[systemd-devel] [PATCH] systemctl: add edit verb

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 13.10.14 13:40, David Herrmann (dh.herrmann at gmail.com) wrote:

> Hi
> 
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 8:17 PM, Daniel Buch <boogiewasthere at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Nice, I was in the process of implementing this. Looks good to me. But I
> > think it would be better to use "vi" instead of "vim" if no &editor is set.
> > Vim is not installed on every system as default but vi is most likely.
> 
> I'd prefer doing nothing. "vi" has quite different behavior than
> "vim", especially in Ex mode. And for people uncomfortable with 'vi'
> it's even worth. And everyone should have set EDITOR anyway..

Technically proficient people will set $EDITOR or $VISUAL
anyway. Non-technical people won't. Non-technical people are likel to
be totally lost in vi/vim. For those folks probably nano makes a
better choice, simply because it shows an explanation of they
supported keys at the bottom of the screen.

Hence, I think doing a logic like this would make sense:

1) if $EDITOR is set, use it
2) otherwise: if $VISUAL is set, use it
3) otherwise: if "nano" exists, use it
4) otherwise: if "vim" exists, use it
5) otherwise: if "vi" exists, use it

Note that I myself feel a bit lost in nano, and am a vim user for
cases like this, but I am still of the opinion that vi/vim is not what
you want to throw non-unix guru in without a warning. 

Does this make sense?

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat