JargonFile/entries/ed.txt

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ed
n. ed is the standard text editor. Line taken from the original Unix manual
page on ed, an ancient line-oriented editor that is by now used only by a
few Real Programmer s, and even then only for batch operations. The original
line is sometimes uttered near the beginning of an emacs vs. vi holy war on
Usenet , with the (vain) hope to quench the discussion before it really
takes off. Often followed by a standard text describing the many virtues of
ed (such as the small memory footprint on a Timex Sinclair, and the
consistent (because nearly non-existent) user interface).