[otron]

In what way is modal editing awful?

Modal editors are the only solution I've come across to what I see as the problem with modern keyboards and editors: the inability to do everything you want to do without moving your hands away from the home row. Intellij, eclipse, sublime text, every "modern" non-modal editor I've used expects me to move my hands to the arrow keys if I want to move the caret. This is a personal gripe for me as repeatedly moving my hand back and forth between the home row, the mouse and arrow keys triggers my RSI. At least a non-modified bash prompt lets me navigate using some archaic control key combinations (^a: beginning of line, ^e: end of line, ^f: forward one character, etc.)

[vthriller]

> At least a non-modified bash prompt lets me navigate using some archaic control key combinations

You can get vi-like navigation in bash with a simple `set -o vi`