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From: Mike Jones on 26 Nov 2009 19:15 Responding to Sylvain Robitaille: > On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:28:17 GMT, Mike Jones wrote: > >> Contrary to some occasionally amusing urban myths, Vi is not an editor. >> Its a puzzle game /disguised/ as an editor. Entertaining and even >> useful to those who have brains capable of performing the hoop-jumping >> required to pilot such a beast, but a not-very-funny practical joke to >> those who require their "OMG! Where is the text editor?" save-the-day >> tool to "just ****ing WORK FFS!" ... > > In this light, think of vi as more of an entrance exam. > > Nano is the remedial class! ;-) Except being faced with an entrance exam when looking at a barfed system is not productive. Once needs an editor to /actually edit/ as at least its /default function/ at this time. And don't get me started on the Vim help that dosn't tell you how to exit help! Like I said, its a puzzle game with a hidden editor built in (so I'm told). >> BTW, banging your head against a wall is not a good idea, no matter how >> many people do it, "Because the wall is there". ;\ > > Dumbing down something as simple as a text editor, causing those with > years (or perhaps even decades) of real experience with the power of a > proper text editor, to bang their heads against walls trying make the > crippled editor do things that are nice and simple in the real editor, > in the interest of protecting the foreheads of those more used to "edit" > or "notepad", would be perhaps "misguided". There is a world of difference between "dumbed down" and "just works". To learn how Vi works, you need it's help system, which doesn't tell you how the help system works, or how to exit the help system, or even how to actually EDIT something. Like I said, its a possibly puzzle game, not a "Damn! I need some kind of editor and fast!" solution. -- *=( http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ *=( For all your UK news needs.
From: Mike Jones on 26 Nov 2009 19:24 Responding to Joe (Immigration): > Sylvain Robitaille wrote on 11/26/09 08:30: > >> On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:28:17 GMT, Mike Jones wrote: >> >>> Contrary to some occasionally amusing urban myths, Vi is not an >>> editor. Its a puzzle game /disguised/ as an editor. Entertaining and >>> even useful to those who have brains capable of performing the >>> hoop-jumping required to pilot such a beast, but a not-very-funny >>> practical joke to those who require their "OMG! Where is the text >>> editor?" save-the-day tool to "just ****ing WORK FFS!" ... >> >> In this light, think of vi as more of an entrance exam. >> >> Nano is the remedial class! ;-) > > > LOL. You are not a real *nix admin if you don't know vi... My point in a nutshell. I'm not a sysadmin. I'm an enthusiastic dabbler. Vi (and clones) are like learning to speak Russian to me. Sure, I /could/ do it, but how many times am I going to meet a Russian who can't get by in English? My only "Russian" encounter is when I want to do a hack edit from a bootable media and stick a Slack disk in the slot. We now have stuff like RescueCD. Therefore, I still don't need to learn the obscure and incantational mysteries of an editor that doesn't edit unless you know the hidden magic spells, (and hidden they are to be sure). Ah well. Back to Nano, which incidentally, my cat learned to use. ;) -- *=( http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ *=( For all your UK news needs.
From: Aaron W. Hsu on 26 Nov 2009 21:01 Eef Hartman <E.J.M.Hartman(a)tudelft.nl> writes: >Lew Pitcher <lewpitcher(a)lewpitcher.ca> wrote: >> If you want to think in a minimal, survivalist manner, you should >> lookup the "ex" command. >If you really wanna go minimal, look up "ed" (i.e. the stream editor, >sed, is derived from THAT, nor from the EXtended editor ex). Indeed. Actually Ed has saved me a number of times even when Vi was available, because Vi is still a full screen editor, and sometimes your terminal is so messed up that you can't work with editors that aren't purely line based with almost no interface. All installations should have ed installed. Aaron W. Hsu
From: Aaron W. Hsu on 26 Nov 2009 21:03 Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> writes: >Something as small as Nano = no, but Vi, which is huge (and complex) by >comparison, is the standard? From the installation disk boot? This >doesn't add up. If you want a small editor, and a minimalist installer that is quick and easy to use, then why not look at the OpenBSD installer, which recently had several improvements made for it, and which doesn't even include Vi, but rather, uses ed, which is about as lightweight as you can get. Aaron W. Hsu
From: Aaron W. Hsu on 26 Nov 2009 21:04
Martin Schmitz <news(a)rmz.ath.cx> writes: >Mike Jones wrote: >> Something as small as Nano = no, but Vi, which is huge (and complex) >> by comparison, is the standard? From the installation disk boot? This >> doesn't add up. >Nano is about five times bigger than standard vi (in disksize, in >functionality vi is about 100 times "bigger"): >[dakini]~$ ls -l /usr/bin/nano /usr/bin/nvi >-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 145884 2008-09-16 02:07 /usr/bin/nano >-rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 30354 2009-04-05 15:39 /usr/bin/nvi Ed ought to be considered too: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 49408 2009-06-12 17:01 /bin/ed* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 522496 2008-09-23 15:35 /usr/bin/elvis* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 179480 2009-05-23 00:48 /usr/bin/nano* Aaron W. Hsu |