vi (and in different ways, emacs) were designed for optimal editing productivity on low-bandwidth connections and low horsepower machines.
This created an imperative around efficiency per keystroke that, somewhat shockingly, remains the most thorough and successful mainstream attempt to get the most from every keystroke.
With modern technology and decades more experience it seems inevitable that someone could do better today (though even with those benefits not everyone is Bill Joy), but I’m not aware of anyone who has successfully attempted to beat vi/emacs for the “will learn arbitrarily hard tools to be fast” crowd, which necessarily counts the “my RSI is so bad I need my money’s worth out of every key press” crowd, and several other big blocks of badass hackers.
People still use these tools because they still have the highest ceilings on the effort/power scalability curve. That doesn’t make them right for everyone, but it makes them right for a lot of people.
This created an imperative around efficiency per keystroke that, somewhat shockingly, remains the most thorough and successful mainstream attempt to get the most from every keystroke.
With modern technology and decades more experience it seems inevitable that someone could do better today (though even with those benefits not everyone is Bill Joy), but I’m not aware of anyone who has successfully attempted to beat vi/emacs for the “will learn arbitrarily hard tools to be fast” crowd, which necessarily counts the “my RSI is so bad I need my money’s worth out of every key press” crowd, and several other big blocks of badass hackers.
People still use these tools because they still have the highest ceilings on the effort/power scalability curve. That doesn’t make them right for everyone, but it makes them right for a lot of people.