Why I Tried vi (And Regretted Everything)

So, I decided to give vi a try. You know, broaden my horizons, embrace the minimalism, feel the pain of the common folk.

It started well enough—I typed vi hello.txt and was greeted with a cryptic silence. No toolbar. No menu. No syntax highlighting. No welcome message. Just… emptiness. It felt less like opening a text editor and more like booting into a black hole.

I tried to type. Nothing happened.

I pressed every key. Suddenly I was deleting lines, opening new files, and (I think?) emailing Richard Stallman a pizza emoji.

I panicked and tried to quit. :q didn’t work. :q! kind of worked. Then I accidentally saved my empty buffer with :wq, overwriting the file with the digital equivalent of a blank stare.

After 10 minutes, I managed to exit vi and opened Emacs to calm myself down. It greeted me like an old friend, complete with colors, warmth, and a fully operational Turing-complete Lisp machine inside.

I now keep a Post-it on my monitor:
“Friends don’t let friends use vi.”

(But seriously, if you love vi, that’s cool. We all make mistakes.)