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

[Larry McVoy]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 03:59:39PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> 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.

Sigh, my entire points were:

A) my 40 year old .exrc works perfectly with vim and has for more than 20 years.
B) the killer feature, not present in nvi, is :split

Beyond that, I don't care how much extra crap there is in vim, all I care
about is vi compat and :split

Why that is controversial is beyond me.  Lets move on.  Use whatever you like.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat