In many Linux distributions, Vim is also used as the implementation behind vi
. Users (and scripts) expect the old, compatible behavior there.
Backward compatibility (also across different Vim versions) is very important for Bram (Vim's author), and that probably has won Vim so many fans over the years, and the rich plugin ecosystem it has.
I don't think the {not in Vi}
clutters up the excellent documentation, and see this more as an advertisement for the "improved" part in Vim. It also helps when following old vi tutorials.
Note that you don't need :set nocompatible
, this is implict by the existence of a ~/.vimrc
.