is "vi" worth learning in 2022?

I'm also pretty sure that if one has the ability to install FreeBSD they would also have the ability to follow the man page. If not then they have more issues than just trying to figure out vi
 
drhowarddrfine said:
How difficult is that to learn?
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I agree it's easy to learn. The problem is that vi (including through vipw or something else) could be invoked to edit configuration files (including /etc/master.passwd and/or /etc/group) BEFORE ANY CHANCE TO LEARN ABOUT IT. This is because I state that ee should be default instead of vi.

Note that I never said that vi should be axed from POSIX and FreeBSD base.
Just saying changing default is important with keeping vi in-tree.

scottro said:
Is it at the top of the man page? (Nope, I looked). You and I know how to search man pages and I bet neither of us remember when we learned that. A useful, to the beginner, man page, would have (all in my opinion, of course), right in the first few lines, press i to insert, :x to save, :q! to quit without saving.
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100% agreed.

drhowarddrfine said:
I'm also pretty sure that if one has the ability to install FreeBSD they would also have the ability to follow the man page. If not then they have more issues than just trying to figure out vi
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I learned to read man pages (even it exists) AFTER I FIRST TRIED FreeBSD.
And I learned minimum basic usage of vi WHEN I WAS JUST INSTALLING FreeBSD AT THE FIRST TIME BY RUSHING TO BOOKSTORE AND PURCHASING PRINTED COMMAND REFERENCE BOOK, as I already posted before. It was over 20 years before and more and more bookstores are closed nowadays, unfortunately. This is because I say that vi should be the second, expert's choice. It must kept, but not as default.
 
T-Aoki said:
This is because I say that vi should be the second, expert's choice. It must kept, but not as default.
Click to expand...

What about adding a choice in the installer and such as freebsd-update merge, like:

Please choose your default text editor: a) vi | b) ee | c) ...

The installer could configure the default - or chosen - shell initial $EDITOR setting, a fairly modest addition?

Good grief, could everyone be happy?
 
smithi said:
What about adding a choice in the installer and such as freebsd-update merge, like:

Please choose your default text editor: a) vi | b) ee | c) ...

The installer could configure the default - or chosen - shell initial $EDITOR setting, a fairly modest addition?

Good grief, could everyone be happy?
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It would be very nice if it is implemented.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
And what if a gang of ninjas jumped you from behind?
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I would make them use NetBeans.

I‘ve learned vi(m) and i think most people can but lots of people do struggle with modal editors. I prefer vi(m) to editors that need Ctrl-X Ctrl-C etc or editors that fill lines of the screen with help text. But not everyone has the same preferences. The status quo suits me.

And my answer to the OP’s question is still YES - vi is worth learning - alongside many other command line tools.
 
scottro said:
I'd say, without criticizing any point of view, that dbuckhal's post sort of shows the difference between young and old. Younger folks tend to like videos, like the ones linked. Older folks get annoyed at something, that could be read in 5 minutes, taking a 38 minute video. I'm generalizing of course. But we old folks remember what we thought of as the good old days. No doubt our parents did too, and thought we had it easier in school than they did.

Anyway, I get too drawn into these bikeshed discussions because my wife is away and I have too much free time. I don't think vi is intuitive, but seriously, way back in this thread I mentioned how my boss had to do something because I didn't know vi and I went home that night, did a web search, found a tutorial and quickly learned the basics. So, I would say, even if it isn't intuitive, learning the basics is fairly easy. Getting good at the basics takes longer--but by then, you've probably used it enough so that it seems intuitive.
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Thanks for the implication of me being part of the younger folk! I actually prefer the classic "forest killer of old" myself: paperback books, and i have plenty of them. And you are correct about us older folks. Fo me, I prefer to open a book and jump directly to the interesting topic, immediately. But like I had mentioned, I was late to the thread, so I just wanted to post a couple of entertaining videos on the subject. I figured the OP was well accommodated to the topic.

Thanks, scottro!
 
drhowarddrfine said:
From the man page and probably any tutorial on vi:

How difficult is that to learn?



This occurs when one "wings it" or tries to make things work like what they know. Like Linux users trying to make FreeBSD work just like Linux. And then they complain when it doesn't.
When you want to learn something new, you have to learn it. Don't be surprised or complain when they don't work as expected based on your background and experience.
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In my defense I was much younger and it was 21 years ago. And I was coming from windows to Linux. And actually it was vi improved I was using. So I was very much so a new user. And in fact had only had my own computer for less than a year. I understand the spirit of what you are saying. But every new user needs guidance. Every user is at some point a new user. Naturally we have expectations based on experience.
 
T-Aoki said:
It would be very nice if it is implemented.
Click to expand...

I probably shouldn't speculate.

Unfortunately I'm in no position to do so these days. bsdinstall is mostly just sh() code using dialog() for presentation, so easy work for anyone familiar (who also wants to, a big ask!)

I haven't looked at freebsd-update.
 
scottro said:
I'd say, without criticizing any point of view, that [FONT=monospace]dbuckhal[/FONT]'s post sort of shows the difference between young and old. Younger folks tend to like videos, like the ones linked. Older folks get annoyed at something, that could be read in 5 minutes, taking a 38 minute video. I'm generalizing of course. But we old folks remember what we thought of as the good old days. No doubt our parents did too, and thought we had it easier in school than they did.
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Well, it is true that Gen Z prefers youtube to the Handbook when it comes to doing stuff with FreeBSD, I've seen that plenty of times. But then I tell 'em that the info they prefer is old-ass and outdated, so they can't get stuff done.... that if you wanna be on the cutting edge and on the forefront, you gotta have up-to-date info? 😤

Or, how about not knowing a thing about serial ports, so you can't reset the root password of a VPS you rented? Age has nothing to do with what one knows or what skills they have. It's an indicator of all kinds of things, but not the only one...

