Web Software

[Joe Johnson]

vi cannot be judged in the light of today's editors.

While many of the features seem to be difficult to use and somewhat quirky, it was a HUGE improvement over the editors that were available.

Remember that it has actually gotten harder to learn since we are all using PC keyboards to pretend that they are VT-100 terminals keyboard (or whatever your particular school happened to buy). The terminal keyboards actually had an arrow to the left on the h key, an arrow down on the j key, etc. These clues are missing from PC keyboards which makes the business of learning vi even more cryptic.

But, just because I cut my teeth on vi, doesn't mean that I am blind to its flaws. I was glad to see it go. About the only time I use it now is when I rlogin to get to some UNIX box 3 states away and I want to make a quick change to my .login file without the bother of using ftp. At such times I am glad my fingers still know the way around the old dinasour.

Joe J.