Why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 9th Mar 2012 19:11 UTC
General Development "I was reading about vim the other day and found out why it used hjkl keys as arrow keys. When Bill Joy created the vi text editor he used the ADM-3A terminal, which had the arrows on hjkl keys, so naturally he reused the same keys." As interesting as that is, John Graham-Cumming goes even further back in history. "The reason that keyboard had those arrows keys on it was because those keys correspond to CTRL-H, J, K, L and the CTRL key back then worked by killing bit 6 (and bit 5) of the characters being typed." Truly fascinating stuff, even though it's from way before my time (I'm from 1984).
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RE[4]: I love vim
by zlynx on Mon 12th Mar 2012 15:30 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: I love vim"
zlynx
Member since:
2005-07-20

I really dislike people who do that with shared files, like the files in /etc on a Unix system.

It is way too easy for two people to make changes and the last guy overwrites the file.

If both people are using vi it will warn about a swap file in use. Other editors will (sometimes) warn that the file changed while being edited. But the upload and overwrite trick never does.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: I love vim
by raboof on Mon 12th Mar 2012 16:01 in reply to "RE[4]: I love vim"
raboof Member since:
2005-07-24

Other editors will (sometimes) warn that the file changed while being edited. But the upload and overwrite trick never does.

I agree you need a (editor-agnostic) 'check whether the file changed while I was working in it'. Of course you can have that with editors that do 'upload and overwrite' too.

Reply Parent Score: 2