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> Replacing Vi(m) with Nano in the standard install was one of the most important UX decisions made by the major distros in recent years It sounds like you wan

> Replacing Vi(m) with Nano in the standard install was one of the most important UX decisions made by the major distros in recent years It sounds like you want a unix with the UI/UX of a different OS. If a user is coming from a world where editors have all coped MS-DOS edit and its notepad progeny then nano makes sense. I am sure this goes for whatever default editor comes with Mac. If a user is coming from a Unix world where ed, xi and vi were defaults since the beginning then vi makes sense. This isn't arrogance, its history. Ignoring this part and insisting foreign concepts implemented as defaults to accommodate foreign os users from having to learn to use a new platform is arrogance. Unix has a lost a lot of its heritage to this kind of thinking. Back in the day you learned how to use a computer using manuals: man intro. Today you install an os and blindly bump into walls hoping to learn the os using discoverable ui hints then falling back to google when that fails. Treating the ui as a discoverable manual means ui changes break the manual which angers and frustrates users. See the whole MS ribbon debate.

andsoitis 4y ago
Are you arguing that discoverability in user interfaces is bad?
virtualritz 4y ago
Your point seems to assume that reading manuals is the 'right' way to learn about working with a system. While it is the preferred way for myself I acknowledge that it is not for a lot of other people. Furthermore you can easily configure any distro today to 'respect history' as much as you desire by changing a few config files. That doesn't change the face that the average person interacting with a *nix OS today will not share this history. Discoverability in UX is a key concept. The people who came up with what you call 'history' simply had no clue about it. Human Computer Interfaces (HCI, what now broadly falls under the term 'UX') was a subject you studied decoupled from the rest of CS (if the university even offered this). People writing tools where oblivious to UX. And the users where the same folks. I would go as far and say that ignoring this and insisting on these modal editors as defaults because 'history' indeed borders on arrogance for this very reason.
- MisterTea 4y ago
  > The people who came up with what you call 'history' simply had no clue about it. Saying they didn't have a clue is both disingenuous to those who worked hard on these problems and flat out wrong. These programs were written for text terminals running over links who's speed was measured in hundreds or thousands of bits per second. The UI had to be as simple and efficient as possible to enable a decent UX over such slow lines. The UI was sacrificed for the UX. Of course after networks got faster these editors weren't necessary but guess what, they were understood, worked and there by default. And they still are. I see no issue with this and learning vi is actually simple once you RTFM.
zhte415 4y ago
Back in the day you'd write your own driver where need be, and compiled almost everything. I'm quite happy to not be back in the day and will take nano for editing a config file over writing C in Vim.

andsoitis 4y ago

Are you arguing that discoverability in user interfaces is bad?

virtualritz 4y ago

Your point seems to assume that reading manuals is the 'right' way to learn about working with a system. While it is the preferred way for myself I acknowledge that it is not for a lot of other people. Furthermore you can easily configure any distro today to 'respect history' as much as you desire by changing a few config files. That doesn't change the face that the average person interacting with a *nix OS today will not share this history. Discoverability in UX is a key concept. The people who came up with what you call 'history' simply had no clue about it. Human Computer Interfaces (HCI, what now broadly falls under the term 'UX') was a subject you studied decoupled from the rest of CS (if the university even offered this). People writing tools where oblivious to UX. And the users where the same folks. I would go as far and say that ignoring this and insisting on these modal editors as defaults because 'history' indeed borders on arrogance for this very reason.

MisterTea 4y ago
> The people who came up with what you call 'history' simply had no clue about it. Saying they didn't have a clue is both disingenuous to those who worked hard on these problems and flat out wrong. These programs were written for text terminals running over links who's speed was measured in hundreds or thousands of bits per second. The UI had to be as simple and efficient as possible to enable a decent UX over such slow lines. The UI was sacrificed for the UX. Of course after networks got faster these editors weren't necessary but guess what, they were understood, worked and there by default. And they still are. I see no issue with this and learning vi is actually simple once you RTFM.

zhte415 4y ago

Back in the day you'd write your own driver where need be, and compiled almost everything. I'm quite happy to not be back in the day and will take nano for editing a config file over writing C in Vim.