*BSD News Article 91204


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From: Gerry S Hayes <sumner@CMU.EDU>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.editors
Subject: Re: What is vi? (Re: Betting on Unix)
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 03:54:10 -0500
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
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aaro@iki.fi (Aaro Koskinen) writes:
> Graham Broadbridge <grahamb@peachy.apana.org.au> wrote in comp.unix.bsd.misc:
> > In comp.os.linux.misc Douglas Seay <seay@absyss.fr> wrote:
> > : heaven is linux with vi and perl.
> > 
> > Linux does not have 'vi'  vi is a UNIX utility that is licensed.
> 
> By this logic, Linux also doesn't have 'cat' or 'cp', right? vi is an
> utility which has been defined in the POSIX standard and any
> implementation which conforms to this standard can be referred as
> 'vi'. (Unlike Emacs, which has only one implementation).
> 

None of the vi clones conform to POSIX yet, AFAIK; vim lacks ex mode
(strange, since vi is just the Visual Interface to ex), nvi lacks
modelines.  Elvis is best for vi compatibility as far as I've seen.
There are reputedly patches to vim to implement ex mode, but I haven't
seen them.  Vim 5.0 should allow ex mode.

FWIW, Emacs has multiple implementations.  The FSF's Emacs is the most
widely used (along with its offspring, XEmacs (formerly Lucid Emacs
(courtesy of Jamie Zawinski, of Netscape and xdaliclock fame (Sorry,
thinking of lisp now that you mentioned the evil editor)))), but there
are uEmacs, jove, and plenty of others.  There's even an
"Implementations of Emacs" FAQ; I dare say that there are more
implementations of Emacs than of vi freely available.  Let us not
forget that the original Emacs is a set of Editor MACroS for teco (and
is primarily RMS's fault, just like the current FSF Emacs).

Cordially,

  Sumner

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