The vi family | Hacker News

HN discussion: many Unix users learned vi because it was the one editor they could count on being available on remote servers over SSH.

The post frames vi as a dependable fallback tool on Unix-like systems, including common paths like /bin/vi, /usr/bin/vi, and busybox environments.

Its modal editing workflow also left a lasting impression, prompting many users to keep using vim or nvim long after the original need passed.