vi

vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi/ and *never* /siks/ n. 
   [from `Visual Interface'] A screen editor crufted together by Bill
   Joy for an early {BSD} release.  Became the de facto
   standard UNIX editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite
   outside of MIT until the rise of {EMACS} after about 1984.
   Tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take
   commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default
   setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one
   correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the
   editor's name pronounced /vi:l/).  Nevertheless it is still
   widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll
   preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail
   editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up
   faster than the bulkier versions of EMACS).  See {holy wars}.