Being able to edit text by piping it through shell commands and back into the buffer is pretty darn useful. In this case, it's not vi alone that provides the benefit, but whatever.
Macros and registers can be super handy when you have to do the same thing over and over in a big file. Sure, I could write a script, but sometimes it's just easier to do it by hand once and repeat the macro thousands of times.
Once you are able to commit certain operations to muscle memory, you can really whip around. For instance 'vapgq' selects around the current paragraph and formats it.
Being able to edit text by piping it through shell commands and back into the buffer is pretty darn useful. In this case, it's not vi alone that provides the benefit, but whatever.
Macros and registers can be super handy when you have to do the same thing over and over in a big file. Sure, I could write a script, but sometimes it's just easier to do it by hand once and repeat the macro thousands of times.
Once you are able to commit certain operations to muscle memory, you can really whip around. For instance 'vapgq' selects around the current paragraph and formats it.