editors in rescue mode

[Smoot Carl-Mitchell]

On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 19:29 -0400, Steve C. Lamb wrote:

> "vim is just an extension of vi"

I am not going to get into an argument with you about the semantics of
the word extension.  I was using it from the perspective of a user of
either editor.  For a vi user, vim is an extension of vi.

>     That is what you wrote, that is what I quoted.  Maybe you're not aware of
> the vernacular but when something is "an extension of" a piece of software the
> implication is that the extension cannot run without the piece of software it
> is extending.  That is why Thunderbird/Firefox extensions are named such and
> unable to run without the program they are extending.

Extension has a much more general meaning than the above.

>     Furthermore the statement, "vi commands are a subset of vim commands" is
> also false.  vim has a vi compatibility mode which not only restricts one to
> only those commands present in vi but alters the behaviors and mimics bugs
> so as to be compatible with the vi of yester-year.

You also left out my quote from the vim home page:

What Is Vim?
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text
editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with
most UNIX systems. 

Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

Vim is a text editor first released by Bram Moolenaar in 1991 for the
Amiga computer. Vim was created as an extended version of the vi editor,
with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program
source code; its full name is Vi IMproved.[2]

Perhaps I should have used "improvement" instead of "extension".  From a
user perspective, (not a coding perspective) I think either term fits.

BTW, I have been using VIM for at least 8-9 years and vi for too many
years prior to that. 
-- 
Smoot Carl-Mitchell
System/Network Architect
smoot at tic.com
+1 480 922 7313
cell: +1 602 421 9005