vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ [from `Visual Interface'] n

:vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ [from
`Visual Interface'] n. A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy
for an early {BSD} release. Became the de facto standard
UNIX editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite outside of MIT
until the rise of {EMACS} after about 1984. Tends to frustrate
new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting
input text nor vice versa, and the default setup provides no
indication of which mode the editor is in (one correspondent
accordingly reports that he has often heard the editor's name
pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still widely used (about
half the respondents in a 1991 USENET poll preferred it), and even
EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail editor and for small
editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier
versions of EMACS). See {holy wars}.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary