MORE AND MORE PEOPLE CHOOSE vi.
Case study of

by Dmitry A. Kazakov
(mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de)

This article is just a part of a fundamental opus devoted to investigation of UNIX. Scientists of the future will read UNIX's manual pages with the same feel of a light perplexity that comes to us when we turn the pages of Witch Hammer (some people feel it right now). This work should help them in their heavy task.

Let us consider a very obscure question - why people like vi and why it looks like vi. Certainly, there must be lots of convincing reasons in deleting a character by pressing three keys ESC, x, i instead of single DEL. We should immediately reject opinions like `people search for obstacles to overwhelm them' as unscientific ones. Considering this issue more thoroughly we can find at least four approaches to it.

Astronomical point of view. As we know most of programmers work putting legs on the system block. (If you have a `tower' just move it from your table down to the floor, you'll feel the difference!). To achieve maximal comfort legs should be arranged along the magnetic lines. Well, let us take a look on the keyboard laying over your mmmm... stomach. In this position a line connecting keys x and ESC points right to the North star. At the same time x - i axis indicates the equinoctial point.

Magical approach. After active usage of described above ESC, x, i key sequence everybody comes to the conclusion that SOMETHING'S WRONG and enters another sequence - ESC, :, q, !. As we know `ESC' abbreviates the word escutcheon. If we consider keys x, i, :, q and ! we can notice that they organize a magic pentagram. It is clear that multiple drawing the pentagram protects us from the cruel daemons hiding in the CPU.

Medical reasons. Clinical researches show that using vi keeps tonus of your fingers at the level of a violinist, that prevents a gout. However, you should be careful working at home. Be sure that the door to the child room is tightly closed unless you want to hear from your son the sentences you usually address to vi.

Psycho-analysis. Sexual instinct...

In the conclusion I would like to state that we are currently at the very beginning of understanding the deep laws ruling over the world. Some important questions remain unexplored. For example, why are we using ESC, d, d, i to delete a line rather than handy ESC, f, d, h, s, t, h, n, v, b, I? Never mind, vi should overcome some day!