Both young and old make moronic choices and smart choices as they go.
 
grahamperrin said:
So: which sequences of keys, within vi, present the manual page and then allow the reader to navigate within the page, then stop reading the page?

Remember: the user is accidentally trapped in vi, with no obvious means of escape; such accidents have been occurring for more than twenty-two years.
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And what sequence of keys got a reader to install FreeBSD who had no ability to learn or understand vi?
Quit treating this like it's rocket surgery.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
And what sequence of keys got a reader to install FreeBSD who had no ability to learn or understand vi?
Click to expand...

Most remarkable is your avoidance of the question.

To answer your question, then you can answer mine:
  1. <https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/installation/#install> "The Installing FreeBSD chapter of the FreeBSD Handbook provides more in-depth information about the installation program itself, including a guided walk-through with screenshots."
  2. the chapter, which makes no mention of vi.
 
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grahamperrin said:
Pigeon-holing is for pigeons, not human beings.
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I'd call Pigeonholing a method used by bipeds that has adequate use cases.

For example, given that the population of London is greater than the maximum number of hairs that can be on a human's head, the principle requires that there must be at least two people in London who have the same number of hairs on their heads.

When saying "Pigeon-holing is for pigeons" how are pigeons holing bipeds?
 
LibreQuest said:
I remember the first time that I ever used it. I had to call my older brother to ask him how to exit the program. Very not simple if you've never used it before. I was coming from Microsoft DOS editor and was very confused. Especially given that most proprietary programs would come with a book or a print manual and I was unfamiliar with the existence of man pages at the time. Though it may be simple to use the controls are not standardized and could be considered unusual to a first time user.
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Yes, and this can be true of about any other thing. Unless you get to know it, it would seem "strange'. Was DOS not strange the VERY FIRST time you started using it? Did you know right away how to start or stop a program?
 
smithi said:
What about adding a choice in the installer and such as freebsd-update merge, like:

Please choose your default text editor: a) vi | b) ee | c) ...

The installer could configure the default - or chosen - shell initial $EDITOR setting, a fairly modest addition?

Good grief, could everyone be happy?
Click to expand...
Of course not. If you want everyone happy you need to include all. Those little editor tools exist for convenience. When you need to fix others problems fast, you want to have an editor installed that you do not need to learn or even install first.

These little editors follow the UNIX philosophy providing tools for skilled craftsmen. Who would say I do not want you to do this work because you use a tool that I do not like? You are using the wrong hammer?
Would it be a good idea creating a certificate like "This OS does not install editor x|y|z"? Do programmers write better code depending on the editor they use?

Come on folks. Enough is enough. We had our fun.
 
free-and-bsd said:
Yes, and this can be true of about any other thing. Unless you get to know it, it would seem "strange'. Was DOS not strange the VERY FIRST time you started using it? Did you know right away how to start or stop a program?
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Indeed DOS was strange but I was introduced to it in an educational setting. And typically practical standardized methods are taught in school. That did not show to be an advantage when faced with vim. Lol Of course vi is a fine editor for a default as any. But I think that opinion changes depending on the user. 😄
 
drhowarddrfine said:
I only answer questions worthy of a reply. …
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That's another, more obvious, way of avoiding the question; of avoiding the fact that intelligent people can get trapped in vi with no obvious means of escape.

If you were not so fond of publicly belittling — (one example) implying that people who prefer ee are idiots, incapable of learning, who should not be allowed to use FreeBSD — you would not find yourself challenged.
 
grahamperrin
Now that the word "idiots" appeared the first time in this thread there is no way out avoiding to talk about getting trapped.
What does it need to get trapped? Does it just happen by accident? Fat fingers non intentionally hitting fist the v-key then the i-key and then the enter-key?
Who is responsible for using his/her fingers? Who is the owner of the self using its brain if any? Who is starting an app before knowing how to quit it? Who does not know using one of the kill commands i.e pkill vi?
 
Ahhh... I don't think you can make everyone happy here... the way I see it, if you know VI, great. If you don't, that's OK, too. To be able to install FreeBSD, you gotta either (know a command-line text editor (not necessarily VI)) or (be able to figure something out). Bashing others over this kind of stuff is kinda pointless.

FWIW, I have no clue about how to use ed, ee, or emacs. I figured out nano, though, and it served me well enough so that I don't have to spend hours figuring ed/ee/emacs out how to edit a simple text file in command line. If need be, I'll figure out a sed or awk command to script my text-editing stuff.

I think it's easier to point people towards useful information than to do a psychological analysis of roles in the expert/noob conversation.
 
As well as the vi “conversation“ there’s the merge markers “conversation“ the pager “conversation“ (not knowing you can type q or press enter or space) the forgetting to update userland “conversation“ the different p-levels between kernel and userland “conversation“ etc. There‘s stuff to learn. But that’s not a reason not to at least discuss making some things easier.

Other OSs make a lot of those things hidden or easier but on every OS I’ve ever used I‘ve had to learn how things work behind the scenes so that I can understand and fix issues.

The BSDs force a user to learn more about the behind the scenes stuff earlier and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
 
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