Perhaps it's better to see for a minute how people used this kind of editors when they first appeared, than to keep reading about them for ages: ▶ this video (BBC from '79, mentioning how people start working from home with the aid of newfangled microcomputers and network connectivity). I'm reminded most of all of the fdisk util, where the workflow is pretty much the same: print, modify, print, save. But also I can see where Vi/Vim come from, as I regularly do the same thing as in the vid: %s/something/something else/g and then wq.
in “Ed is the standard text editor (2014)” · View on HN