NOVA - For the NeXT Workstation/NOVA - For the NeXT Workstation.iso/Documents/Others/viCourse+/vi-love.txt

Text File | 1992-11-21 | 15.9 KB | 385 lines

First, it works.

It works on high speed and low speed terminals.

It works on smart terminals, dumb terminals, and glass ttys.

It works with function keys, arrow keys, meta keys... and just plain
ASCII.

It works on every brand of terminal known (Even Tektronix storage
scopes).

Second, it's predictable.

It has a consistent command set.

All commands take a consistent set of arguments.

You can always back out of any command in the middle.

Third, it's well integrated with UNIX.

It uses the same regular expressions as awk, sed, grep, and so on.

It handles filters cleanly with little overhead.

It doesn't lose file permissions, create backup files, and so on.

It doesn't take a lot of resources.

Fourth, it's reliable.

It keeps a journal file, which has saved my butt after system
crashes more times I can count.

It never hides information off teh side of the screen, or in
hidden formatting entries.

It never dies silently. If something's wrong, it tells me.

It's not for editing huge files, to be sure. But it's a good solid workhorse,
the ADM3A of UNIX editors...

I know its quirks, and I rely on its strengths. I don't have to worry about
it letting me down.

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I can count on it being there.  It's on every system that I have
as soon as the machine is running.  No porting, no fumbling with
different keyboard mappings, no worrying about versions (is it GNU,
Unipress, microemacs, etc.).

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I use vi, emacs, and ed on a regular basis, and like them all pretty
much about the same.  I really like vi for editing text.  The orthogonal
instruction set/object set provides a surprising amount of power, and
I find that its behavior generally fits the Unix idiom quite well.

As for intuitiveness, vi's modal nature does make a lot of sense to
those of us who grew up with line editors.  Each to her own, eh?
It does what I want it to do, and quickly.

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I like vi because it is fast. You can instantly teleport to any
portion of your screen. You don't need a mouse, reach up for arrow
or page up and down keys, or bother with function keys.
  This is simpily not possible with the Ctrl-Alt-Shift-whatever
combinations. You must use a two mode editor to move that quickly
to anywhere on your screen. I so much prefer this speed that I
often write text in vi, then inport it into word perfect for graphics
and laser printing.

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I like vi because:
a) it's the faster editor I've ever used for processing text;
b) it rewards study;
c) it's powerful.

The fact that so many people whine about it is just icing on the cake.  ;-)

Oh yeah, and I love seeing stuff like
:wq
ZZ
:

every so often.

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as someone mentioned above, its not perfect but its reliable, and the
quirks are consistent (well almost). I think the phrase that stuck
with me most re: this was posted last year some time. It was
"Vi is like a Ferrari, when you're learning its a bitch to drive,
but once you've learnt its POWERFUL and FAST".

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>I like vi because it is fast. You can instantly teleport to any
>portion of your screen. You don't need a mouse, reach up for arrow
>or page up and down keys, or bother with function keys.
>  This is simpily not possible with the Ctrl-Alt-Shift-whatever
>combinations. You must use a two mode editor to move that quickly
>to anywhere on your screen. I so much prefer this speed that I
>often write text in vi, then inport it into word perfect for graphics
>and laser printing.

I totally agree with this.  Every time I have to use some
``user-friendly'' WYSIWYG word processor... I start cursing the
number of keystrokes to do anything.  I can use vi without taking
my fingers off the home keys (except of course to reach up to
Alaska to hit the ESC key on the 101 key ``enhanced'' keyboards :-)

I think the other features I like best are:
    1.  The % key to jump to the matching ()[]...  I use this
        all the time in C programs, shell scripts, etc to find
        the other end of a block.
    2.  The > < operators to indend blocks of text.  Used
        extensively with % above to properly indent things in C
        Programs.  (I've often wondered if the ugly style of most
        of the gnu C code isn't directly related to the EMACS
        idiosyncracies).


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One starts to suspect that vi is a religion, not an editor!

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Main reason: I am a touch typist, and yet most other editors insisted on
sending my fingers flying far from the keyboard's home row, or at least on
sticking some pinky to control/alt/meta sort of keys; with vi's interface,
at least on a keyboard with a reasonably placed ESC key (like my beloved
HP2393A's "46021A" kb, currently under attack on comp.sys.hp...), my fingers
are saving kilometers of wasted movement per day; I type and edit more
productively, and my hands get less tired.  The "price" to be paid for that
is obviously the much-hated modefulness of vi, since it's the only approach
to have unadorned homerow keys act BOTH as inserting-keys sometimes, and as
command-keys at other times; it's a price I'm VERY glad to pay.

Vi's *extremely* regular verb-object "syntax" (if I know how to *move* to
some place, I also know how to *delete* to it, how to *yank* to it, how
to *change* to it, etc etc) is a secondary but meaningful source of love.
Indeed, the WORST vi commands, for me, are those which do NOT follow the
syntax, such as the infamous ~ for case-switching, which I CAN'T follow with
movement-commands such as ']' to case-switch-to-end-of-line, etc.

