# Why on Earth does anyone use vi? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 17, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752 "2012-01-17T01:28:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/1 "2012-01-17T01:28:18Z")
I started a new job this year and I was shocked to find that 95% of people I work with use vi on Linux. I learned emacs at my last job and it’s so much better than vi. I’ve had people tell me they know vi is horrible but yet they still use it. BTW, I am well aware that vi is always installed. But for Red Hat Linux emacs is always there too. ---
**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/2 "2012-01-17T01:31:21Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I’ve had people tell me they know vi is horrible but yet they still use it. Maybe they’re used to it and are comfortable with it. Hey, I still use FORTRAN. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/3 "2012-01-17T01:33:18Z")
I’m not sure how anyone can be comfortable with such a pile of crap. I suppose some people are just not into changing how they do things. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/4 "2012-01-17T01:53:48Z")
What the hell else am I going to do between V and VII? ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/5 "2012-01-17T02:44:06Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I’m not sure how anyone can be comfortable with such a pile of crap. I suppose some people are just not into changing how they do things. I doubt there are too many people who learned to use vi first, and then refused to learn emacs later because emacs was too hard or new. For basic editing there’s nothing to learn. More likely it’s that people like to flaunt their ability to use something kind of archaic that the younger kids find inscrutable. I’m going to be like that with parallel parking when all the cars of the future park themselves. I’m going to take every chance to show I can do it without computer assistance, dagnabbit! ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/6 "2012-01-17T02:55:36Z")
As a certified Emacs nut, I will tell you this: vi is great. …for editing small things like config files, composing a quick email, or tweaking a crontab. I would never do any actual _programming_ in it (heaven forbid!), but the dual-mode nature is great when you need to quickly load something up, navigate to a specific part, bash a couple keys, and save. It’s fast, too. For everything that Emacs gets us, we can’t claim speed as an advantage. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/7 "2012-01-17T02:56:50Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > What the hell else am I going to do between V and VII? You stole my idea! ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/8 "2012-01-17T02:58:13Z")
Attempting to start [editor wars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war) on the SDMB is punishable by being forced to use ed. So watch yourselves! ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/9 "2012-01-17T03:18:42Z")
> [@SCSimmons](#): > > Attempting to start [editor wars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war) on the SDMB is punishable by being forced to use ed. So watch yourselves! Once upon a time, text editing was done on a keypunch machine. Minor fixes could be done with an X-Acto knife. For the avant-garde there was always TECO. I’m mildly offended that **Bijou Drains** refers to vi as a “pile of crap” (post #3 above), even if that is approximately true. emacs and vi have very different command structures, and some people may very well find one or the other to wrap one’s mind around. vi was the first screen-oriented editor I learned, back in the day, and I found the command structure extremely logical and easy to learn. True, the dual modes (command vs. input) were rather a pain, but in those days, users were often connected via a modem which did its own thing with control characters, so you couldn’t use those for commands, and terminal keyboards didn’t have F-keys. I’ve dabbled with emacs on and off over the years, and I’ve never gotten much into it. The command structure just isn’t compatible with my neural circuits. Many commands seem to require more keystrokes than they should. Many are not very mnemonic, or so it seems to me. BTW, who knew that emacs was somehow originally derived from TECO? > **[TECO (text editor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Editor_and_Corrector)** > > TECO (/ˈtiːkoʊ/), short for Text Editor & Corrector, > > is both a character-oriented text editor and a programming language, that was developed in 1962 for use on Digital Equipment Corporation computers, and has since become available on PCs and Unix. Dan Murphy developed TECO while a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). > According to Murphy, the initial acronym was Tape Editor and Corrector because "punched paper tape was the only medium for the storage of program source on... ETA: This is the 21st century, everybody. We have Linux. We have GUI’s. We have **gedit**. For you Winders prisoners, you can have Notepad++ ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/10 "2012-01-17T08:30:21Z")
I’ve had it with these insults. I demand satisfaction. We will settle our differences on the field of honour. We will retreat the ten paces and launch our editors against each other. Yours may have the greater mass, but I assure you mine has the greater velocity. You do the physics. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/11 "2012-01-17T18:38:55Z")
I was forced to use vi once in my Data Structures class. Never again. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Doctor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/12 "2012-01-17T18:56:44Z")
I am going to be a complete heretic in this vi versus emacs debate. My favorite command line editor of all times is the one built into the old Norton Commander program which now lives on in the form of Midnight Commander. I’ve programmed tons of C code in Midnight Commander Edit and its a breeze for quickly editing config files and other stuff. Yeah, I spend a lot more time in graphical editors nowadays, but for command line, nothing beats Midnight Commander! Emacs is for people who like to memorize esoteric command sequences to do anything (sure ctl-alt-meta-p-shift-a-alt-q-shift-tab probably makes your breakfast, but how in the hell do you remember this crap?). You don’t need cheatsheets for Emacs, you need cheat_books_! Vi is for people who like something simple made unnecessarily complex – two modes? Why? My arrow keys work just fine. Must have been designed for a keyboard which did not have arrow keys, home, end, insert, etc. Well, I guess the day I run into a keyboard like that, I’ll be happy for vi – hasn’t happened yet. Guess I would need Skald’s time buggy to go back far enough in caveman days to find a time where I **need** vi because my keyboard only has letters and numbers on it. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/13 "2012-01-17T19:28:37Z")
I had a programmer go off once that “emacs is a fat bloated pig!” Of course, this was in 1997, and the sonofabitch ran off with my wife. Serves both of them right. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/14 "2012-01-17T23:04:16Z")
I like vi, but I love vim. Longtime CS prof. I found it hundreds of times easier to teach newbies vi than emacs. Much easier to start from scratch and getting them doing something fairly soon. Very nice learning curve. I like modes. I hate having to learn a lot of keypress combinations. I’ve done a lot of serious programming and vim just works with no fuss or muss. It’s not for everything. Prose-like stuff not so much. So even doing html isn’t such a good idea. So I am not in the panacea crowd or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/15 "2012-01-18T02:14:29Z")
Why do people use vi? Because it’s better than emacs. Anything else I can C-h you with ? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/16 "2012-01-18T02:15:31Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > I had a programmer go off once that “emacs is a fat bloated pig!” Of course, this was in 1997, and the sonofabitch ran off with my wife. Serves both of them right. Emacs is a full-featured OS that lacks a decent editor. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/17 "2012-01-18T02:29:13Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I started a new job this year and I was shocked to find that 95% of people I work with use vi on Linux. I learned emacs at my last job and it’s so much better than vi.. If you had told me in 1980 that the emacs/vi war would still be being fought in 2012 (or that anyone would still be using either in an era of usable text editors), I’d have laughed at you. Serves me right, I guess, but at least this is the first time I’ve seen it in a while. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/18 "2012-01-18T02:36:22Z")
I never liked vi. Never. And I’ve been working since the tail end of the punch card era. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/19 "2012-01-18T05:13:12Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > If you had told me in 1980 that the emacs/vi war would still be being fought in 2012 (or that anyone would still be using either in an era of usable text editors), I’d have laughed at you. Serves me right, I guess, but at least this is the first time I’ve seen it in a while. It does seem a bit bizarre, doesn’t it? Do you think they’ll start arguing about the relative merits of 5 1/4" vs. 3.5" floppy disks next? Or DOS vs. OS/2? ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752/20 "2012-01-18T14:38:46Z")
For the record, my preferred editor back in my UNIX/LINUX/XENIX days was vedit, the more verbose version of vi. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-on-earth-does-anyone-use-vi/609752.md?page=2)