5 ms·

Couldn't both of those complaints apply to, say, Vim, the golden child of HN?

by jff 14y ago

TallGuyShort 14y ago
One big difference is that Vim has been a de facto standard for a very long time, and it's ubiquitous - you can trust just about any server to have vim installed - so the investment to learn it has a much more guaranteed pay-off.
- dantiberian 14y ago
  Unless you work in an all windows environment :(
  - shousper 14y ago
    My condolences. I know your pain.
- dkd 14y ago
  Solaris has only vi. Not vim. :-)
- atsaloli 14y ago
  I agree. In fact, vi is a standard UNIX utility - see the POSIX-1.2008 specification: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/vi.html#tag_20_152 http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/vi... vim is the most popular implementation of vi, with lots of added bells and whistles I'd say learn vi first; then learn the vim bells and whistles. I have resources for learning vi at http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi.htm http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi.htm I'm really into improving efficiency and I enjoy teaching people how to use vi. The class materials are publicly available and are based on Bill Joy's original paper introducing vi: Basic vi: http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/ http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/ Advanced vi: http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/advanced.html http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/advanced.html My next vi class will be in Columbus, Ohio at Ohio Linux Fest in a couple of weeks (http://ohiolinux.org/olfi2012/classes/editing-with-vi http://ohiolinux.org/olfi2012/classes/editing-with-vi)
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    There is rarely any point learning vi if you are only ever going to use vim. (On many systems, vi is just a symlink to vim anyway). If I had a nickel for every time someone justified not using vim's features by invoking a bizarre imaginary scenario where they were using vi to twiddle bits on a downed snowflake machine, I could buy a few fancy coffees.

Couldn't both of those complaints apply to, say, Vim, the golden child of HN?

by jff 14y ago

Couldn't both of those complaints apply to, say, Vim, the golden child of HN?

One big difference is that Vim has been a de facto standard for a very long time, and it's ubiquitous - you can trust just about any server to have vim installed - so the investment to learn it has a much more guaranteed pay-off.

dantiberian 14y ago
Unless you work in an all windows environment :(
- shousper 14y ago
  My condolences. I know your pain.
dkd 14y ago
Solaris has only vi. Not vim. :-)
atsaloli 14y ago
I agree. In fact, vi is a standard UNIX utility - see the POSIX-1.2008 specification: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/vi.html#tag_20_152 http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/vi... vim is the most popular implementation of vi, with lots of added bells and whistles I'd say learn vi first; then learn the vim bells and whistles. I have resources for learning vi at http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi.htm http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi.htm I'm really into improving efficiency and I enjoy teaching people how to use vi. The class materials are publicly available and are based on Bill Joy's original paper introducing vi: Basic vi: http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/ http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/ Advanced vi: http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/advanced.html http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/advanced.html My next vi class will be in Columbus, Ohio at Ohio Linux Fest in a couple of weeks (http://ohiolinux.org/olfi2012/classes/editing-with-vi http://ohiolinux.org/olfi2012/classes/editing-with-vi)
- slurgfest 14y ago
  There is rarely any point learning vi if you are only ever going to use vim. (On many systems, vi is just a symlink to vim anyway). If I had a nickel for every time someone justified not using vim's features by invoking a bizarre imaginary scenario where they were using vi to twiddle bits on a downed snowflake machine, I could buy a few fancy coffees.