... people who use variable and function names such as $a, @b, %c and &d and the like.

Those are okay if they're lexically scoped in a block that fits on half of the screen all at once. (Otherwise, you're spot on, of course.) I say half of the screen, of course, so that you can look at two pieces of code at once (.e.g, to view a routine and where it is called).

Granted. I also don't mind variable names like $a if they're used solely as one-time temporary values and the like, but that's about it.

... vi.

No. I don't use vi, but it at least has some basic functionality. It's not scriptable, so it's not good for really serious use, but it can get simple jobs done in a pinch, unlike most other so-called text editors (EDIT, Notepad, SimpleText, TPU, ...).

I'm not convinced. I'd rather use just cat and sed to edit my programs than dabbling with vi. ;) But that's just me, of course.

There is however, on a related note, a special judgement reserved for people who release operating systems that don't include basic things like a decent text editor, perl, network utils (ping, traceroute, wget), and a compiler. (You're probably okay if it's on the CD but not installed by default; it's not including it at all that gets you the extra bonus warmth.)

Absolutely agreed - in particular, not including a C compiler is something that I hope the respective responsible parties get some heat for. ;)

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mowgli