[Techtalk] crontab vs vi

[gabrielle]

Hi everyone.

I work with linux and Solaris at work.  Recently I was working on something 
with one of the sysadmins (I'm not technically part of that group, but they 
let me manage my own boxes) and had to alter a cron file.  I have always 
used vi to do this.

Well...the guy who was helping me had a tizzy.  "Never use vi to edit 
that!  Always use crontab!"  I told him I'd always done it this way and 
never had any problems, and would he care to shed any light on his 
reasoning behind that statement, but he couldn't tell me.  He just said 
"You're not supposed to!"  I have since learned from another sysadmin 
friend that this may be the case for SCO, but it's certainly not an issue 
for linux or solaris.  However, he couldn't really tell me why either.

So, not being satisfied with a "because I said so" type of answer, I am 
turning to the LinuxChix.

Yes, I 'man crontab' and googled, but couldn't find an answer.  Pointers to 
a FM are much apprectiated.

gabrielle