On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 5:58 AM, viktiglemma <[email protected]> wrote: > As I read the documentation for Vim, I feel that half the text I'm reading > is about how this command is different from how it is in vi or not and all > the things that are not possible to do in vi. > > Why doesn't Vim leave vi behind? As a new user I do not benefit from all the > vi-information.
The vi information is a product of Vim's origins as a vi clone. Vim is closing in on 20 years of continuous development by Bram and there was an extended period of time where Vim was one of a number of clones instead of the primary clone that more or less everybody uses. The help files continuously reference it because it documents the deviations from the original, which is helpful if you're switching. As for the :set cp behavior, a significant fraction of mastering vi is not learning the commands so much as it is knowing how to apply them (idoms) and being able to do so without having to think about it (tacit application). As an example, when you're in an argument list for a C like language, %by% copies the function call. Veteran vi(m) users have a huge bag of these tricks (e.g. ci" replaces the content of a string, ctC is useful for editing camelCase words, etc) and they're all very much dependent on things working like you expect. I go crazy on shallow vi copies because they only implement the basics and my idioms fail. For veterans that have a set of idioms built around the base vi behaviors, the :set cp option can be important. Also, having it in the help files doesn't really hurt anything and it'd probably be more effort to remove all the references than it is to type 'this feature does not exist in vi' for the new features. If you don't care about the vi information, ignore it. Regards. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
