Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:24:23 -0700 From: perryh@pluto.rain.com To: invalid.pointer@gmail.com, green_tiger@comcast.net Cc: bf1783@googlemail.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The question of moving vi to /bin Message-ID: <4a432627.nNXzKFb0uYX/7NBi%perryh@pluto.rain.com> In-Reply-To: <4A430CDF.2010205@comcast.net> References: <4A430505.2020909@gmail.com> <4A430CDF.2010205@comcast.net>
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> ed is an interactive program, and it has always been considered as > such, at least since BSD 4.2. Way back then there were three main > editors, ex, vi, and ed. ed goes back at least as far as the Bell Labs 6th Edition (PDP-11), where it was the only editor in the distribution. ex and vi (and termcap, without which there would be no vi) were written later, at UC Berkeley. > If you had a nice video terminal then you used vi. But if you > were stuck using a hard copy terminal like a Decwriter, then you > used ex. And ed was the simplified (dumbed down) editor for > newbies. More like, ed was the "original" Unix editor; ex and vi presumably were inspired, at least in part, by a desire to improve on ed's limitations. I doubt I'm the only one who muttered about the bother of horsing around with ed, back when there was nothing else.
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