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How long does it take to learn the Vim way of navigating so that you do not have to think when doing it, like the fingers move by themselves ? And how much tim

by z3t4 11y ago

How long does it take to learn the Vim way of navigating so that you do not have to think when doing it, like the fingers move by themselves ? And how much time do you save, compared to placing the cursor using the mouse?

clishem 11y ago
In my experience, arbitrary movement when what you move to is on the screen is actually faster if you use a mouse. It's unconventional, but I use a mouse for such movements for that reason (vim has excellent mouse support, even its TUI version). In vim some operations require a movement, where vim's movement has an advantage over using the mouse. For example, dt. deletes until the next period, or ci( which deletes the text inside parentheses and then enters insert mode.
justinmk 11y ago
It's not really a matter of saving time, but eliminating friction (context-switches). Editing is a chore, and fiddling with text while taking notes, or debugging, or thinking about a problem, has a cost. It's also quite alarming to reach a level of proficiency where you can make non-trivial edits without looking at what you're editing, and know that the edits are correct. Again, this avoids context-switches. That's why Vim is so focused on precision ("do exactly this") rather than DWIM ("Do What I Mean [usually]": the emacs/IDE approach). Certainly whether the ramp-up cost is worth the "payoff" is debatable, but for me, editing text became so irritating that my initial experiments with Vim were driven from pure exhaustion after years of blub-craft.
- sooheon 11y ago
  That point about "do exactly this" vs DWIM is interesting. As an evil user, I didn't think of it that way, but I can definitely see where this is true.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
chestervonwinch 11y ago
You can still use the mouse for navigating. You should also keep in mind that one of the big advantages of vim is not just the ability to navigate quicker, but to combine quick movements with other operations -- for example, deleting text until a specified character, or copying text inside parentheses (from anywhere inside the parentheses).
olalonde 11y ago
Took me about 2-3 weeks to be productive in Vim. First week was pretty painful (though vimtutor helped a lot). If you are going to work your whole life with computers it's definitely worth it (and it's not only about time saved though that's a big one).

by z3t4 11y ago

clishem 11y ago

In my experience, arbitrary movement when what you move to is on the screen is actually faster if you use a mouse. It's unconventional, but I use a mouse for such movements for that reason (vim has excellent mouse support, even its TUI version). In vim some operations require a movement, where vim's movement has an advantage over using the mouse. For example, dt. deletes until the next period, or ci( which deletes the text inside parentheses and then enters insert mode.

justinmk 11y ago

It's not really a matter of saving time, but eliminating friction (context-switches). Editing is a chore, and fiddling with text while taking notes, or debugging, or thinking about a problem, has a cost. It's also quite alarming to reach a level of proficiency where you can make non-trivial edits without looking at what you're editing, and know that the edits are correct. Again, this avoids context-switches. That's why Vim is so focused on precision ("do exactly this") rather than DWIM ("Do What I Mean [usually]": the emacs/IDE approach). Certainly whether the ramp-up cost is worth the "payoff" is debatable, but for me, editing text became so irritating that my initial experiments with Vim were driven from pure exhaustion after years of blub-craft.

sooheon 11y ago
That point about "do exactly this" vs DWIM is interesting. As an evil user, I didn't think of it that way, but I can definitely see where this is true.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

chestervonwinch 11y ago

You can still use the mouse for navigating. You should also keep in mind that one of the big advantages of vim is not just the ability to navigate quicker, but to combine quick movements with other operations -- for example, deleting text until a specified character, or copying text inside parentheses (from anywhere inside the parentheses).

olalonde 11y ago

Took me about 2-3 weeks to be productive in Vim. First week was pretty painful (though vimtutor helped a lot). If you are going to work your whole life with computers it's definitely worth it (and it's not only about time saved though that's a big one).