Vim rant

[bp1509]

I don't understand why one of the most user friendly desktops has the default command line editor set to vim, which is way to complicated. I just hate vim. When i first started using linux, and i accidently got into vim, when i tried to access the manual on a certain command. I couldn't do anything, but restart the computer. I couldn't even figure out how to exit the program. I attempted once to start learning vim. But then i realised that i shouldn't have to learn something almost as complicated as a programming language to use a TEXT EDITOR. Why do we include something like this as the default command line editor? isn't there something better we can use, so that noobies who type man ls, or man mount don't get confronted with something that only programmers should ever see.

1. nano is the default text editor in Ubuntu's command line, except for man pages.. which you shouldn't be editing.
2. once one masters vi/vim you can do your text editing a lot faster than you can in nano or a gui editor. It's far more powerful. Just wait until you have to search and replace globally.
3. It's not that hard, i figured it out in one week's worth of usage. Look at vimtutor, it'll help.
These tutorials may help: http://ubuntuadministrator.com/?tag=vi as well
4. As to why vi is installed, is well, it's on every single linux system known to man. vi is small enough to fit on a boot disk and is great for recovery purposes back in the day of floppies. When you work with a large network of unix machines over ssh shells, you can count on the same text editor being on every single system, and that's vi or vim. That's not the case with nano, pico, or others.
5. The man pages aren't full vi/vim. You can drop into vim from them, I think, just as you can with less/more. But i don't get what's so complicated about man pages. Press 'q' to quit and use your arrows to scroll.
6. If one was to consider themselves just a run of the mill desktop user, why aren't you using something like gedit, leafpad, mousepad,?

[IllegalCharacter]

as a nano user, i can say that the one advantage to using something as anti-intuitive as vim is there's less chance you'll destroy your machine by accident.

Probably because vim has proper undo support From my experiences with nano (I used to use nano for programming before I switched to vim) the best undo support you get is ^U, which uncuts a line. Not really that helpful.

You're missing the point of vim. It's not designed to have an intuitive interface, it's designed to have a fast interface that stays out of the user's way - a lot of the time, these two goals are at odds with one another.

If you're going to be doing a lot of command-line stuff, I'd recommend learning vim as the time spent learning it will save much more time using it. For me, it took less than an hour to learn some basics and I was already more productive than I ever was with nano.

[smartboyathome]

1. nano is the default text editor in Ubuntu's command line, except for man pages.. which you shouldn't be editing.
2. once one masters vi/vim you can do your text editing a lot faster than you can in nano or a gui editor. It's far more powerful. Just wait until you have to search and replace globally.
3. It's not that hard, i figured it out in one week's worth of usage. Look at vimtutor, it'll help.
These tutorials may help: http://ubuntuadministrator.com/?tag=vi as well
4. As to why vi is installed, is well, it's on every single linux system known to man. vi is small enough to fit on a boot disk and is great for recovery purposes back in the day of floppies. When you work with a large network of unix machines over ssh shells, you can count on the same text editor being on every single system, and that's vi or vim. That's not the case with nano, pico, or others.
5. The man pages aren't full vi/vim. You can drop into vim from them, I think, just as you can with less/more. But i don't get what's so complicated about man pages. Press 'q' to quit and use your arrows to scroll.
6. If one was to consider themselves just a run of the mill desktop user, why aren't you using something like gedit, leafpad, mousepad,?

Note the date on the post you just replied to. I'm reporting for necromancy.

[euphemus]

Thread necromancy + flamebait = pointless

What is "Thread necromancy"; and don't be patronizing! - I may be new to Ubuntu but I'm not so new as to tolerate rudeness! All too often techy-heads, and anyone else who gets involved substantially in a specialized subject, bully n00bs - its unnecessary and speaks volumes as to the nature of one's character.

[frenkel]

Why are you brining up this topic? You want to flame on?

[euphemus]

Why are you brining up this topic? You want to flame on?

Is that directed at me? And can you speak a known language - what does"flame on" mean? Sounds agressive.

[frenkel]

Yes, it was directed at you. This thread was more like a flame-war (search that up on google, it means something like a war with words). Nobody posted to it for almost a year, and then you posted to it again, and people will get into fights again. Why did you do that?

[euphemus]

Yes, it was directed at you. This thread was more like a flame-war (search that up on google, it means something like a war with words). Nobody posted to it for almost a year, and then you posted to it again, and people will get into fights again. Why did you do that?

Well - I was originally having some trouble with (god knows what) and that involved vim to an extent - so I was looking for posts about vim - I saw this thread and couldn't have agreed more with the original psot and gave my opinion.

This time around I was reviewing previous posts - seeing what has been added - is there anything useful? - I do this from time to time: I usually read the whole thread first time and its like catching up on a serial. I noted "necromancy" several times - not sure what that means - so I asked (I thought I was asking the original poster).

I now, after fending off accusations of aggression, am informed that it is posting to old threads (loving the dead). "Flaming on" is deliberately stiring up trouble. I meant not to do either.

As I think about this, I suspect that you along with others are viewing a new-post bulletin board, I never do this: I search for specific topics and post there. I don't think I've ever been to the main bulletin board here.

I will be more careful about the age of threads: in my ignorance I thought a thread that should not be used would be closed in some way.

Thank you for the answer – I'll avoid old threads and personal opions in future.

[frenkel]

Ok. Thanks. I wish everybody would be so smart as you

[Perfect Storm]

Thread closed.