The Original vi Returns

It's been nearly 45 years since Bill Joy released version 3.7 of the vi text editor on October 16, 1981. Today, I'm announcing version 3.8. Before you download it, let's be clear about what this is: this is the historical implementation from BSD UNIX. It contains the original source code, not a clone or reimplementation. If you're coming into this expecting something modern like Vim, you'll be disappointed. The philosophy behind this release is simple: preserve the heritage. Changes relative to the historical BSD source are limited to portability and correctness. No new features have been introduced, and the editor's interface and behavior remain unchanged. While the editing experience remains untouched, the underlying build system and code have been updated to play nicely with modern systems. Here's what you can expect under the hood: Modern Compilation: The source compiles cleanly on modern GNU/Linux systems. Autotools Integration: It builds seamlessly with Autotools (autoconf +…