[scott@corp.sonic.net: Re: Why vi? (was Re: [NBLUG/talk] The Debian Way)]

[Scott Doty]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2005 at 03:29:51PM -0700, S. Saunders wrote:
> 
> On Fri, October 28, 2005 11:54, Walter Hansen wrote:
> 
> > I think vi was probably the first really usable text editor on
> > *ix systems and everyone collectively heaved a sigh of relief
> > and said "I guess that will do" and nobody has had enough
> > motivation to replace it with something better.
> 
> Note that there is no single agency *TO* "replace it with
> something better."
> 
> Linus could _probably_ force another editor to become the default on
> *Linux* systems... but not on other Freenix'es (e.g. the BSD's), nor
> the commercial flavors like Solaris, HP-UX, MacOSX, &c.  <thinks of
> "vi" becoming "default" under Mac OS, and giggles helplessly...
> some things are just THAT absurd...>

Actually, the Manchester Computing Center release of Linux used "joe" as the
default editor.  If you cut your teeth on wordstar and bbs editors, joe
roxors.

_Use what you prefer_ -- that's what's so great about Unix!

 -Scott
p.s. Besides..."Ed is the standard text editor."
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html