vi Alternative Required

[Richard John Botting]

I just caught up with this thread - I notice that nobody explained why the
PC user has such a nasty experience when learning vi.  I have been teaching
vi to PC and Mac users (mainly Comp Sci Majors) for 4 or 5 years and have
come to the conclusion that I need a tape recording that says:

	DON'T TOUCH THE ARROW KEYS!

To say nothing of Insert, Delete, Home, End, PageUp, Page Down.

Yes - 'vi'+'termcap' can interpret these keys when in command mode.
But - on several systems that my students use the ANSI/vt100/at386/tab132
what-have-you Escape sequence get fouled up - I assume that a buffer
somewhere between the terminal and termcap overflows.

Worse - There is NO command mode in most PC editors. At any point you tap
an arrow key and the cursor moves.
(research in man-machine interfaces shows that modes are bad ergonomics)
In 'vi' (without special "map!" stuff) when the user sees a mistake on the
previous line they tap ESC k j j ... or whatever. The PC user have
developed a conditioned reflex so that there right hand is on the UP arrow
before they remember to move their LEFT hand to the ESCape key...this is
totally automatic. The ESC at the start of the Arrow key gets them
out of insert mode, and (possibly) the following stuff deletes a line, or
worse beeps and almost works...this helps to continue the reflex...

A 'vi' user can simulate this by trying to make a simple text file in
Wordstar or its bastard child TURBO {C, Pascal,...}.
Try it and watch 'i' and 'x' appear (plus 'jjj') when your trying to move.

Its a PAINFUL experience moving from one to the other. BOTH WAYS.  I use both.
They foul you up whenever you switch.

It is a pity that this road block can not be reduced because the 'vi'
interface has certain advantages over the WordSplat editors:

Comparision:
Function				vi		wordstar/TURBO
Add At end of line		A		CTRL/Q d
Insert before line		I		CTRL/Q s

Cut line				dd		CTRL/Q s CTRL/K b KeyDown CTRL/K k
and								KeyDown
Paste/put			 	p		CTRL/K v

etc

Has anyone got a set of 'map!' commands that implement arrow keys in
'vi' Input mode?

Dr. Richard J. Botting, 
Department computer science,
California State University, San Bernardino, CA 92407

paaaaar at calstate.bitnet
rbottin at Atl.calstate.edu
dick at silicon.natsci8.csusbnet.edu ("Real Soon Now")
 
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