I was introduced to vi(m) a few years ago when I took Linux Admin and Linux Advanced Admin at my community college. Like every other *nix head the teacher was completely bonkers over it and preached to us all that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
But he made a horrible impression of it to us when he actually got around to showing us. Although, we weren't using the GUI version (if there is one) it was the CLI based version. The one in which the only thing I can remember is that in order to exit the program I had to type q and s and number sign and exclamation mark, etc, etc.. more unexplained commands.
I'm sure it's a great editor but I didn't learn a damned thing in those classes.. other than what an rpm was.. and yum, etc. Oh. and how to install it with apt-get/install (assuming that was installed). Off Topic