Bryan J Smith wrote:

> So let's either test Vi, and to the max, or _nothing_.  That's it.

I suppose we will just have to agree to differ.

> So how are we going to edit those?
> Or are we all 'script kiddies' in LPIC-1, and leave the writing to others?
> ;)
> What about system configuration files?

You use the text editor of your choice. Possibly vi. I may use vi to edit a 
configuration file on a system that doesn't have anything else, but I'm for 
d*mn sure not using vi to write Python code, shell scripts, Ansible playbooks, 
LaTeX documents, or e-mail, because vi simply isn't my thing. (In my 
experience as a Linux instructor, vi is actually very few people's thing. The 
people in my classes who actively liked or at least didn't mind vi usually had 
previous Unix experience, but virtually everybody else simply detested it. 
That alone should tell us something.)

I agree that there are Linux systems that by default come with vi and no other 
editor. These systems are what “vimtutor” is for, because if you're in the 
unenviable position of having to deal with such systems, 10 minutes to learn 
the basics of vi are obviously time well spent. As far as I'm concerned we can 
even acknowledge the importance of this by asking one (not three) questions on 
the LPIC-1 exam. But if your real goal is productivity editing all sorts of 
general text files on Linux (and I contend that it should be), then by all 
means find an editor you like and are comfortable with. That editor may be 
vi(m) or nano or GNU Emacs or Visual Studio Code or whatever other editor you 
like, but that choice is personal and shouldn't force anyone else to do 
anything.

> **P.S.  Sounds like RPN for calculators, even today on-screen or a phone.

For the record, I've had an RPN calculator (or, these days, an RPN calculator 
app on my smartphone) for ages, because I think that – unlike vi – it actually 
is more logical and less error-prone than the alternative once you've bought 
the basic idea. I don't proselytise, though.

But then again I also like the Athena Widgets scrollbar, which was an 
amazingly simple and powerful piece of UX design that didn't survive because 
some moron at Apple thought that people should be able to get by with a one-
button mouse and pretty much everybody else thought that copying whatever 
Apple was doing would be a good idea.

The other nice thing about RPN calculators, BTW, is that people won't “borrow” 
them because they don't know how to get them to work ;^)

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau · [email protected] · https://www.tuxcademy.org
Freie Schulungsmaterialien für Linux und Open-Source-Software
Free Training Materials for Linux and Open-Source Software


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