Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 06:26:38 -0500 From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) To: kline@tera.com, doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: vi tutorial Message-ID: <199609051126.GAA09077@bonkers.taronga.com> In-Reply-To: <199608170220.TAA09516@athena.tera.com>
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> Enclosed is the vi_tutorial that I've been distributing. Mind if I make a couple of suggestions? They're pretty deep changes, but I think are important to really understanding VI. You have almost certainly internalized these pieces of information, but you haven't concretized them, perhaps. First: drop all mention of "insert mode" and "command mode". Why? Because "insert mode" doesn't really act like a "mode". It acts like a "command". If people think of an insertion operation (i, a, o, and so on) as being a command "itexttexttext^[" then things that just seemed like quirks of vi suddenly make a lot of sense. Second: don't dwell so early on the shortcut commands. Teach the basic moves and combinations (dw, cw, and so on) and then mention things like "ZZ" and "~" as asides. If you learn the basic command structure before even seeing the shortcuts and special cases it'll really be a lot easier. (also, ZZ is a shortcut for :x^M not :wq^M)
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