Why vi? (was Re: [NBLUG/talk] The Debian Way)

[nicolas vigier]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005, S. Saunders wrote:

> 
> On Fri, October 28, 2005 11:54, Walter Hansen wrote:
> 
> > I think vi was probably the first really usable text editor on
> > *ix systems and everyone collectively heaved a sigh of relief
> > and said "I guess that will do" and nobody has had enough
> > motivation to replace it with something better.
> 
> Note that there is no single agency *TO* "replace it with
> something better."
> 
> Linus could _probably_ force another editor to become the default on
> *Linux* systems... but not on other Freenix'es (e.g. the BSD's), nor
> the commercial flavors like Solaris, HP-UX, MacOSX, &c.  <thinks of
> "vi" becoming "default" under Mac OS, and giggles helplessly...
> some things are just THAT absurd...>

Hmm, I don't think Linus could force another editor to become the
default on Linux systems. Linus is working on the Linux Kernel, and the
people who use the Linux Kernel to create a Linux Distribution (like
RedHat, Debian, etc ...) are free to use whatever default editor they
want, and this has nothing to do with the kernel.

By the way, I think that on Gentoo, the default editor is nano.

Nicolas