February 10, 2026
Now entering insert mode: chaos
The original vi is a product of its time (and its time has passed)
Vi vs Vim goes nuclear: purists cry “sacrilege”, admins just need to save and quit
TLDR: An old-school text editor, vi, was called outdated by a veteran who says systems should default to Vim-like tools. The comment section turned into a flame war: purists yelled “Sacrilege”, stressed admins demanded whatever is installed on every server, and others asked why not use IDEs—because defaults matter in emergencies.
A veteran Unix blogger lit the fuse by saying the original vi—a 1970s/80s command‑line text editor—had its moment and should stop being today’s default. He praises Vim (a modernized take) for obvious upgrades like multi‑undo and split screens, while turning off the “super‑smart” bells and whistles. Translation for non‑nerds: he’s saying give newcomers the easier, safer option by default. Cue the flame war. vi vs Vim is back on the front page.
Sysadmins stormed in with real‑world panic: one demanded to know if he should “switch to nano” when he’s SSH’ing into a random server mid‑meltdown to edit a config and stop “millions of connections” from dying. Pragmatists echoed: speed, ubiquity, muscle memory. Purists fired back with a perfect meme: “Sacrilege:wq!” (that’s vi’s save‑and‑quit). Another diehard bragged they’re “faster on it than anything else,” while dunking on screen‑cluttered editors. Meanwhile, a modern dev asked the room: why program in vi at all when full‑blown coding tools (IDEs, aka Integrated Development Environments) can mimic Vim’s keys? One confused old‑timer wondered if this is a BSD thing, since many systems already ship Vim.
The vibe? Nostalgia vs. triage. It’s not just features—it’s identity, uptime, and the one key combo you can hit in your sleep.
Key Points
- •The author argues that classical vi’s design was shaped by early-1980s Unix hardware limits, notably single-level undo to constrain memory and complexity.
- •Vim adds core improvements such as multi-level undo/redo and split windows, while offering optional smart features and extensibility like LSP integrations.
- •Other vi derivatives, including nvi, also implement multi-level undo and window splitting, providing more capable editing than stock vi.
- •The author prefers vim’s approach to multi-level undo for clarity and error avoidance but acknowledges different user preferences (e.g., nvi).
- •He contends modern Unix systems should not ship stock vi as the default; defaults should be more capable editors, and default shells should provide editing, completion, and history.