Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

Linux.com reviews vile, the "vi like emacs" editor. "vi has several clones, such as calvin, Elvis, nvi, viper, and Vim, but vile isn't another vi clone, according to its maintainer, Thomas Dickey. It has the most common vi commands, but doesn't look quite like vi. vile is an editor that works and feels like vi but, like Emacs, incorporates features for editing multiple files in multiple windows."

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Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Jan 31, 2006 19:41 UTC (Tue) by astrophoenix (guest, #13528) [Link] (4 responses)

I've been a (g)vim user for so long, I forgot that standard vi doesn't
support multiple files. :vs and :sp are my friends, not to
mention :ls, :b<num>, :e#, :bn, :bN, and of course :mksession :)

I also have a handy vim function mapped to an autocmd so the cwd of vim is
always the same as the file I'm currently editing. very handy.

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 1, 2006 15:21 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (2 responses)

I use vim on both Linux and Windows. The only thing I miss on Windows id the ability to pipe a region through, very specifically, par(1l) to rewrap it. I've sort of gathered that gvim has that built in, but I can never quite find it. Anyone got a pointer?

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 1, 2006 17:24 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

par(1l) to rewrap it. I've sort of gathered that gvim has that built in, but I can never quite find it. Anyone got a pointer?

Maybe the gq command?

Bye,NAR

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 2, 2006 21:48 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I've used par on windows via cygwin, but as the other poster mentions, the gq command is no slouch.

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 1, 2006 17:06 UTC (Wed) by mtrudelm (guest, #4922) [Link]

Of course "Ed is the Editor"

From: patl@athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti)
Subject: The True Path (long)
Date: 11 Jul 91 03:17:31 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs,alt.slack

When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi
*and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like,
'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor
that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

Ed, man! !man ed

ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)

NAME
ed - text editor

SYNOPSIS
ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
---

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed
because it's ED!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem$ ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Jan 31, 2006 19:41 UTC (Tue) by cantsin (guest, #4420) [Link]

It scores points over Vim, one of the most popular clones of vi, because it's slimmer and yet manages to pack in all the essentials

Binary sizes of vi clones on Debian unstable/x86: vile 594K, vim-tiny 694K, elvis 552 K.

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Jan 31, 2006 22:22 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (2 responses)

Vile was a neat hack in its day, but it isn't fully vi compatable, and it's significantly vim incompatable, and it lacks a lot of the niceties of vim.

In short, use vim.

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Jan 31, 2006 23:02 UTC (Tue) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (1 responses)

nvi is vi-compatible, has multiple windows just fine and has
undo/redo that doesn't make one vomit...

Review: vile editor is anything but (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 1, 2006 10:55 UTC (Wed) by philips (guest, #937) [Link]

What's the problem with undo/redo in other vi-clones? e.g. vim?
I use vim last 6 years - and most of the features fit me okay.

I used vi once under Slowaris - and gosh it was pain. But still (thanks to my experiece in vim) I was able to do something.

P.S. I have tried nvi and elvis - but both fall short on development features. Proper support for ctags, good visual mode & macro to change between corresponding .c/.h - are the three my main requirements. (One of the reasons I stopped trying emacs, was realizition how inferior etags compared to exhuberant ctags is.) Also, syntax highlighting can make boring coding night little bit more pleasant. (And unlike default emacs coloring scheme, vim's default is usable and is my default. All those emacs' funny colors on white background really irritate my eyes. Background must be black. 'unsigned long int' and asm() must be green. Period.)