Vi Text Editor

The World’s Most Ubiquitous Editor

“Vi was created in 1976 and opening it in a terminal is opening a wormhole to 1976” @type_theory

Vi was created in 1976 and is the second oldest editor on the planet, third if you count ex upon which vi is built. It is the second editor to be added to the UNIX POSIX standard, which has also made it the most ubiquitous. The first POSIX editor was Ed created in 1969. The letters vi actually stand for visual, as in, a “visual” version of the Ex editor. Anyone wanting a career involving Linux and UNIX systems must learn Vi even if they prefer something else for larger project development.

The vi command is usually some form of vim on most systems today, but not all. The closest thing to the original vi is a modern project called nvi which even recreates the bugs of the original. Comparing nvi to vim is one reliable way to know if what you are learning is a vimism or not.

See Also

Even though most of these are for Vim they are a pretty good way to learn Vi as well even though they include Vimisms.

Stay away from Vim Adventures. As fun as it is, it does not make a direct association to editing actual files that these other resources do.