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Comment by tapiwa | Hacker News Reader

Loads of us use nano.

Simple light editor without the overhead (read learning curve), of all the other big editors.

Sure, I might not write code in it, but when I need to edit a conf file or two, both on a server, and my desktop, it really hits the spot.

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I use nano, because I didn't "get" Vim.

I hate to admit it, but that's more or less why I do as well. It's not that I don't get ViM, it's just that I don't like it. I have TRIED to force myself to use it. Something about that long reach for the Esc key? I don't know what it is really, but I just never felt comfortable using it. Emacs is such a huge monster of a program. 90% of what it does I never touch. Most of the time I just need to edit a conf file and move on. Being a sysadmin my needs are very few in a text editor.

As an emacs user, it is ironic I mention this tip!

You can use Control + [ as an alternative to using ESC in Vim. This solved my reluctance to reach for the ESC key in the far reaching corner of my keyboard.

This thread does remind me of nano. Maybe it is time to give it a try when editing files on servers.

I add "imap jj <Esc>`^" to my .vimrc That way, I don't leave the home row when trying to switch modes

This is what I do as well. I think it's pretty standard.

vi was written on an ADM-3A which had its escape key where tab is now typically located.

I remap caps lock to escape.

Sysadmins are the primary candidates for vi/m ;)

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