Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003) • Hacker News Board

Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#1

Post by spking » Wed, May 06, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)
theregister.co.uk

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#2

Post by dieselerator » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

tl;dr The Register interviews Bill Joy about writing vi over a very slow data link.

I use vi (m) every day. Thank you, Bill Joy, and Happy Birthday whenever chron brings it up.

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#3

Post by xwdv » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

Thank you Bill Joy, no other tool in my programming career has been as impactful as vi, and all its iterations.

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#4

Post by JJMcJ » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

He also created Berkeley sockets, which pretty much powers networking today.

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#5

Post by abjKT26nO8 » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

dieselerator wrote: post #2

tl;dr The Register interviews Bill Joy about writing vi over a very slow data link. I use vi (m) every day. Thank you, Bill Joy, and Happy Birthday whenever chron brings it up.

What is chron?

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#6

Post by bdamm » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

vi has been life changing. Learning vi altered my entire concept of what interacting with text could be, and even my personal physical relationship with a keyboard. Using vi is like driving a stick shift; satisfying in the depth of control once the learning curve is done. vi has been a daily friend now for over 20 years. So much insight is cooked into those little key mappings.

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#7

Post by sunnytimes » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:30 PM UTC

I used to use vi all the time and the joke always was

"vi is a four letter word"

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#8

Post by PEJOE » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #5

dieselerator wrote: post #2

tl;dr The Register interviews Bill Joy about writing vi over a very slow data link. I use vi (m) every day. Thank you, Bill Joy, and Happy Birthday whenever chron brings it up.

What is chron?

cron is a tool to schedule tasks

see: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/cron.8.html

and: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/crontab.5.html

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#9

Post by abjKT26nO8 » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

PEJOE wrote: post #8

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is chron?

cron is a tool to schedule tasks see: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/cron.8.html and: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/crontab.5.html

But what does "chron" have to do with cron? Or was that a typo?

Re: Bill Joy's greatest gift to man – the vi editor (2003)

#10

Post by narrator » Wed, May 06, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

It's amazing how fast one can edit text with vi once you get all the keys down. There used to be a video game that taught how to use VI. Is it still around?