On Fri, Jan 07, 2000 at 09:21:43PM +0000, David Brownlee wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Jukka Marin wrote:
> 
> > Hmm.  There's this place using NetBSD, where no-one knows how to use
> > vi.  It's always a challenge to get a new machine up and running when
> > you have to guide them keystroke by keystroke on the phone when they're
> > editing /etc/rc.confor /etc/group or doing vipw to get the system up so
> > I can log on from the network.
> > 
> 	Another good argument for having a simple editor present.
> 	
> 	Attempted summary of discussion to date:

And a nicely biased summary, at that.

A "simple editor" -- which means, AFAICT, an editor with a user
interface tuned for f-ckwits -- is a SUBSTANTIAL ANNOYANCE to the
experienced Unix user, AFAICT.  It certainly is to me, and as far as
I can tell it is to plenty of others as well, to hear people groan
when confronted with 'ee' on a FreeBSD system.  I'm *not* an idiot.
I do *not* want a machine, when in its default state, to present
me with 'ee' when I type 'vipw'.

I think the full-on stupidest suggestion in this thread was the
one that ee 'not be the default for anything, just set EDITOR=ee
and VISUAL=ee in /.profile'.  That's *exactly* the default that
is so irritating on FreeBSD.

Also, I build machines with NetBSD installed on 8MB and even 4MB
flash disks.  100K of new bloat that I have to cut out is hardly
welcome in this application...

Appealing to naive users is great.  But please, let's not forget
that most such users will just use Windoze or Linux anyway, and
that most of our _existing_ userbase is quite Unix-savvy and
has no need for this particular crutch.