Re: Gotta Learn Vi . . . . . . (was Re: [tlug] [Newbie] Becoming'root' in Kubuntu: Use sudo)

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2007 at 02:12:33PM +0900, burlingk@example.com wrote:
> 
> 
> What are the differences between vim and vi.
> I've only ever used vim. I know it is basically
> a drop in replacement in a lot of ways, but are
> there any noteable differences between the two? :)

I seldom do default customization, so I'm using the default in either
case, but vim has a few enhancements.  I know in the default FreeBSD vi
(which is actually nvi) backspacing doesn't delete and it doesn't have
the :sp command.  (There's probably a way to get the backspacing to
work, but the vim method, set backspace=indent,eol,start doesn't work.)

The other thing, perhaps more important for those on this list, is that
vim works with Japanese input pretty much out of the box, whereas with
nvi or elvis (the default version of vi in Slackware and Debian, though
not Ubuntu) it doesn't.  (FreeBSD at least, has a Japanese version of
nvi which does, naturally enough, work out of the box.)  I *think* (but
am not sure) that almost all Unixes (Unixii?) and Unix-like systems now
use one or another of the enhanced versions, e.g., nvi, vile, elvis, or
of course, vim.  

O'Reilly (of course) has a book which goes through the various features.
If you're really curious, I'll dig through it and see if there is a
simple list.  Also, my answer here is based on default versions of elvis
(Slackware), nvi (the various BSD's) and vim (most versions of Linux).
For example, ArchLinux's default version of vim has syntax highlighting,
which I turn off, since, not being a programmer, I find it more
distracting than helpful.  It also slightly changes the way keystrokes
work, at least in this Arch version.  

However, despite all the above, if you can use one, I think you can 
easily adopt to another.  


-- 

Scott Robbins

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