No, this is not a joke.
Ed is the Standard Editor.
If in doubt, type at your closest Unix prompt: man ed
I keep intending to work with Disband to make this into an electronica/industrial song, but never have the time.
As documentation, I offer the following excerpt:
shimi is ready to serve you, Mistress> man ed
User Commands ed(1)
NAME
ed - text editor
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/ed [-s | - ] [ -p string ] [ -x ] [ -C ] [
file ]
/usr/xpg4/bin/ed [-s | - ] [ -p string ] [ -x ] [ -C ]
[ file ]
DESCRIPTION
The ed utility is the standard text editor. If file is
specified, ed simulates an e command (see below) on the
named file; that is to say, the file is read into ed 's
buffer so that it can be edited.