[boken]

It is a true if disingenuously narrow-sighted description of the origins of vi as a visual interface to ex, a regex-based line-editor and descendant of ed. Even the ascetic ed, however, cannot be reduced to a "regular expression system." All the more is it untrue to claim that vi added nothing but a "user interface" to ex. (As if `dib` and `ct;` and `gqap` and `zf` and `gj` were so effortless in a line-editor!) That is to say nothing of the (admittedly clumsy) scriptability of vim.

Even if you agree with vim's approach to modal editing and object motions, there is plenty bad to be said about it in light of some of the tools we have available to us today. But humble origins do not always lead on to humble ends. There is no use in calling a book bad and giving as your reason that it was once pulp. It would be just as unhelpful to call the Lisps of today slow, and to use as your crutch the old adage that "LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing."[1] As GP said, "There's been some progress since the 1970s."

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Perlis#Epigrams_on_Progra...