You do realize that most GUI-based code editors out there also do most of those things nowadays, right?
I use vi because I learned it 20 years ago. I know how to do everything I need to do without thinking about it. Muscle memory, as someone said above.
I do use other editors where appropriate, but for editing files on Linux vi is still what I use normally. It’s always there, even on a machine I’m logged on for the very first time, and I don’t have to think about it.
I do — though I don’t take much interest in them, because I already have Emacs, which does all (not just most) of those things.
By the way I forgot to highlight that it’s all cross-platform too, so my favorite customizations and functions can be carried around with me from Mac OS X to Linux to Solaris, and I’m good to go. (The same would be true for VI, I assume.) For me, that’s very handy. For someone working on only one platform, it wouldn’t matter.
But I’m not making a sales pitch here for Emacs, however it might sound. I’m mostly responding to your “WTF” upthread, where you talk as if someone would have to be nuts to choose it over any modern GUI editor. Modern editors aren’t bad, but they could still learn a thing or two from Emacs.
Maybe I am lucky but my job does not require me to login to all kinds of different systems. If I do run into a system without emacs, I just ask to have it installed and they install it.
Surprised this thread got along so far without this.
People use vi for at least one of three reasons: (a) they are super old; (b) they do a lot of remote system administration on bare bones or antiquated systems; © they have low self-esteem.
Now I feel sad 
I always use vim. It’s the only thing I use to write code. I even installed it on windows!
That’s me. I’ve been using vi my whole professional career. I’ve been using vi so long my MSWord docs are peppered with :wq
Text editors in lord of the rings 
I’d be offended if I didn’t fit into category b.
It’s not a matter of luck, it’s just that you have a different job than I do. I do need to log onto different systems all the time as part of my job.
I am kind of old by your standards (I’m 49), and I do have do a lot of work on remote systems. But not system administration. More like parallel computations. Lots and lots of CPU-heavy work. Done in parallel on many Linux servers that have bare-bones operating systems.
Are you a consultant who works various places or do you work at a place where they have a lot of different systems that are not standardized? Like maybe a university?
By the way, what is it about xkcd and this site? I never heard of that comic before and people here constantly bring it up.
No, I work for a multinational company based in Europe, and as part of my job I have to run programs on servers that could be installed anywhere in the world: North America, Europe, Asia, etc. I can’t control how those servers were set up or what programs were installed on them so I can only assume that the most basic programs are available.
I also work for a company that is all over the world but most of the systems I use are local and are configured the same. We also have systems that are run on big, super fast servers because there is a lot of data and math involved. One project has 6 servers now and every one of them has 12 cores.
You claim to be a person who uses emacs/vi enough to actually care which one you use, and yet you say this?
Doesn’t pass the smell test. 
That’s harsh…
I don’t really fit (a) yet, though getting close.
And I do some work on bare bones and older stuff, so maybe there’s hope for (b).
Don’t even want to think about (c).