This article is classified "Partly real, partly fictional"
This article is a part of a fundamental opus devoted to the 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 a 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:
1) Astronomical point of view. As we know most of programmers
work putting their legs on the system block. (If you have a
tower just move it from your table 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 the keys
[ x ] and [ ESC ] points right to the North star. At the same
time the [ x ] - [ i ] axis indicates the equinoctial point.
2) Magical approach. After active usage of the above-described
[ ESC ], [ x ], [ i] key sequence, everybody comes to the
conclusion that SOMETHING'S WRONG and enters another sequence:
[ ESC ], [ : ], [ q ], [ ! ] since 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 drawings
of the pentagram protect us from the cruel daemons hiding in
the CPU.
3) Medical reasons. Clinical researches show that using "vi"
keeps the tonus of your fingers at the level of a violinist,
which prevents a gout. However, you should be careful working
at home. Be sure that the door to the children's room is
tightly closed unless you want to hear from your son the
sentences you usually address to "vi."
4) Psycho-analysis. Sexual instinct...
******
(for specialists only)
In conclusion I would like to state that we are currently at the very
beginnings of understanding 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 the handy [ ESC ],
[ f ] , [ d ], [ h ], [ s ], [ t ], [ h ], [ n ], [ v ], [ b ], [ i ] key
sequence? Never mind, "vi" should overcome some day!