Hi, On reason you had ed on early machines and Vi on later can be seen by examining the code size of even modern builds. Ignoring common OS libraries you have:
ed text data bss dec hex filename 43509 1144 2248 46901 b735 /bin/ed nvi text data bss dec hex filename 27061 2048 256 29365 72b5 /usr/bin/nvi 442019 18688 144 460851 70833 /usr/lib64/libvi.so.0 430302 17628 2552 450482 6dfb2 /lib64/libncursesw.so.6 Vim text data bss dec hex filename 2295413 139160 49392 2483965 25e6fd /usr/bin/vi 150110 14128 2016 166254 2896e /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 So even nvi (Keith Bostic's BSD vi rewrite from the 1990s) is twenty times the core size of ed. Vim then doubles it again. Modern coders pah! I spent my three years at university using ed (well em the "Editor for Mortals" actually. Only a couple of years later was I introduced to vi, which has been my editor of choice ever since (35 years). Spend an awful lot of time in ex mode though. One problem with the Editor for Mortals that caught many. Consider the difference between the action of the command "em file" and "rm file" yet they are just one key position apart. -- Bob Dunlop -- Next meeting: BEC, Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2019-08-06 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk