[TUHS] End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 3:43 PM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> nvi is a rewrite of Joys vi (why?  Anyone?)
>
When Keith ensured that everything in what would lead to the NET2 release
was free of any AT&T IP, since the vi command was added to ex, which had
originated as ed on the Sixth Edition, it had to be replaced.

FWIW: Your observation about modern tools doing more stuff cuts both ways.

Sometimes that's nice.   As much as I miss the simplicity of the Seventh
Edition, I'd not want to trade my Mac for it.  But as Rob once observed, cat
-v is not necessary and many of the "stuff" you mention has little value.
I suspect that every feature in vim is found to be helpful>>somebody<< but
I >>suspect<< that few people need, much less use all the features, and as
importantly, as with cat -v, there are often simpler solutions for many of
these features.   Just because it has them does not necessarily mean it
matters.

My take, the >>one<< feature Vim has for me is MacVIM, which is better
integrated into my Mac, but other than that, my .exrc file, like yours, is
40+ years old, and most of how I use it, nvi would work.
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