May 12, 2026
Esc :wq and let the drama begin
The vi family
Why are people still obsessed with this ancient text editor? The comments got spicy
TLDR: A big history post showed just how many versions of the nearly 50-year-old vi editor still exist, and why it remains hugely popular with Linux users. In the comments, fans praised its speed, defectors pushed friendlier alternatives, and one small AI mention sparked eye-rolling drama.
A new roundup of the sprawling vi family — a clan of text editors dating back to 1977 — should have been a quiet history lesson about a beloved old tool. Instead, the community turned it into a full-on personality test. The basic pitch is wild enough: yes, millions of Linux users still swear by an editor that looks old, feels intimidating, and has a reputation for trapping beginners in a blinking screen. But fans say that once it clicks, you can edit text at lightning speed, and because some version of it is basically everywhere, you never have to relearn the basics. That’s the appeal behind classics like Vim and newer spins like Neovim.
The comment section, though, was where the real drama lived. One camp showed up waving the “I escaped to Helix” banner, calling it the friendly, no-fuss version of the whole idea: no endless setup, no plugin rabbit hole, just results. Another crowd proudly admitted their brains have been permanently rewired by years of Vim use, to the point that they accidentally type editor shortcuts into totally different apps like muscle-memory zombies. And then came the light controversy: one commenter grumbled that a mention of AI-generated code in the Vim description felt like an unnecessary cheap shot in an otherwise charming history post. Even the self-described mouse users chimed in with a surprisingly wholesome plot twist: they may not live in the terminal, but learning a few vi basics has apparently saved them in many a digital emergency. Ancient? Yes. Dead? Absolutely not.
Key Points
- •The article says vi-family editors remain highly popular among Linux users because of editing efficiency and widespread availability of vi key bindings in modern IDEs.
- •It traces vi back to 1977 and says commercial AT&T UNIX licensing in the 1980s encouraged the creation of free vi clones for personal computers.
- •The article compiles a historical list of vi-family editors and derivatives, including ex/vi, STevie, Elvis, xvi, Vile, Vim, nvi, OpenBSD vi/OpenVi, BusyBox vi, IllumOS vi, nvi2, and Neovim.
- •Several clones introduced major functional additions such as multiple windows and buffers, syntax coloring/highlighting, scripting support, large-file handling, and UTF-8 support.
- •The article identifies Vim as probably the most used vi clone and describes Neovim as a modernized Vim derivative with LSP support, a built-in terminal emulator, and Lua scripting.