But what about vi(m)?

So, yeah, thanks to Timelady I checked out the xkcd comic she was talking about. Some people would say that Emacs users are too fanatical about the text editor which has anything and everything but the kitchen sink. Though I prefer Emacs over other text editors it doesn’t mean that vi wouldn’t get any attention from me in this blog.

Things I remember the most about vi:

• It is V-I. Yup. Two letters V and I. It’s not pronounced vi like the first syllable of the ‘visual’ though the name of the editor is derived from that.
• There are modes in vi. They are not the same as the modes of Emacs because the main modes of vi are insert and view. It’s either you are in the editing mode (insert) or you’re in the read only mode (view).
• It has its own keyboard shortcuts which you must remember. So far the ones I know always has the colon (”:”) so that’s one thing, I guess. Whenever I use vi I look at any available cheatsheet.
• It’s available on practically any Linux distro.

One reason why I get to use vi is that it is available on practically every Linux distro. I have yet to see a distro without vi. So that’s one thing that vi has as a strength. It is something that everyone would be able to use because it’s there. Also, it’s not too huge compared to Emacs. (I admit, Emacs could be a huge text editor!) And it has less keyboard shortcuts.

It might be something that people would prefer because it is straightforward: it’s a text editor so it easily allows you to edit text. If you want to know more about vi, I think that this starting point aptly called The Vi Lovers Home Page will give you the best links to more information, cheatsheets, etc. of vi.