@freezr you need not be embarassed.

From yesterday evening's case:

❝… Is there any reason why I'm forced to use vi? Talk about a ginormous headache. It isn't something that I want to learn or even know exists. This is super frustrating.❞

— followed by a stream of lessons about vi.

The intentions are good, however: it is, essentially, ignorant of a person's wishes, at a time when the person is already unnecessarily frustrated.

I have been in the same "super frustrating" situation umpteen times over the years. I hate it. Brought me close to tears, more than once.

❝Maybe the people that did the installer/upgrade utility should ask which is the preferred editor prior to bringing up the merge conflict prompt.❞

The installation information in areas such as <https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/> could be expanded, again, to include something like this (I'm phrasing it bluntly):

――

WARNING: Before attempting a binary update, or upgrade, with freebsd-update(8): know what to do when presented with nothing more than a colon:

:

Also, learn to use vi(1), in particular:

:

— an expected colon to execute an ex command (not to be confused with the unexpected ambiguous colon).

――

A warning is feasible, however: complicating the installation information would be yet another avoidance of the underlying problem.

Also feasible: read a chapter of the FreeBSD Handbook, however this is impossible if you're stuck in vi with no obvious means of escape.

Also feasible: read the random FreeBSD tip about escaping from vi, however this is impossible if you're already stuck in vi with no obvious means of escape.

<https://codeberg.org/FreeBSD/freebsd-src/src/commit/20fae1e1699021d4f277819f7b32bf1178a1a991/usr.bin/fortune/datfiles/freebsd-tips#L44-L47>

#FreeBSD #update #upgrade #vi #ee #freebsd-update #unnecessary #frustration