A third nice point of vi, for me, is NOT using funny/fancy keys - I can't
stay glued all day to my HP2393A terminal, I have to use PC-like keyboards,
Sun ones, sundry IBM ones, even (shudder!) DEC's (alleged) keyboards.  The
normal printing keys, and Ctrl and Esc (well, Ctrl-[ on DEC...) can be
found easily on most any of them; on editors based on F-keys, either on
PC's or IBM 3270-like terminals, I remember MUCHO pain when I had to
switch often between keyboards with PF-keys on TOP, on LEFT (in 2 columns),
on RIGHT (in 3 columns), and so on and on...

Vi's marginally less useful in implementations where I can't filter blocks
of text through external programs (MSDOS, VAX/VMS), but not enough to make
me go back to other editors; so, the external-program feechur I can't count
as a crucial one in my vi-love...

What I do NOT like: not enough visual feedback (on most vi I can "set
showmode", but NOT on all - and the words describing mode being shown are
often VERY badly chosen ['OPEN MODE', say some System/V's, rather than
'INPUT MODE', when you go 'o' or 'O'... BUT ex's open-mode is a TOTALLY
different thing$$$], and also they are often mistakenly scrolled onto the
screen [you need a Ctrl-L to repaint]), e.g. a visual mark-highlight block
for subsequent operation as a sometimes-useful alternative to normal
verb-object syntax; even more, not a real, useful programming language for
editor macros (a la Rexx-cum-Xedit, etc).  I guess I could go with emacs
and vip and hack around a bit and make things better, and maybe I shall
when RAM costs are down another order of magnitude and CPU power is up
by as much again... for now, I make do.

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Those of us who use vi exclusively for years probably don't notice
hitting i and esc, because it has become intuitive.

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Your hands don't have to leave the keyboard to find the F...ing mouse or the
arrows.

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>One starts to suspect that vi is a religion, not an editor!

You're not too wrong there, Mike.  The choice of editors seems to draw
more heat compared to our elections.  :-)

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Another favorite is to change all input up to a particular letter (such
as a comma or a full-stop):

cf[LETTER]my input[ESC]

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The only word processors I don't like are the WYSIWYG ones - they chew
up too much CPU time, memory, and disk space.  Like the Macintosh, they
hide too much detail from me and I feel frustrated when I can't see
what is ACTUALLY happening to my document.  Being a programmer, I
prefer text processing languages instead.  In addition since I know the
syntax of the language, I can add output (such as graphs and bitmaps)
from my programs to my document without hassles.

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long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, i used to hate vi; then one
day i decided, why not try it?  i mean, all those millions of vi users
just couldn't be _that_ wrong about an editor, could they?  after all, i
had some _very_ bright friends who insisted vi was the greatest (along
with some other very bright ones who insisted emacs was divinely
inspired :-).  i gave it my best shot, & after a somewhat steep learning
curve (along with much glancing at a vi cheat sheet), i found that vi is
_fast_ for my fingers.  what i mean is, i can do _my_ kind of text
editing, i.e., programming, more rapidly using vi than using any other
editor, including the one i learned on, wordstar, or others i've
learned, such as emacs or edt.  i also want to point out that i'd been
an emacs & wordstar fan until i learned vi.

perhaps the real reason for all this difference of opinion :-) lies in
the fact that i'm a touch typist; i prefer for my fingers to hang out
around the "home row" of a keyboard.  i've even been known to type
ctrl-[ just so i didn't have to roam too far in search of ESC :-).  i
think this also explains my order of editor preference: vi, emacs/ws,
edt.  in other words, as you move further away from vi, your fingers
move further away from touch-typist-optimized movements.  edt is the
last straw: a keypad editor.  i used to make _dozens_ of mistakes in
edt because i had to keep moving my fingers off the home row, then back
again.  i would inevitably miss the home row sometimes & being a touch
typist, just start typing garbage.  think about the contortions your
fingers go through to type even some of the fundamental movements in
emacs.  now think about those same movements in vi.  i think you can
see why i prefer vi.

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I would like to say that Peter da Silva has said most of what I would
have said. I'm currently typing this at 2400 baud and editting is
NOT a chore. Not too long ago, I used 1200 baud.
Some additions of my own are:
1)  Access to the ex command set. I used ed for a while years back and
    still find it quicker to use them.
2)  % to flip between matching braces is a godsend for lisp programming.
    It's pretty good for C, too.
3)  Marks, m[a-z]. > and < for indenting.
    These speed editting up considerably.
4)  :s ex substitution. This a MUST. I prefer it to sed since it's
    interactive and undo'able.
And the final capper.
5)  :map and :map$ macros. This are so short and simple to use that I
    can use them anytime I think I should without going through help
    manuals or man pages. I regularly do maps like
    :map z ^4f(ldt)lDj  to munge text lines. If I'm doing it a lot,
    I can always map
    :map Z zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
    without blinking. I haven't re-read the docs on macros in well over
    a year and I started vi less than 2 yrs ago.
    So how are macros done in emacs?

