Vi
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“God damn, this is the best program ever written.”
“Goddamn motherfucking right! That's because I wrote that shit, motherfucker!”
“Die Escapebutton - wo ist die Escapebutton???”
“I use ed because it's the only editor that is badass enough for me to use.”
vi (pronounced /vim/) is the best text editor in the World c8h Universe, and is currently on the winning side of the Edgtor c4h itor War. Its main users consist of programmers, Spartans, emos and anyone who is considered badass.
History of Vi[edit]
bj@golem$ ed ? help ? ? ? quit ? exit ? bye ? hello? ? eat flaming death ? ^C ? ^C ? ^D ?
In the beginning was ed, and ed begot em. And em begot vi.
The source code was originally written 6,666 years ago by Samuel L. Jackson with ink made of human blood. Jackson had seen the screens of the Mighty Gods: Ken and Rob and Brian and Dennis and all the rest who resided under the Mighty Bell. He watched over their divine shoulders as they produced the source code of the Universe itself in their mighty editor, Sam, The Editor of the Gods, and he wished to bring the light and power of this wondrous implement to mortal man. Jackson spent days poring over man scrolls, toiling to copy the editor's greatness, but he tried in vain. Despite the power and elegance of Jackson's editor, he could not copy the perfection of Sam. Unsure of the Gods' feelings, his own skills, and mankind's worthiness, Jackson hid the source code in a cave near the Hills of Murray, hoping that the time would come when man was ready to see this shadow of the Gods' hallowed editor. Centuries later, the code was found by Bill Joy, who compiled the editor for Unix in the Middle Ages. Joy's discovery led to a Golden Age of programming, and gave rise to a new breed of hacker. Spurned by the increase in productivity and godlike powers granted to these Master Hackers by the great editor, Unix and vi came to rule all the land, bringing peace and prosperity to all, as well as sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health.
For centuries, vi was the the editor of choice for Real Programmers, but the False Prophet Stallman rebelled against God by releasing Emacs. The fanatical cult that grew around Emacs dared rebel against Jackson's teachings, and tensions began to rise. Soon after the False Editor was disseminated across the Interweb, those faithful to vi assembled an army to vanquish the growing threat of the Emacs heretics.
Though the records of the time are sparse, historians generally agree that the first bloodshed between the Emacsites and Users of Vi happened at Greenmond, Washington sometime in the 15th century. The fight was apparently incited when an Emacsite insulted the Linux kernel one of the vi users favored. Little is known of what transpired after, but the battle was so gruesome that Greenmond was permanently stained with blood, and was from then on known as Redmond. The vi users easily slaughtered the feeble Emacsites down to the last man, though some say that there were survivors who hid in the swamps of Redmond, lost their sanity and reverted to cannibalism, eventually going on to create Microsoft. The Slaughter of Greenmond marked the start of the Editor War.
Editor War[edit]
Soon after the Slaughter of Greenmond, the Real Programmers and the Emacsites entered into a war that has raged for many years without resolution. Indeed the Editor War has been so all-encompassing and long-lasting that its battles are mistaken by lusers (non-programmers) to be entire wars. Time travel is a factor in the Editor War, making major battles appear out of order.
Bram Moolenaar, a skilled programmer loyal to vi, conceived a new text editor, named Vim, which improved upon the holy vi to help earn a decisive win against the Emacsites. Vim's release heralded the New Age of editors, and the use of Emacs was relegated to beginners, incompetents, and anal retentives, while all serious development continued on in Vim.
The Emacsites' fanatical cult remains to this day despite the introduction of Vim, plotting in vain to overthrow and enslave the Users of Vim and their Champion Moolenaar. Though the Heretics' numbers are small, the Editor War continues, though it is not as gruesome as it once was due to the heathen Emacsites tacitly beginning to accept defeat at the hands of the Users of Vim. Emacsites continue to spread false propaganda, for example, editing the Emacs article on Uncyclopedia to show vi in a negative light.