Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:28:39 -0500 From: Bob Willcox <bob@immure.com> To: Jason Andresen <jandrese@mitre.org> Cc: Jeremy Chadwick <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com> Subject: Re: BETA4 Vi backspace behavior Message-ID: <20040921202839.GE57728@luke.immure.com> In-Reply-To: <41508747.3090207@mitre.org> References: <414F8934.4080509@cinci.rr.com> <20040921021141.GA77929@parodius.com> <414FA035.6000503@cinci.rr.com> <20040921035919.GA81408@parodius.com> <414FAB6C.4040504@cinci.rr.com> <20040921043545.GA82495@parodius.com> <"41500529.9020004"@cinci.rr.com> <20040921154447.GB57728@luke.immure.com> <41508747.3090207@mitre.org>
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On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:55:51PM -0400, Jason Andresen wrote:
> Bob Willcox wrote:
>
> >On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 06:40:41AM -0400, Mike B wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> >>>Do things work properly in vim (preferrably ports/editors/vim-lite) but
> >>>not native /usr/bin/vi, or are they generally horked all around?
> >>>
> >>You all are right about the behavior of vi, but the backspace in vim is
> >>definitely broken. I've tried using the :fixdel command and also
> >>remapping the key with :map but the result is always the same. Perhaps
> >>this is a bug or incompatability that has arisen in vim; every other
> >>text editor seems to work flawlessly. Thanks
> >>
> >>
> >
> >FWI, all versions of vi that I've used over the past 20 years (I only
> >use vim when using Linux) had this behavior wrt the backspace key
> >(backing over but no erasing). This has been mostly on on AIX, ESIX, and
> >FreeBSD. So for me anyway, it's the "norm."
> >
> >
>
> AFAIK, the "backspace as a motion key" behavior dates all the way back
> to teletypes, because they were just typewriters with modems and they
> didn't have any way of actually deleting characters on the line. I
> think this is also where the use of "x" as a delete character comes
> from, people actually x-ing out words on their teletype.
>
> Look on the bright side, your editor may have bizarre commands, but it
> will still work even if you're stuck in the most primitive of editing
> environments.
I actually prefer the backspace w/o erasing the character behavior of
vi. Indeed, that's one (of several) differences with vim that I find
disturbing (using the "u" key for multi-undoing rather than re-doing is
my pet peave).
Bob
--
Bob Willcox Acquaintance, n.:
bob@immure.com A person whom we know well enough to borrow from,
Austin, TX but not well enough to lend to.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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