Text editor war

+1 for nano. I just need to change two parameters in a config file, not join a religion.

When the holy war comes, you'll be among the first sacrifices!
- Ehh, that's fine. I'm not too psyched about living in whatever comes afterward.
- Wouldn’t the first be Vimulation users? They are the Pretenders.
Amen!
Nano is only helpfull because of this nifty little info bar at the bottom.. No one can actually remember nano-shortcuts.
- Consider micro. The shortcuts for editing test are what I expect them to be everywhere else I edit text.
- Up down left and right?
  
  I guess ctrlx enter y ? But it has a prompt
- Nano Shortcuts are shit. Like CTRL+X to save. What the fuck??? Why not use CTRL+S for this?
I just need to change two parameters in a config file, not join a religion.

But Nano is a GNU utility what use Ctrl-O for Save.
- No wonder I can never remember how to do anything in nano, at least vi's commands generally make sense
- I recently switched to micro that is similar but with more sane key combos.
  
  Now I just mistakenly use nano combos. Back to nano it is lol
I had to learn vi because it was installed everywhere and nano didn't exist yet. I always thought the holy war to be very silly, and even though many treat it as such, there are too many who take it seriously.

I was talking with a sysadmin once who intentionally removed nano and emacs from any system he was granted access to. His explanation was “if they can’t use vim I don’t want them on my machines”

There's a sysadmin at my place who does exactly that. He's kind of an idiot too.
- Shocked
- As a VIM user, I don't want you using VIM on my system unless you know how to use it. I don't want you borking fstab or the passwd file or some other important config because you don't know how to quit without saving.
If a sysadmin expected me to use vim for every minor config tweak, I wouldn't want to be on their machines either.
- Sounds like it works then.
- I find vim quicker and easier for quick edits too, mostly because I've not bothered to learn anything but vim since it's on everything (except, for some odd reason, the default build of Gentoo)
- Once you get the hang of it it's just so much quicker for small and big tasks.
  
  Check out vim adventures:
  
  https://vim-adventures.com/
  
  Or just install vimtutor and try around. The basics are pretty simple, and the more advanced stuff infinitely helpful.
- I don't find nano any easier for minor tweaks than vim
I usually just don't give out the root password but what do I know lol
Wow, I hope he didnt choose their distro for them too.
- Poor Ubuntu users would be needlessly persecuted!
Imho on any server today all editors should be removed. You edit on your workstation and provision to the server.
Brilliant! I don't entirely disagree with that. I had vim forced on me at my old job, including actual vi on some of the more ancient systems. I got so used to it that I don't really know how to use nano and definitely not emacs.

I never understood what the big deal was. Write. Quit. If you can't remember that 'w' means write and 'q' means quit, I don't know how else to help. Add in some decent options in your vimrc and it is pretty comfortable. I am in no way some guru who knows every shortcut and fancy command out there, but I like using it and it is the first thing I install on a new system.

I am not one to judge what text editor, OS, phone, car, or computer you like. You do you. If I was a sysadmin that had to deal with people who really shouldn't be on those systems and that was an easy way to discourage people from screwing with it, then hell yeah.
- Knowing VIM does not make one a better sys-admin. You can be an idiot, and still know how to drive Vi/Vim. There is FAR FAR FAR more to managing an OS and than that. If you think requiring VIM is enough to keep unknowledgeable people away from servers, you are probably the one who shouldn't be managing servers.
- What makes you think only people with admin access use a machine? He wouldn’t allow it for anyone, admin or not.

I've been using Vim for years, cause I can't figure out how to close it.

You came because it looked exciting...

You stayed because you couldn't leave.
You open up a new session and reboot. Always works for me.
After you finally figure it out

EMACS is a great operating system, it only lacks a good editor.

Vim lacks anything good, except maybe the keybindings.
- They hated him because he spoke the truth
eVil mode. It's next on my TODO list to try, so I can go back to Emacs' fantastic Haskell mode without knackering my left pinkie.
- just learn a little elisp and remap to control to a sewing machine pedal :P
  
  https://howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/kinesis-footpedal.html
- Why not eVim?
I love this

As a nano user, I fully agree.

Seriously. Nano is the best.
- I
  Seriously... it isn't
  Shift+ZZ

In the world of text editors, VIM, specifically NeoVim is the shining light. Standing at the pinnacle of creation at a height that can only be reached by zealous emacs users.

They have a learning curve through. Nano is obviously easier, but it's also just a basic editor.

:x

As an Emacs user, Neovim was like chains. Shackles.

I ONLY EDIT TEXT BY TOGGLING OUT ASCII CODES ON A ROW OF SWITCHES DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO MY PARALLEL PORT\n

I know your lying, because if you did, you would write a mix of capital and lower case letter, because one of the switches would control that bit
- I COULD ONLY AFFORD SIX SWITCHES. BIT 5 HAS A PULLDOWN RESISTOR ON IT\n
This guy did it back in the 80s:

https://archive.org/details/Mondo.2000.Issue.04.1991/page/n33/mode/2up?view=theater

If I have to edit in a terminal: micro

If I need to edit something larger, and want a GUI: Kate

Anything else I flirt with and then drop promptly once I can't find the time to really learn it.

Jesus, why can't people just expose their drives to cosmic radiation and have it switch the bits in the file? So much time wasted writing useless editors.

Of course, Rebecca* has a shortcut for that, too.

*GBoard decided that was the right word when I swiped 'Emacs'. It is now formerly-known-as-Emacs' new name.

