.Dd January 11, 2021
.Dt USING-VI 7
.Os "Causal Agency"
.
.Sh NAME
.Nm Using vi
.Nd simpler tools
.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
Happy new year
and hello from
.Xr vi 1 !
I'm in the mood to post something
but not in the mood for
.Dq social
media.
This one will probably be short.
.
.Pp
Yesterday I was trying to work on sandboxing
.Xr catgirl 1
(that's the IRC client I work on)
with
.Xr pledge 2
and
.Xr unveil 2
on
.Ox ,
as suggested by the maintainer of its port.
I've done similar things before,
but only on server software
rather than user software.
.
.Pp
Anyway I was in
.Xr ssh 1
to my
.Ox
VM
.Po
sadly I don't currently have any hardware to run
.Ox
on
.Pc
using my usual editor,
which is
.Xr nvim 1 .
I'm honestly not very thrilled
with what neovim is doing lately,
but the cleaned up defaults
make my configuration files happier.
.
.Pp
The real problem with
.Xr nvim 1 ,
though,
is that it's laggy as hell on
.Ox .
There is significant delay
on every single keystroke,
as if I'm typing remotely to a server
on the other side of the world,
but this is on a local VM!
.
.Pp
So I did the only reasonable thing:
I typed
.Sy :qa
followed by
.Sy vi .
The difference was astonishing.
Typing and editing suddenly felt
.Em physical
again.
(I put that in italics even though I know it won't render.)
Not only was it a vast improvement over
.Xr nvim 1
in
.Xr ssh 1
in a VM,
it was a marked improvement over
.Xr nvim 1
running locally and natively.
.
.Pp
Now obviously
.Xr vi 1
doesn't have all the bells and whistles
of newer editors,
but of course the core editing model
that makes
.Xr vim 1
and
.Xr nvim 1
so good is there,
and in purer form,
I think.
The
.Xr vi 1
manual page
is feasible to just sit down and read,
and learn everything there is to know about the editor.
I set up a basic configuration
and got coding.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
export EXINIT='set ai ic sm sw=4 ts=4'
.Ed
.
.Pp
After I finished my
.Xr pledge 2
and
.Xr unveil 2
patch,
I was so pleased with
.Xr vi 1
that I kept on using it
yesterday and today
for other work,
and obviously to write this post.
Despite the lack of editor amenities,
its responsiveness and simplicity
are enough to make using it
.Em comfortable
and perhaps
.Em cosy .
I'm not sure I'll ever use
.Xr vi 1
full-time,
but for now I am much less likely
to launch
.Xr nvim 1 .
.
.Sh AUTHORS
.An june Aq Mt june@causal.agency