Learn VI, I know it sucks, and I know Gifford is being a dick - but - you can sit at any UNIX system in the world and edit config files. If you've got a system without emacs and no net connection and the bomb is going off in 4 minutes unless you can cut power to the sector, you'll need VI ;-)
The only vi command you need to know is ":wq", the command to get out of vi. For general console commands, "rm -f `which vi`" (those are backquotes) is also useful, as is "alias vi=emacs". Users of vi always go on about how small it is, how it'll run on anything, how every system has it installed... Use pico, then. Hell, if small turns you on, why are you using Unix in the first place? I hear DOS fits on a 1.44 meg floppy, with room to spare.
You're preaching to the choir - I use emacs on everything, my macs, unix systems, and windows boxes. Doesn't mean I can't use VI if that's what it takes.
And AFAIK, Pico doesn't come pre-installed either.
I also wanted to make the comment that this motto was inspired by the asinine wishes of our teacher to use vi for all textfiles produced for our project. That and the fact that one of the reasons he gave for teaching us vi instead of emacs was that he had to learn vi too. I found vi hard to use, and emacs was a better alternative. Although pico wouldn't be a bad choice as well.
Oh yea, emacs is much easier to learn, especially for beginners. That's why I use it for all my editing - I really like the CTRL-* command sequences, they're really easy to execute with two fingers, while the other hand is busy moving the mouse - gotta keep using ; in VI, and that's a right-handed operation, which slows down my "Grab the mouse and do something else" ability :)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2003-09-11 12:49 pm (UTC)Learn VI, I know it sucks, and I know Gifford is being a dick - but - you can sit at any UNIX system in the world and edit config files. If you've got a system without emacs and no net connection and the bomb is going off in 4 minutes unless you can cut power to the sector, you'll need VI ;-)
no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 04:10 pm (UTC)However, I personally prefer BBEdit.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 04:37 pm (UTC)Users of vi always go on about how small it is, how it'll run on anything, how every system has it installed... Use pico, then. Hell, if small turns you on, why are you using Unix in the first place? I hear DOS fits on a 1.44 meg floppy, with room to spare.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 04:49 pm (UTC)And AFAIK, Pico doesn't come pre-installed either.
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Date: 2003-09-11 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 05:20 pm (UTC)And as for Pico, emacs is pretty :)