When I first heard about vi and ran it, I grew confused and frustrated. I couldn’t do anything when I ran it, and I couldn’t even exit. I tried typing help but it displayed an error (No File). Then I tried typing quit, and it said something about recording and then insert, and then a lone ‘t’ showed up on the screen. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to use such a monstrosity of a text editor.

I must admit that my first experience was less than ideal and I don’t recall how I eventually exited, but I used Pico for my text editing needs until eventually someone told me the basics of getting around in vi. What they told me was quite simple: Use ‘i’ for insert mode, escape for command mode and ‘h’, ‘j’, ‘k’ and ‘l’ to move around. Ever since that brief introduction, I’ve been a loyal user of vi.

If you’re interested in trying it out yourself (there’s even a windows version) this vi tutorial is a good start.