Just use notepad++ with wine like any normal person do

Notepadqq is a thing, you know.
That's horrific

Really the users of any other editor. We just see you as a bunch of nerds. But you build good stuff

The only editor I need:

Create: printf "TEXT" > FILE

Add: printf "TEXT" >> FILE

No room for mistakes.

Should both be the same commands. Adding should be done by remembering previous contents, no other way is allowed.

Micro users: am i joke to you

(I use VSCode)

I want to use Micro so badly but my fingers only know Nano's nonsense shortcut keys.
Also I couldn't figure out how to make it use real tabs instead of a bunch of spaces. Not great for Python scripts.
- I've never had to worry about tabs vs spaces with Python. Makefile, on the other hand...
It's okay, I'm used to being ignored.
at least use vscodium. vscode isn't free(libre) software.
- Ik about vscodium, it doesn't have all extensions

Nano, based.

If I use VI or VIM I'm going to have to kill the task because I just tried to exit and uggggghhhh why!?

:q! or :exit or :quit or ZZ...there's lots of ways to quit Vim.

Oh, vim. I wish I knew how to quit you.

: q !
- unless you accidentally pressed "q" to early and entered recording-mode...
- Only if you don't want to save the file
  
  :x saved the file and exits.
- ZQ

Noone’s talking about Helix smh

It definitely looks different btw

https://helix-editor.com

I just moved from Nano to Helix and love it. I added nnn and Zellij as well it works wonderful.

Tried Doom Emacs but Helix had a smaller learning curve it felt.

Just use sed -i like God intended.

We need to :q! this war for good.

Those who don't write history to drive are destined to repeat it.

mcedit for life

Mcedit is great. It reminds me of the later versions of edit.com on DOS.
- For me it's like riding a bike, I've probably been using Norton Commander since I was 10. DOS 3.3, Windows 2 was just a gimmick.
Thought I was going to be the only one.

I prefer micro.

Did I mention I use Arch?

$ pacman install $LINE_15
- error: no operation specified. (use -h for help)
- pacman install?

Use DE and edit files with graphical editors like a normal human being.

Problem solved.

I’m a fkn vi user and I will say that it is not entirely wrong. ^:wq

I'm a neovim user and I'm better than you :!q
- My boy vim will always be king in my heart. ZZ

$ ed

who needs a UI or even hints as to what you are doing amirite
?

:.,$d i use whatever works best for you, k?? esc :wq!

ed

C-X M-x butterfly

Both are good but I prefer Vim.

Ed is the standard text editor.

?

I only use Vim, but I appreciate nano as a choice and don't even really mind visudo opening nano

I appreciate nano as a choice. Sure. But if visudo opens in nano and suddenly I have a bunch of "yoi:wq" in my sudoers I'll be upset.
- When visudo opens nano, I get unreasonably angry about it. I typed "visudo", not "nanosudo"
Vim user here: Nano is a good text editor, takes a lot less training to pick up and use, and it's surprisingly capable. If I'm teaching someone how to use the Linux terminal, I'm going to teach them Nano, because they already have enough to learn. Vim is a separate class all its own.
I prefer micro over nano. It's like a middle term

Micro is great

I perfect pico
- Fuck pine use pico.

dgg:wq

Why did you do that! I deleted my whole file! It was important
- I left the G off the beginning as a guardrail.

neovim is better than vim

neovim ftw

What about Micro users 🥲

I'm the only one who use joe?

I thought this was a Joe mama joke
Wow, it's the first time I come across anyone who says they use joe. How does it differ from nano and micro?

Btw, I used to use dit several years ago, but swapped it for micro due to some keyboard shortcut issues (which are probably fixed now).
- it's actually hard to say that I use it, once in five years I need to edit file in terminal - and joe just traditional for me 🤷‍♂️
No, but it might just be us…

I wish I could just edit text files as sudo with the default gnome text editor instead.

Does ’sudo gedit’ not work?

Disclaimer: I use neither gnome nor gedit.
- Does ’sudo gedit’ not work?
  
  If my memory doesn't fail me it used to. But gedit isnt the default text editor anymore. The new one is quite cool and clean.
  
  It doesnt work with sudo though sadly. It's not the biggest problem tho, just a small annoyance, using the occasional sudo nano to edit files isnt a big deal.

Nedit - was a great simple editor i discovered on SGI IRIX, still use it today. Also, emacs is in a class of itself, it's more OS than text editor 🤣

sudo nano

nano for editing config files, emacs if I'm writing code... kwrite or joplin if I need a scratch pad or to share notes between devices respectively

Where’s vscode? Lol

There's several GB of it sitting in my home directory, which unfortunately my admin limits to several GB, so now my vim search buffer doesn't update anymore until I delete code's cache again.

I'd probably use helix/codium with vim bindings for more complex projects, with vim for Scripting in python/shell/config files

Finally, a helix user 🤝
- TBH I haven't used helix extensively, but I do like that I can just expect things like auto-complete and linting to work, which I would usually expect from something like vscodium, but that's not cli. So yes, helix is nice. I'm just a bit afraid that I'll forget my vim bindings because helix does things a little differently: wd instead of dw

xed supremacy

How dare you

Vim user here. I still can't find the value of c to the power of x in nano. Does anyone have the answer?

Long live to emacs!

vim and emacs are ide like text editors.

I approve this message

For advanced text editing (and project management) though, I have to give a shout out to Obsidian MD (markdown) and whomever made the code plugin for it