Comment by lll-o-lll
8 hours ago
This “worse is better” is very interesting. Are you suggesting vi/vim is an example of “the right thing”, vs a “New Jersey” style?
8 hours ago
This “worse is better” is very interesting. Are you suggesting vi/vim is an example of “the right thing”, vs a “New Jersey” style?
Yes, though that characterization is time-relative. I think vi would’ve been called “New Jersey Style” back at the time it was created, owing to its legacy as a minimal extension to ed for full screen interactive editing on a video terminal.
Today, the editing landscape is dominated by IDEs which have very basic (nearly minimum viable) editing functionality in support of getting the product out the door ASAP and letting plugins handle the fine details. This stands in marked contrast to a legacy tool like vim which gets editing right out of the box, allowing people to be productive even with a stock configuration (no plugins needed, though of course many are available).
We might call this an analogue of the Overton Window: the TRT vs WIB Window has shifted so far towards Worse is Better that we now consider UNIX an elegant tool. The old team at MIT must be really disappointed now!