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
--
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