Re: Will the real vi please stand up?
On Apr 15, Robert D. Hilliard wrote
> It is generally agreed that any Unix user should be able to use
>vi, regardless of which editor he prefers to use regularly.
>
> Apparently vi doesn't exist in Debian - vim, nvi, and elvis
>(maybe others) all like to have a symlink named vi pointing to them.
>A year ago when I was running Slackware, I thought I learned enough
>about vi to use it, but not well. Then I found I was learning elvis,
>not vi. When I first installed Debian I tried using 'vi' (I don't
>remember which of the almost clones it really was) and found that
>some of the commands I was familiar with caused the famous "unexpected
>results", so I gave up.
>
> Which of the vi semi-clones on Debian is most like the original
>vi and most likely to work on a broad range of unices?
>
>Bob
That's a pretty difficult question, since I'm not sure there are
many around who remember that much about what vi originally
looked like. However, vim has an option for running in
vi-compatible mode. Put the line "set compatible" in your
~/.vimrc file. You're giving up an awful lot by doing so,
though.
- rick
--
Richard Kilgore | rkilgore@lore.ece.utexas.edu
Electrical & Computer Engineering | http://lore.ece.utexas.edu/~rkilgore/
The University of Texas at Austin | (512) 471-8011
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