Fedora Developers Restart Talk Over Using Nano As The Default Text Editor

[TemplarGR]

What a waste of time.

For anyone who thinks vim is difficult to use, meet my friends ed and teco.

Yes, it is difficult to use. And your friends are difficult too. Your point? Perhaps we need to destroy all keyboards and monitors and our modern desktops/laptops and return to the glorious era of punch cards for input and lightbulbs for output in hotel-sized computers? Seriously guys... The world has moved on since the 1970s.

The main reason of existence for computer science is to make life easier, not harder. As hardware and software evolve we find better ways to do things more convienently. There is no award for learning to edit in vi like a pro. No one gives a shit, what matters is that you can edit some files, any tool that does that is fine. FFS man.... Knowing vi does not make you a better programmer, it just means you are either old or have poor priorities on where to spend your training and what tools to use for the job.

[re:fi.64]

The "no new user will be at the CLI" comments are very shortsighted. There have been plenty of times where I need to walk a newer user through e.g. editing a file in rescue mode, and in most cases I put together nasty sed pipelines to avoid having to teach Vi. This is far easier to explain and more intuitive.

[Jabberwocky]

I use Fedora as my daily driver, I use vim as my daily driver.

I am all for setting nano as default editor, default settings and applications should be optimized for new users that have no experience.

[JustinTurdeau]

I am all for setting nano as default editor, default settings and applications should be optimized for new users that have no experience.

nano is far from ideal for new users. dte has saner default key bindings and a bunch of extra features that you can learn piece-by-piece, without making the core editor any harder to use. Both vi and emacs are practically impenetrable to noobs and nano is so simplistic that almost everyone outgrows it eventually.

[mo0n_sniper]

When I started to use Linux I loved nano and hated vi. Now I still love nano but use vi because no matter what server I'm on: Linux, old Linux, Aix, Solaris I know I have vi installed.

I think it would be best to have nano as default for fedora but also provide vim. The people who use vim know to change the default, and the people who are beginners would have an easier time with nano.

[Hibbelharry]

I always remove nano from every machine I administer, and have done so for two decades. I don't want to risk its automatic hard line wrapping corrupting configuration files, and having to use "nano -w" every time gets old really fast (not to mention that other programs which call $EDITOR won't add the "-w" for me).

Distro default matter here. And a hint: nano /etc/nanorc

[reba]

nano is far from ideal for new users. dte has saner default key bindings and a bunch of extra features that you can learn piece-by-piece, without making the core editor any harder to use. Both vi and emacs are practically impenetrable to noobs and nano is so simplistic that almost everyone outgrows it eventually.

I just tried dte and struggled quitting it (ALT+x, "quit -f" - just why?).
For me it's in the same bin as vim.

Distro default matter here. And a hint: nano /etc/nanorc

Same here:

## Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong.
# set breaklonglines

Debian

[r_a_trip]

Fedora should switch over. Just make it nano unapologetically. We are talking about editing config files, which is the first necessity of the default text editor. This "it must be vi(m)" is just gatekeeping. It's erecting barriers to make command line work only accessible to the "initiated". It's high time this priesthood of exclusionary undesirables is discarded once and for all. We don't need the old incantations anymore. We have simple, secular tools. Yeah, that means you are no longer a hierophant, but this is a good thing for the masses who don't need smoke and mirrors, but a straightforward way of managing their systems.

[lucrus]

Average Joe does not come on Linux to begin with.

Agreed.

It's safe to assume people on Linux are more techie than average and will appreciate a better terminal experience by default as they learn their ropes and eventually become experts.

Agreed too, but what is a "better terminal experience" for a techie who is curious to learn a new system?

In my first years of Linux terminal I've been struggling with Jed and nano: both are text editors that try to be more user friendly than vim, but both do have their own learning curve and none is as intuitive as a mouse pointer and a toolbar with icons, which is not possible in the terminal.

For example exiting nano is not more intuitive than vim for a newbie, because newbies do not know that "^X" means Ctrl + X, and they will likely try to type the ^ character followed by uppercase X or something. So, in the end, a techie newbie will have to resort to some documentation regardless of what editor is the default.

When I finally decided to grasp the nettle and learn vim basics, I regretted I hadn't done that earlier.

[vegabook]

I, too, am vulnerable to Stockholm syndrome. I should probably post about how great the experience is and how dumb everyone else is for not enjoying it with me. And then rub sandpaper on my face and shudder in ecstasy as the pain penetrates deep into my soul. The blood is just a physical manifestation of my enlightenment.


Well, then, it's a good thing that the learning curve for nano is almost non-existent. For 90% of cases, they'll only need to know how to save and exit, which is always displayed on-screen. Requiring experts to select and install the editor they actually want (e.g. perpetual vim vs emacs flamewar) seems like a more sensible decision than forcing new users to struggle using a tool that most of them will hate and avoid like the plague (without knowing that they can banish it). Literally the people most likely to struggle with vim are the ones who wouldn't know how to change the editor. Why pointlessly make it more difficult. Plus, if you're so skilled that you vim in your sleep should be using a setup script (or ansible/puppet/chef) anyway and it won't add much work.

It's also a good thing that a linux distro install isn't a life-altering decision about the next decade of your software life, and instead is just a package manager with a minimal default selection of packages. This isn't some "teach a man to fish" life lesson we're foisting on people here for their own good. We just want to make it simple for the majority of the user base.

Insisting that people use a more difficult tool for simple tasks when a simple one is available (and they're not required to combine tools) is literally elitist patronizing bullshit.


Yet another good reason to not force users to use an overly complicated tool for basic text editing. People who need more will know it and find it. The default should either be a minimal editor relying on arrow keys and a few (visible) key combinations, or an editor selection tool. Anything else is just catering to somebody's bias and/or ego.

Nano?? Pah! Far too complicated for the hordes of corporate drones who suddenly want to use the Linux shell.

no no no no no this is 2020! We need to make things eeezzyy:



There fixed it for you