By that logic we should just make "ed" the default editor. It's more like every other line oriented CLI interface element in the system than Nano is.
What do you mean?
$ ed
i
Ed is indeed a good choice for a line editor. We're not talking about line editors, though, but about text editors. Ed is not useful for writing, because it does not have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have. For that, you need a text editor, and between Vim and Nano, only one behaves like most Unix software developed in the past three decades.
.
.s/not useful/useful/g
p
Ed is indeed a good choice for a line editor. We're not talking about line editors, though, but about text editors. Ed is useful for writing, because it does not have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have. For that, you need a text editor, and between Vim and Nano, only one behaves like most Unix software developed in the past three decades.
.s/does not have/does have/g
p
Ed is indeed a good choice for a line editor. We're not talking about line editors, though, but about text editors. Ed is useful for writing, because it does have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have. For that, you need a text editor, and between Vim and Nano, only one behaves like most Unix software developed in the past three decades.
w ed_is_useful.txt
389
q
$ cat ed_is_useful.txt
Ed is indeed a good choice for a line editor. We're not talking about line editors, though, but about text editors. Ed is useful for writing, because it does have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have. For that, you need a text editor, and between Vim and Nano, only one behaves like most Unix software developed in the past three decades.
$> [ed] does not have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have.
…and here’s the counterclaim:
.s/does not have/does have/g
p
i
Ed is indeed a good choice for a line editor. We're not talking about line editors, though, but about text editors. Ed is not useful for writing, because it does not have the immediate visual feedback when entering text that even mechanical typewriters have. For that, you need a text editor, and between Vim and Nano, only one behaves like most Unix software developed in the past three decades.Power users and Linux geeks might prefer Vim, rightfully, but neither Vim nor Ed are good defaults. Both mandate having them used before as a prerequesite. You want something that as many people as possible can use out of the box as the default.