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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newspump.sol.net!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!Venus.mcs.net!not-for-mail From: Martin J. Maney <maney@Venus.mcs.net> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Betting on Unix Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Date: 9 Mar 1997 01:23:41 GMT Organization: MCSNet, Chicagoland's finest Internet Service Provider 312-803-6271 Lines: 28 Message-ID: <5ft3et$mq9$1@Nntp1.mcs.net> References: <5d3sr2$44n@nntp1.best.com> <5dbapu$t1f$1@nntp2.ba.best.com> <x7n2ti4s7i.fsf@dumbcat.codewright.com> <5dc7qq$hed@phoenix.sysbe.sysgo.de> <5ddcvf$4dh@sun20.ccd.bnl.gov> <330a1d23.2419719@172.15.0.208> <5ef5c8$rgs@arktur.rz.uni-ulm.de> <330B2333.38B6@to.me.please> <330ea403.78621875@mambo> <5ehrtv$7jp@news.rsn.hp.com> <330E1A59.21F50378@ctg.com> <330F8EB5.7DE1@agapesystems.com> <857190027.3067.2@msn-4-3.binc.net> <5fsk31$oa7@bignews.shef.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: venus.mcs.net X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA release 961022] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:163391 comp.os.linux.networking:71233 comp.os.linux.setup:101516 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:6254 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2751 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:56161 comp.os.os2.advocacy:272804 In comp.os.linux.networking Earl H. Kinmonth <kusogari@shef.ac.uk> wrote: > That fx finds the next instance of x, that Fx does the same thing > to the left, that dw deletes a word, etc., took me all of two or > three tries to remember, and, as any number of contributors to > this group will quickly tell you, I'm not very bright. Assuming > I had mistyped the previous line, I would have type b to back up > a word. To backup five words, I would have typed 5b. Although I > have a PhD (history), typing 5b to go back five words does not > qualify as "rocket science" in my book. > Am I missing something? Yes, you left out all the mode switching between "typing text" and "typing commands". Apparently you are one of those who found that natural and painless and so you may not even have thought of it while you were writing the above; I am not that sort, so even after most of a year of using vi (becuase on Xenix back then the choices were limited, and emacs has never appealed to me either) I was constantly tripping over that whenever I was being productive enough that I had better things to think about consciously than which mode I was in. I'm not disagreeing that you like vi, just trying to help you understand why some folks are so unhappy with it. I suspect this is as unarguable as the manual transmission vs. automatic transmission thing. [NB: no mapping of editors to those two styles is intended by your humble correspondent, so don't attribute any such thing to me, please!] Follow-ups trimmed to misc and adovcacy groups.