In "The Design of Everyday Things" Don Norman describes this distinction as knowledge encoded in the head versus knowledge encoded in the world.

For professional tools knowledge encoded in the head supported by appropriately encoded knowledge in the world absolutely is a viable approach, provided there's appropriate feedback and conceptual mapping corresponds to the mental model a user has about how that tool works, i.e. actions and reactions should be consistent.

With modal design patterns such as the ones used by vi, for example, this can become a problem.