From: janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com
Thanks for your post and insights.
I'd like to ask about some details that are not obvious to me...
On 07.03.2024 23:58, Eli the Bearded wrote:
> In comp.editors, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> As I understand it nvi is just a reimplementation of classical vi.
>> I assume your Linux also supports vim. Is there a reason why you
>> prefer to use nvi?
>
> Some people find vim does too much. I find I need to carefully pare back
> some default configurations in vim to make it "sane" for me. With
> settings like "scrolloff" set, I find it actually interferes with my
> editing most of the time. But there are rare cases when I do want want
> that. The same holds for syntax highlighting.
It's unclear to me what you mean by "too much". I'm aware that Vim
has a lot of new features but if I start it without changes I seem
to get a behavior like Vi; the only difference I recall is the 'u'
behavior to undo a single change (and toggle) in Vi, and to have
multiple undo-levels in Vim (that I certainly don't want to miss).
I can't say anything WRT the 'scrolloff' setting; its default value
is '0' on my system and that's how I recall Vi to behave. (I don't
recall that Vi had such an option in the first place, but my memory
on that setting detail is faint.)
>
>
>> (I'm really curious since there's so many fundamental and useful
>> features supported in vim that I surely don't want to miss them.
>> Even at times when I used both, vi and vim, in parallel depending
>> on the actual platform I was working on it wouldn't have occurred
>> to me to stay with vi (for consistency, or so) on a platform where
>> vim was available.)
>
> The default vi on Slackware has been elvis probably since the first
> version of that distro. People who have been using that since forever
> likely find vim quirky.
I recall to have used Elvis decades ago for only a short period of
time. Have you an example for the "quirky feeling"? (I am certainly
wondering about it; was it so different from _Vi_? And given that I
read in the Wikipedia that _Vim_ was influenced by it I'd expected
that even adopted non-Vi features would have similarities then.)
But okay, whenever one is used to a tool any differing behavior can
be a nuisance.
> [...]
>
> I turned to vim in the 2.x era because my editing style uncovered bugs
> in the true vi I used on Solaris and HP-UX. I'm still using it now, but
> the vim-isms I use are very slim compared to the vi original things I
> use.
Yes, this is understandable.
Myself I consider the basic power of the Vi concept/philosophy already
as the primary incentive to use Vi. One difference on my part is that
over time I had constantly used more and more features of Vim (and Vi).
Yet still only a fraction of what Vim provides.
Amongst the new (non-Vi) features that I _often_ use in Vim are...
- Using control keys (arrow keys, etc.) in Insert-mode[*]
- Using control keys for page navigation
- Visual mode commands (as an option in specific editing cases)
- Search history
- Ex command history
- Multiple undos/redos
- screen splitting
- syntax highlighting
- Forward keyword search[**]
- Navigation on wrapped lines (gj, gk)
- Extended word positioning (ge, gE)
- Internal formatting (gq)
- the more consistent 'z' commands (zt, zz, zb)
- a couple of useful ex commands[***] (:last, ...)
There's some more I only occasionally use, and I probably forgot some.
Janis
[*] That never worked with ordinary Vi for me.
[**] The original Vi I recall to have used long ago did only support
the backward keyword search '#'.
[**] I don't recall anymore what Vi provided (but I recall that the
list had been rather short), so I abstain from listing more examples.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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