Without starting a religious war, it's essential to learn the basics of vi for it is ubiquitous on all UNIX variants. Even if you use emacs, it's essential knowledge.
> Without starting a religious war
Famous last words ;-)
Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
61–70 of 128 posts
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#62Does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that, in such a pro-Unix article, Miguel recommends Mavis Beacon? According to Amazon, it's available only for Windows and OSX :p
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#63Without starting a religious war, it's essential to learn the basics of vi for it is ubiquitous on all UNIX variants. Even if you use emacs, it's essential knowledge.
cough ed cough though you wont find either on your fresh gentoo install
No because it'd take 9 years to compile it all ;-)
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#64Are most people not touch typers? I've noticed my boss isn't really a touch typer, despite programming since before I was born, but I always assumed the majority of CS people were.
I can touch type in the sense that I don't look at my keyboard when I type, yet I don't really use ten fingers. I was never properly taught to type.
Coincidentally, I'm trying to learn real touch typing as I think it could help me in Vim.
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is on Debian and CentOS server installs and is available on a Ubuntu default install. It's the common denominator. Why frig around with emacs, pico, nano etc when vi is always there and is the same?
I'm pretty sure its vim-tiny
Please substitute "vi" in my comments for "vi or appropriate compatible substitute" such as nvi, vim, elvis etc. They all work the same with the usual subset of commands :)
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you use a default server install of debian, ubuntu or centos, it doesn't have emacs installed. The installation media and recovery CDs don't either. That is enough justification, especially when you're at a single user mode console on a ILO card when the machine won't boot and flames are coming out of everything. Vi is there for you and emacs SSH won't be saving you when the network is not up so you cant apt-get o…
I'm pretty sure that Ubuntu, Debian, and Centos come with nano preinstalled. nano isn't nearly as powerful of an editor as emacs or vi, but it's got most of the basic features you'll need when you're just trying to get the network up and running, for instance. I'm not entirely convinced that, for an emacs user, the added power of vi over nano is worth it in the corner cases where you can't use emacs through SSH, cons…
I tend to just use vi for everything. Saves worrying about switching around all the time. Consistency over context-switching is more important to me.
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#67Without starting a religious war, it's essential to learn the basics of vi for it is ubiquitous on all UNIX variants. Even if you use emacs, it's essential knowledge.
> Without starting a religious war Famous last words ;-)
Indeed. It's almost as if Godwin is beckoning to be invoked.
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#68Without starting a religious war, it's essential to learn the basics of vi for it is ubiquitous on all UNIX variants. Even if you use emacs, it's essential knowledge.
Anecdote here...
While I find myself using Emacs more that Vi/Vim these days, I still find Vi key-bindings useful in the less(1) pager, which I use extensively.
I've just discovered that less responds to Emacs movements, but for searching text I rely on the vi slash. Secondly, when navigating multiple files in less, the vi/vim "next/prev file/buffer" commands (n/p) apply.
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
He sounded pretty serious to me. Do you have a better suggestion? The Mavis Beacon software does a perfectly fine job at teaching touch-typing.
Ktouch is awesome, Free, and in the Deb repo's, maybe others. Simple, effective, nice UI, and you can learn any layout from Qwerty to Colemak.
I learned with KTouch, and it is awesome.
Unfortunately when I did so, it didn't have special lessons for the numeric keys; hope that changed.
Re: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
He sounded pretty serious to me. Do you have a better suggestion? The Mavis Beacon software does a perfectly fine job at teaching touch-typing.
In an article called "Learning Unix", I think recommending (I assume proprietary) Windows/Mac software, is a bit silly.
Unix is just a bunch of standards that a couple of OSes are implementing, including OS X, not something that adheres to any philosophy about how software should be distributed.