Calling it vi is probably used here to mean anything that acts somewhat like the original vi. There are quite a few editors like that, and vim is probably the most common.
> I have never seen a box that used vi in lieu of vim
I'm going to guess that you mostly use Linux boxes? The BSDs use nvi, which works and act like the old Berkeley CSRG vi. If you look at more esoteric systems like Solaris, AIX, etc. , you're likely to find varying versions of vi (disclaimer: I do not know the situation in Solaris or AIX. They are simply examples of esoteric systems—I'd love to be corrected if you do know).
I would not, however, recommend using anything but vim for development. nvi has its place a small text editor to get your config files in place, and vim has its place as a large programmer's text editor.
> I have never seen a box that used vi in lieu of vim
I'm going to guess that you mostly use Linux boxes? The BSDs use nvi, which works and act like the old Berkeley CSRG vi. If you look at more esoteric systems like Solaris, AIX, etc. , you're likely to find varying versions of vi (disclaimer: I do not know the situation in Solaris or AIX. They are simply examples of esoteric systems—I'd love to be corrected if you do know).
I would not, however, recommend using anything but vim for development. nvi has its place a small text editor to get your config files in place, and vim has its place as a large programmer's text editor.