Website design : what to use ?

[Florian Diesch]

garys at opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen) wrote:

>> vi is the standard editor on unix (well, I know, ed is the standard
>> editor...).
>
> Yeah, "ed" is the standard line editor and "ex" is the new-and-
> improved (late '70s :) line editor which has "vi" as the standard
> full-screen editor as another mode which is invoked when the
> editor is started as "vi". (Switch between modes with "Q" and "vi".)
> Nobody should complain about "vi" being called the standard editor,
> as line editing is so rarely done now.

Don't be sure about that. The One True Editor[1] comes with file[2]
explaining that ed is the standard editor.


>>> Can someone educate me about vi and vim and the difference between
>>> them. 
>
>> vim stands for "vi improved" and is the most popular of today's vi
>> clones.
>
> It's not so much a clone as it is an advanced editor which can emulate
> "vi/ex".

It's an improved vi clone.


> The *buntu don't really use "vi" or "ex" at all.  Current versions of
> "real" vi/ex are available and, being much smaller, are preferred for
> some systems and for those who don't want to get hooked by extentions.

But the only free vi implementation (I don't remember the name; AFAIK
nvi is close but there some differences) isn't included in Ubuntu.


> It might be better if vim was not installed as "vi" because then we
> have people recommending "vi" for features that are not in the real
> "vi"".

Yes, sometimes that's a problem. On the other hand  if there's no other
vi it's better to start vim as to fail. And for people with no vi
experience vim may be a little bit easier to use than nvi.  


> (I use Xemacs normally, but as "root" I run "jed" in emacs-mode, when

I'm using GNU Emacs for the big things like programming and LaTeX and
vim for the smaller things like config files. I used to use vim for
mailing before i switched from mutt to Gnus.


> possible, else "vi".  If I used more than the most basic "vi" commands
> I'd want a real "vi" with only the features that can be expected to be
> found on any vi emulator that I might encounter.)

I want at least support for cursor keys (which vi doesn't
have). Sometimes syntax highlighting comes handy to find mistakes.


   Florian

Footnotes: 
[1]  GNU Emacs
[2]  /usr/share/emacs/22.0.50/etc/JOKES in emacs-snapshot-common

-- 
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>