Best terminal unix editor to suggest to someone? [closed]

What's the best terminal editor to suggest to a unix newbie? i.e. not vim or emacs.

There are a few editors, joe, nano, etc. Some have easy to remember commands / keyboard shortcuts, others don't.

I'm looking for an editor that one could talk someone through over the phone with, for remote sysadminning.

I agree that nano is a pretty good suggestion, and widely used. I really can't imagine talking somebody through emacs over the phone. Hell, I can barely imagine walking myself through emacs.

I would choose nano for anything I had to explain over the phone, mainly because I think modal editors are much more difficult concept to explain to people used to using GUI editors.

Nano, is by design, one of the simplest editors around. It's also installed on most linux systems be default now.

vi

1) I'd still go with vi for a beginner. It seems a little clunky at first but most people get the overall hang of it within 20-30min of playing around with it.

The reason I suggest vi is because pretty much every distro has it. Its nice to be able to go to a machine just about anywhere and know there's at least ONE tool on it you're familiar with. ;-)

nano

2) My second vote would probably be for nano. Its easier to use for a beginner and exists on most of the popular distros. In my experience, people from a Windows background seemingly are more comfortable starting off with nano. Its also going to be easier to explain over the phone. ;-)

What EDitor?

why, Ed of course!

The One True EDitor!

obligatory link: http://www.ale.org/pipermail/ale/1998-July/005730.html