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Another great feature is the ability to execute the content of a named buffer
as EX commands.

How do vi haters learn vi quickly?  Buy/borrw/beg this book:

    "The Ultimate Guide to the VI and EX Text Editors"
    by the Hewlett-Packard Co.
    Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co.
    copywrite 1990

This is a great tutorial and reference (I have no affliation with HP).

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> [...] vi is unuseable to anyone who has used a
> more intuitive screen editor, and I wish old-time unix types would stop
> pushing it on the rest of us.
>
> mt

Actually, I don't think anyone is actually "pushing" 'vi' on anyone, or
at least not the way I'd picture a "pusher" ... "Psst, hey kid!  C'mere!
Yeah, you, the one with the pocket-protector!  Wanna try a new, far-out
experience?"  Opens his coat revealing reels of mag-tape.  "Ye-e-e-eah,
we call it, 'vi'!"

This gets back to one of 'vi's pluses.  It's there.  Pure and simple.
Nobody's pushing it.  Nobody's charging you an arm and a leg for it.  No
massive billboards all over the landscape.  It's just there.  If you
have Unix, and you know 'vi', you can get started right away, because
you _know_it's_there._  It's _always_ there.

Other editors are rarely there.  If you like Microsoft Word, you're
going to find yourself working at a company that owns WordPerfect.  If
you love the heck out some public domain editor, you'll find yourself
with an Administrator who hasn't the time to hunt it down, or doesn't
have the resources to install it for you.

But if it's Unix, or any of the popular clones, and even most of the
unpopular clones, 'vi' is there.

Once you know it, it's second nature.  Even if you prefer other editors,
and for some applications I do, you can still fall back on 'vi'.

Old reliable.  'vi' doesn't mind if you use other editors or word
processors.  It doesn't get jealous.  It'll still be there, waiting with
open arms, when you need to do ":%s/^/> /" to quote an article, or some
other esoteric application that's difficult or impossible in the typical
WYSIWYG editor.

Then, for those who don't like 'vi', and there's plenty of reason not
to, there are lots of expensive and free alternatives.  They just aren't
there, that's all.  You have expend effort to acquire them.  You have to
justify the time and expense.  You have to fill out the paperwork.  You
have to get management permission.

You need do none of that for 'vi', because it's already there.

In conclusion, I guess that all I have to say to the 'vi' haters on
the net is ... who needs ya?  You want something else, it's out there.
You may feel it's worth the effort to get a "better editor," and that's
fine.  Buy it.  Use it.  And don't complain.

But remember.  When you get that great job with more money and a
promotion, but you have to move to another state or another company ...
'vi' will be there.

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    It is a big setback of vi that it does not have an on-line help system (by
    function) and an informative but brief 'learn-by-example' on-line manual.
    (The explaination of advanced commands in the man-page hardly makes sense
    unless you already know what they are.)

I *LOVE* vi, but I hated it bitterly when I had to learn it after
getting so used to Xedit. Vi would be much more appealing to beginners
if it had an on-line help -- those who started to learn vi normally do
not even know how to use man pages. And it took LONG before I became an
efficient VI user (you got to start to know m'`, fFtT, ^]0, LMH, ]]/[[, %, G,
and markers before you would love it.) -- I did not have a GOOD SIMPLE vi
reference!!!

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Wonder why I love vi? Some of my favorite are:

    within-finger-reach and short commands to move, seach, modify -- enabling
    me to type fast (I am a self-taught touchy typiest).
    the great invention of integrating the edit commands and movement commands
    '.', u, p, y, g, v, ^D with input mode, o, O, >>, <<
    tags, marks, buffers, abbrivation, macros
    integration with unix through filter (":$ ...."), plus some knowlege of
    AWK (an half-day investment) -- However, I couldn't understand
    or get any clue of the filter's usefulness from the on-line manul.

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It is especially great for those who edit programs most of the time: it has
a tag system and an excellent set of cursor movement and/or positioning
commands, and they are just under your finger tips -- this may not be fully
appreciated by text-editing people.

I was once tempted to learn emacs because vi does not offer window or
text-formating fuction. And I became quite proficeint with Emacs. But I
cannot stand its key-strok-inefficiency (both in the numbers and
easy-to-reachness) even with basic cursor-movement commands. Many of Emacs
facilities are great but not frequently needed. They can mostly be compensated
by vi's shell filter, which is a little clumsy but it's a lot of trouble to
remember or find their Emacs conterparts through on-line help anyways.)

I would be totally satisfied if VI has windows and simple text-formatting
facility like paragraph-formatting.

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