Learning the vi and Vim Editors, 7th Edition

Tastes Great, Less Filling

vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a
muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know
I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be
said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^
exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D

— Jesper Lauridsen from alt.religion.emacs

We can’t discuss vi as part of Unix culture without acknowledging what is perhaps the longest running debate in the Unix community:^[80]vi versus Emacs.

Discussions about which is better have cropped up on comp.editors (and other newsgroups) for years and years. (This is illustrated nicely in Figure D-10.) You will find summaries of some of these discussions in the many web sites described earlier. You will find pointers to more recent versions on the web pages.

Figure D-10. It’s not a religious war. Really!

Some of the better arguments in favor of vi are:

• vi is available on every Unix system. If you are installing systems, or moving from system to system, you might have to use vi anyway.

• You can usually keep your fingers on the home row of the keyboard. This is a big plus for touch typists.

• Commands are one (or sometimes two) regular characters; they are much easier to type than all of the control and metacharacters that Emacs requires.

• vi is generally smaller and less resource-intensive than Emacs. Startup times are appreciably faster, sometimes up to a factor of 10. ...