vi
:vi: /V-I/, _not_ /vi:/ and _never_ /siks/ n.[from `Visual Interface'] A
screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD
release.
Became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker
favorite outside of MIT until the rise of EMACS
after about 1984.
Tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands
while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup on
older versions provides no indication of which mode the editor is in
(years ago, a correspondent reported that he has often heard the
editor's name pronounced /vi:l/; there is now a vi clone named `vile').
Nevertheless vi (and variants such as vim and elvis) is still widely
used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it),
and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail editor and for small
editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier
versions of EMACS). See holy wars
Jargon File Version 4.3.1, 29 JUN 2001 =
Skip to a random entry
Back to Liz's page