Has anybody used the "Edit" shell command in recent years, and/or knows what it does?

[Linde]

The names always seemed a bit mixed up to me -- "ed" is more vi-like and "edit" is more ed-like. I never learned how to use "edit" but it seems pretty nice as far as line-wise interactive editors go, with things like "insert after". OK, my only reference is Unix ed, the STANDARD Unix editor...

[Linde]

A really really really user-friendly version of vi, maybe.

I can see the similarities but vi is horrid with unmemorisable strings of commands to insert lines or delete characters.  Ed does have such commands, but basic editing is possible without them, and any commands you might need are helpfully available from the menu.

I'll happily use Ed, but will avoid vi like the plague.

Each to their own, I guess. For me, since my job involves writing and changing many lines of text, the investment in learning the basics of vi and vim is a small one. To get to the point where you've covered all the ed editing features, you need to learn maybe 10-15 commands only superficially, and then you can get into the details that make editing in vi quicker in the long run, like marks, motions, regular expressions and auto indentation.