[matrss]

> i could never understand why anyone would us vi/m with its bs shortcuts, making BASIC text editing into a complete *.

I could never understand why anyone would use nano with its bs shortcuts, making basic text editing (in contrast to basic linear text writing, which even a non-modal editor like nano can do decently) into a complete *.

This is dumb. Sure, some people don't get modal editing. Others don't get how you could live without. It is almost as if people work differently and have different preferences.

[iso1631]

I get why OSes come with nano as the default editor, but it's so confining and slow to use when you're used to vim (or I'm sure emacs)

[matrss]

Emacs is a bit special in that the "canonical" way of editing a remote configuration file with it is probably using TRAMP, i.e. connecting your local emacs via ssh to edit the remote file as if it was local.

[BoredPositron]

Vim is the exception, not the rule. Most people don't want a mental model just to type a sentence. Instead of the snark, you could just admit that your preference doesn't align with the median user.

[matrss]

> Most people don't want a mental model just to type a sentence.

"Just typing a sentence" is what I was referring to with "basic linear text writing", for which modal editing indeed does not bring much of a benefit. That's not text editing though.

> Instead of the snark, you could just admit that your preference doesn't align with the median user.

? I explicitly wrote that people work differently and have different preferences. What was snarky about that?

Besides, the median user does not edit configuration files via ssh, so they are hardly relevant here. The median user does not even know what a terminal is. If this was about the median user, then we would be discussing Word vs. Notepad, or whatever.