That alone - that one thing - makes me want to work there. Every single software position I have applied for has been full of "look how tricksy we are, har har, he'll never figure THIS one out!" kind of time wasting trivia questions.

I remember, once, back in the early 90s, being interviewed for a position doing C programming. Part of the interview was looking at various snippits of C code and telling them what they did, just to make sure I really knew the language. I was almost stumped by one example, but finally told them that there was no way to say for sure what would happen because the outcome of that code was quite literally undefined. (Those of you who know C will know what type of thing I'm talking about.) They were quite impressed that I'd recognized this because they'd had a number of other applicants make guesses because they'd forgotten that there are some types of things that C specifically (and for very good reason) leaves undefined. I'm not sure, but that might have been what got me the job.

you present a dogmatic attitude.

If anybody's being dogmatic, it's you. I, OTOH, keep telling you that I don't care what editor you use while you keep denigrating my choice and making ad hominem comments about me because I dare to differ with you. Why does the fact that I don't agree with you make you feel so threatened, especially as I keep telling you to use whatever editor you want?

Keep pushing your opinion on what is the best editor for occasional one line edits on a thread discussing heavy duty programming as if it's relevant, no skin off my back.

At what point in this discussion did I ever insist that nano was the best editor for anybody other than myself? My whole point in commenting has been to explain why I personally like it and why others who's tastes are similar might like it. And, for that matter, this entire thread started off as a remark that with the proper CLI tools you don't need an IDE and it's drifted (as threads often do here) off into a discussion of the merits of various editors. You like vi. Fine; use it if it makes you feel empowered. I've outgrown the need to use obsolete programs just because I can, and use whatever serves my current purposes best, be it GUI or CLI.

"The rest of the world" tends to use vi and emacs.

If all I had to choose from were those two, I'd go back to using emacs. The only reason I don't use it now is that I ran across nano and found it more to my liking. And, on a side note, I find your zealotry and insistence that there's One True Editor amusing. Maybe, by the time you're half my age you'll have grown out of it.

Are you trying to make the case that embedded systems requiring text file reconfiguration and low bandwidth connectivity to such systems is something *rare*?

For the average user, yes, they are. Just because you work with them daily doesn't mean that everybody else does. And, nothing I've written in this thread means that I give a rats ass about what tools you use to do your job because it's none of my business. All I've been doing here is stating why I dislike vi and prefer nano. YMMV, and obviously does. If it makes you happy to pretend that you're still stuck in the 1970s, go for it; I lived through them, as an adult, and I'm glad that the rest of the world has moved on.

The reason I picked nano is that it's strictly text-based, needs nothing more than an xterm, but still doesn't force you to pretend you're using a teletype or remember obscure, unintuitive commands. Just because you can point to one or two rare corner-cases where vi is convenient for you doesn't mean that it's best for everybody; it just means that you've persuaded yourself that you like it because it's so old-school.

It actually enrages me when it runs because it's literally a waste of disk space.

That's exactly what I think of vi. I have no use for scripting inside an editor; I just want it to work in the way I find natural, and vi doesn't.

Was I the only person who followed your link and immediately thought of this Margeret Hamilton?

*Shrug!* I haven't done any programming since the Second Millennium ended. I only need a CLI editor for config files or shell scripts in Linux, and nano does what I want, the way I want it. If you find that vim (or even, Heaven forbid vi) works best for you, use it. Just don't think that you're earning any geek cred with the old-timers of programming because you aren't. I started out with punched cards, went from there to line editors and was very happy, TYVM, when full screen editors came along and I could recycle all the neurons I'd been forced to dedicate to those obscure, counter-intuitive commands.

Fi on vi, I say, fi! If I must use a CLI editor, I use Mork's editor, nano. Not only is it a full-screen editor (We all know that vi was designed to be used with a teletype as an input device and never outgrew its limitations.) it has the most important editing commands at the bottom of the screen, including the all-important ^G that brings up the rest of the program's help. IMAO, the only reason for anybody to learn such a user-hostile "editor" as vi is for the bragging rights of having done so, and the only reason to continue using it once you've mastered it is masochism, pure and simple.

But do you think that that makes anything I said untrue?

No. I was just pointing out the probability that part of the problem is at your end, and that you should take a good look at what you're offering, and ask yourself if that may be part of the trouble. The worst thing that can happen is that you find that your company is right in the middle of the pack for pay, benefits and other workplace considerations and that there's nothing you need to do (except possibly increase pay, if you think it will help) to make yourselves more attractive.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing about $2 billion dollars in 14 years. Let's call this what it really is: $133 million/year.

And that's supposed to be better?

More important, why didn't I get any of it?

Guess again. If I'd have wanted to live at home while I went to college, I'd have attended either USC or UCLA.

Interesting, especially the fact that he brought them back as gifts. My understanding was that it was usually queens that did that, not toms. It's supposed to be the same instinct that tells them to bring back prey for their kittens to practice on.