What's difference between ex and ex-mode tags?

Question

There are two tags ex and ex-mode.

However I'm not quite sure what's the difference?

Is ex indicates the command-line (ex tool), and ex-mode means working in Ex mode (vim -E)? Isn't it the same?

If it is, should we remove questions from ex and stick to ex-mode only?

As far as I remember, I haven't created ex so that's why I'm confused.

Answer 1

• ex is an editor; it's the direct predecessor of vi.
• ex mode is a "mode" in Vim, which emulates ex.

This can be seen by vi(1) for example:

NAME
       vi, view, vedit - screen oriented (visual) display editor based on ex

[...]

       Vi (visual) is a display oriented text editor based on ex(1).   Ex  and
       vi  run  the same code; it is possible to get to the command mode of ex
       from within vi and vice-versa.

And ex(1) says:

Ex is the root of a family of editors: edit, ex and vi.  Ex is a super‐
set of ed, with the most notable  extension  being  a  display  editing
facility.  Display based editing on CRT terminals is the focus of vi.

In Vim, Ex-Mode may 'emulate' ex(1), but you usually still have many of the Vim extensions (including plugins) and so forth...

The difference is somewhat subtle... But in general, I would recommend:

• Use ex-mode for questions about using Vim's ex mode (this will probably be the overwhelming majority of the questions).
• Use the ex-command for questions about ex

If we only had the ex tag, there would be no obvious way to tag questions about ex...