First Usenet post

Twenty years ago, I made my first usenet post:

Newsgroups: comp.editors,alt.fan.warlord
Path: gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!uunet!pipex!uknet!root44!penny
From: pe…@root.co.uk (Penny Gaines)
Subject: Re: Demystifying vi one step further..
Message-ID: <C9p2ux.7JA@root.co.uk>
Organization: UniSoft Ltd., London, England
References: <1993Jun29.163526.19829@Celestial.COM> <37929@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1993Jul01.161714.15055@Celestial.COM> <1993Jul2.210933.17371@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1993 13:59:19 GMT
Lines: 24

In <1993Jul2.210933.17…@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> cro…@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Matthew Crosby) writes:

>Ok. Why is dd delete line? Wouldn’t dl be better? Is it just because dd is
>fast to type? Does anyone know.

>-Matt cro…@cs.colorado.edu

dl will delete to next character left, but most people use its fast form, ‘x’.

In commands that process text that character twice acts on the whole line –
hence dd, cc, yy.

In vi you can combine any command that processes text (e.g. c,d,y)
with any command that moves the cursor (e.g. l, M, w).

Once you realise this (i.e. so you can use it without thinking about it), you will
realise one of the reasons why vi is so powerful. For the record, when deleting
the stuff in your posting I used d} and d4L, to delete most of the extraneous stuff.

Penny Gaines