[talex5]

I just tried it. :X asks you to enter an encryption key, then asks you to enter it again, and only continues if the keys match. And then you're still in vim and need to save your file to overwrite anything. Seems hard to do by mistake.

(though I prefer ZZ)

[mattkrause]

If only!

I was a TA for an introductory CS class that taught C++ and, in passing, vi. A hour before one assignment was due, a student showed up in a panic. “I just had it working but then the computer corrupted my file. Look! Can I have an extension?” The other TA and I smirked: What a lame excuse! We offered some generic advice about starting earlier and visiting office hours. He left in a huff.

A few minutes later, a second student appeared with the same story, and then a third and fourth.

We eventually tracked the problem down to some handwritten notes, where someone had written a largish :x for “save and quit.” The students were doing things like spamming :X (since it didn’t seem to respond the first time—-and it was over a sluggish ssh connection) or a reflexive quit-and-compile cycle. I think we eventually recovered one or two assignments by guessing what they might have done.

We obviously apologized profusely and the next class started with a discussion of :x versus :X—-and emacs!

[indigodaddy]

Yep with shift-zz you don’t have to worry about this (I don’t think, even if you do shift-xx by mistake I don’t think that does anything— although haven’t tried)

[evilbob93]

I think i was 40 years into my usage of vi when i learned that ZQ was a thing. I bet someone else learns it right here.

[brimwats]

it's me, just learned it