>  | Trouble with echo rc_conf... is the possibility of a typo, in which case
>  | the new user is thrown at the mercy of vi to correct the damage.
>
>Actually, if "at the mercy of vi" is the correct description (which it
>is for some users), then "at the mercy of /bin/ed" would be better.
>Ed is more merciful (in some sense) than vi is ... how to make a simple
>correction (like deleting the last line and re-typing it) is easy to
>explain to anyone.

well...i'd argue that it's easy to tell someone what to press, but
most people these days are going to be quite perturbed at not being
able to see what they're editing.

>Everyone should get familiar with ed anyway, it is a nice editor, easy
>to use, and the basis of most of the rest of unix tools (everything from
>grep, sed, vi, ... is built from concepts from ed).

...which is why i'm slowly teaching myself ed.  even if it's just for
the ability to do things like:

     printf "....long de command sequence..." | ed somefile

and make strange and arbitrary changes that i would be harder pressed
to do with sed or perl.  and redirection.  and moving files around.
bleah.

-- 
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