?
- alanbernstein 4y ago
  Good job missing the point completely. None of these things are problems for me, now, a computer professional who spends my entire day in a POSIX terminal. What about the people who don't have that advantage?
  - ByteJockey 4y ago
    > What about the people who don't have that advantage? For the text editor? For general help, they will probably google "gnome text editor help" or "gnome text editor docs" like I just did, which returns >80% results for the new application despite it not existing for very long. I also tested this in a private window in case google is tailoring this to my, generally more tech heavy than normal, history. It immediately came up with this general rundown/intro to the editor: https://itsfoss.com/gnome-text-editor/ https://itsfoss.com/gnome-text-editor/ which covers installation and even how to view the list of keybindings. For more specific features, they'd probably google something like "gnome text editor $FEATURE".

jdauriemma 4y ago

I think vi is short for visual-insert

ByteJockey 4y ago
It's short for ex's visual command which would allow you to interactively edit text rather than edit with commands. You didn't have to type the entire command to get it to work, just the first two letters (though the long form did work). vi was originally just a command that forced ex to open in visual mode.
- jdauriemma 4y ago
  TIL, thank you!
  - ByteJockey 4y ago
    Of course. You have a good day.