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Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

It's a simple modeless editor, with all the keys you need to know to save and exit printed on the bottom two lines. Someone used to notepad on Windows would have little to no trouble using it. That's why Debian installs it as the default text editor.

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Another good reason:

  $ ldd /bin/nano
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffc72add000)
	libmagic.so.1 => /usr/lib64/libmagic.so.1 (0x00007f3eca793000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib64/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007f3eca52b000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007f3eca193000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib64/libz.so.1 (0x00007f3ec9f73000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f3ec9d6b000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f3eca9bb000)
  $ ldd /usr/bin/vim
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd69bfd000)
	libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libSM.so.6 (0x00007efe2d7d3000)
	libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libICE.so.6 (0x00007efe2d5b3000)
	libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libXt.so.6 (0x00007efe2d33b000)
	libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libX11.so.6 (0x00007efe2cfdb000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00007efe2cceb000)
	libncurses.so.5 => /lib64/libncurses.so.5 (0x00007efe2ca8b000)
	libacl.so.1 => /lib64/libacl.so.1 (0x00007efe2c87b000)
	libgpm.so.1 => /lib64/libgpm.so.1 (0x00007efe2c673000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007efe2c46b000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007efe2c0d3000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib64/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007efe2becb000)
	libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib64/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007efe2bca3000)
	libattr.so.1 => /lib64/libattr.so.1 (0x00007efe2ba9b000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007efe2d9e3000)
	libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libXau.so.6 (0x00007efe2b893000)
	libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007efe2b68b000)

There probably are stripped down versions of vim out there, but this makes nano more reliable in the case of say a corrupted disk where libs are corrupted...less points of failure at least.

Is your "vim" actually "gvim"?

On ArchLinux I get the following:

  ldd /usr/bin/vim
        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffdcebf9000)
        libm.so.6 => /usr/lib/libm.so.6 (0x00007f1a49617000)
        libncursesw.so.6 => /usr/lib/libncursesw.so.6 (0x00007f1a493aa000)
        libacl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libacl.so.1 (0x00007f1a491a1000)
        libgpm.so.2 => /usr/lib/libgpm.so.2 (0x00007f1a48f9a000)
        libdl.so.2 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f1a48d96000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f1a48b79000)
        libc.so.6 => /usr/lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f1a487d8000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f1a4991b000)
        libattr.so.1 => /usr/lib/libattr.so.1 (0x00007f1a485d3000)

Here's neovim:

    $ ldd $(which nvim)
        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff75590000)
        librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f821b0ea000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f821aecc000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f821acc7000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f821a9c1000)
        libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007f821a7be000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f821a3f8000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f821b301000)

This is on gentoo, so it looks like I have X, acl, and gpm use flags set for vim, which are a weak correspondence to configure options. So, I'm assuming you can remove SM,ICE,Xt,X11...gpm,acl,xcb,Xau,Xdcmp from my list. Quite a reduction! I admit. To be fair, nano can remove magic, ncurses which cuts it down to libc, libz for nano, and libm, libattr, libc, and ncurses for vim. I'm assuming you might be able to remove ncurses for vim(?) by configure? I've never built vim by hand.

So you might be right, the stripped out version makes a difference.

The ones that ship with OS X 10.11:

  $ otool -L /usr/bin/nano
  /usr/bin/nano:
          /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
          /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1225.0.0)
  
  $ otool -L /usr/bin/vim
  /usr/bin/vim:
          /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
          /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib (compatibility version 7.0.0, current version 7.0.0)
          /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1226.10.1)

I think it's a bit more fair to compare it to vi or nvi

    $ ldd $(which nvi)
    /usr/local/bin/nvi:
            Start            End              Type Open Ref GrpRef Name
            0000047a80c00000 0000047a8106c000 exe  1    0   0      /usr/local/bin/nvi
            0000047d4d9f6000 0000047d4de50000 rlib 0    1   0      /usr/lib/libncursesw.so.14.0
            0000047c97a14000 0000047c97e20000 rlib 0    1   0      /usr/lib/libutil.so.12.1
            0000047ca1ba9000 0000047ca2073000 rlib 0    1   0      /usr/lib/libc.so.88.0
            0000047d3bf00000 0000047d3bf00000 rtld 0    1   0      /usr/libexec/ld.so
    $ ldd $(which vi)
    /usr/bin/vi:
            Start            End              Type Open Ref GrpRef Name
            0000106784500000 0000106784956000 exe  1    0   0      /usr/bin/vi
            00001069ee8ed000 00001069eed47000 rlib 0    1   0      /usr/lib/libcurses.so.14.0
            00001069f097f000 00001069f0d8b000 rlib 0    1   0      /usr/lib/libutil.so.12.1
            00001069a8f41000 00001069a940b000 rlib 0    1   0      /usr/lib/libc.so.88.0
            0000106a02600000 0000106a02600000 rtld 0    1   0      /usr/libexec/ld.so

One thing I found interesting:

$ ldd /usr/bin/ne

        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007ffc22abf000)

        libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f1c2d4ee000)

        libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f1c2d2c5000)

        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f1c2ceff000)

        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f1c2d7ff000)

For a pretty full featured text editor ne has surprisingly few dependencies.

If seems to me that if you're in a situation where you have to worry about working on a corrupted FS where parts of /usr/lib and /lib may or may not be reliable, thats about the time when you say 'screw it' and restore from backups.

Glad I'm not the only one that thought that. This sounds to me like comparing kitchen cabinets based on "which one might work best when your house is on fire".

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