# On ed(1) and ex

=> gemini://sdf.org:1965/tmh/gems/nvinotvim.gmi While doing some research on how SDF's mkgopher works, I found this post by tmh.

I thought their post was interesting, and I wanted to send them an email with my thoughts. However, I felt like my thoughts would be seen as unsolicited advice, so I figure it'd be easier to talk about my personal experience with using vi and the best thing I did to learn vi.

I learned ed(1), then ex.

=> https://studio8502.ca/@mos_8502/113115647429461008 I started thinking about this after one of my mutuals on Mastodon posted this. I even responded by saying that it was the best thing I had done here.

Learning ed(1) and ex forced me to learn regexes, which I had previously found difficult to understand. I had use them in programing projects previously, but I never really felt comfortable with them. Now I use them frequently while editing.

I'm hardly a regex expert. I recently graduated to searching and replacing in the same command. However, editing is often enough faster this way, especially config files. It's much easier to comment with regexes.

I definitely can say I recommend learning these programs. Honestly, while ed(1) is a fine editor, I find using ex easier, and it, being the line editor mode of vi, is a much smoother transition to vi.

Also, I did write this post entirely with ex. This is a my preference, as I personally find using line editors much more conducive to actually writing and getting my thoughts out.