Re: [nmh-workers] Unnecessary dependency on vi???

[Ken Hornstein]

>EDITOR and VISUAL are environment variables - therefore did
>not exist before 7th edition (or 32V) - that is, about 79.   All of
>MH, e, ex, vi, and Mail existed long before those could possibly
>have been in use.    Exactly when EDITOR first appeared I am
>not sure (it was not one of the env vars used by anthing in the
>7th edition - the editor there was just ed - no need to be able to
>specify an alternative.)   VISUAL as an alternative to EDITOR
>came much later.

So since you were there ... I never did understand the point (or the
distinction) between VISUAL and EDITOR.  More specifically, I never
understood when you were supposed to use one versus the other.

--Ken