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Date:      Mon, 12 Mar 2001 11:01:52 -0800
From:      David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com>
To:        Doug Young <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au>
Cc:        FreeBSD-newbies <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Enough is enough (emacs vs vi)
Message-ID:  <3AAD1D20.48F149B1@acuson.com>
References:  <Pine.GSO.4.30.0103100913330.10006-100000@corten8> <00ed01c0aa0c$c386e160$0200a8c0@apana.org.au>

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Doug Young wrote:
> 
> I've always wondered why whoever it was that developed VI had to make
> it so obtuse ...

Obtuse? Maybe I'm dating myself, but I can remember the day when vi was
considered to be very user friendly. At one time, line editors were all
there were. Even DOS had only edlin once upon a time. Compared to what
was available, vi was a breath of fresh air.

Most terminals back then had only alphanumerics and ESC. No ALT, no
CTRL, no arrow keys. Which is why you use hjkl to move around and have
to switch between editing and command modes. If the all of the terminals
back them had Meta keys I'm sure Bill Joy (the whoever it was) would
have used them to make it simpler.

David

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