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Vim absolutely gets better with plugins. ctrlp.vim, vim-tmux-navigator, vim-clang-format, ag.vim, vim-fugitive, supertab, vim-surround are all valuable plugins

by tcoff91 10y ago

Vim absolutely gets better with plugins. ctrlp.vim, vim-tmux-navigator, vim-clang-format, ag.vim, vim-fugitive, supertab, vim-surround are all valuable plugins that I make use of every single day.

erikb 10y ago
But you don't know what it stopped you from discovering about vim core that you solve your problems that way. And as shown in another comment in this thread, each problem you can solve with vim core you can combine with other features: E.g., if you don't use a plugin for command execution and instead learn about ":!command" then you will at some point be able to automatically read the results from your command into the current buffer (":r !command"). This enables a complete set of features that you haven't even known before. For instance you won't ever have spelling errors in your IP addresses ever again, because you just read them with a ifconfig-grep-awk combo into wherever you want to paste it. If you also learn about creating your own vimcode functions you can make it even a hotkey to insert your current ip address at the cursor position. All of that wouldn't be possible to discover if you used a plugin to execute shell commands from vim.
- tcoff91 10y ago
  I still do those things you are talking about (really handy to read the output of find into the buffer when creating a new CMake file), but you are going to be hard-pressed to achieve something like :Gblame command from vim-fugitive or the funcitonality of ctrlp.vim without plugins.
  - erikb 10y ago
    Yes, you can't achieve the same thing without the plugins. You also can't achieve the interactive debuggers that IDEs have. But have you missed those? After some time I bet you've found other ways to debug your code that are just as handy, maybe not in all cases but therefore are even better in others. When I started to miss debuggers it forced me to really learn strace, logging frameworks of my favorite languages, dmesg, and journalctl filtering. It's still more work than setting up a breakpoint and tabbing through my code, but on the other hand I have it available as well, when I need to debug a wordpress plugin a contract worker wrote for my customer 10 years ago on a webserver that has none of my usual settings, plugins etc. In the end the pros and cons equal out I'd say. And let's assume we can agree on that: Great plugins and great skill can on average be just as good. Why do I think that in vim plugins are the wrong course? Because everything in vim is based around skill. You can't even navigate efficiently without spending some time learning search, word/block navigation, etc. If one wants to achieve success with plugins I'd say it's much smarter to build your tools on a foundation that is created for plugins like emacs or an IDE.

by tcoff91 10y ago

Vim absolutely gets better with plugins. ctrlp.vim, vim-tmux-navigator, vim-clang-format, ag.vim, vim-fugitive, supertab, vim-surround are all valuable plugins that I make use of every single day.

erikb 10y ago

But you don't know what it stopped you from discovering about vim core that you solve your problems that way. And as shown in another comment in this thread, each problem you can solve with vim core you can combine with other features: E.g., if you don't use a plugin for command execution and instead learn about ":!command" then you will at some point be able to automatically read the results from your command into the current buffer (":r !command"). This enables a complete set of features that you haven't even known before. For instance you won't ever have spelling errors in your IP addresses ever again, because you just read them with a ifconfig-grep-awk combo into wherever you want to paste it. If you also learn about creating your own vimcode functions you can make it even a hotkey to insert your current ip address at the cursor position. All of that wouldn't be possible to discover if you used a plugin to execute shell commands from vim.

tcoff91 10y ago
I still do those things you are talking about (really handy to read the output of find into the buffer when creating a new CMake file), but you are going to be hard-pressed to achieve something like :Gblame command from vim-fugitive or the funcitonality of ctrlp.vim without plugins.
- erikb 10y ago
  Yes, you can't achieve the same thing without the plugins. You also can't achieve the interactive debuggers that IDEs have. But have you missed those? After some time I bet you've found other ways to debug your code that are just as handy, maybe not in all cases but therefore are even better in others. When I started to miss debuggers it forced me to really learn strace, logging frameworks of my favorite languages, dmesg, and journalctl filtering. It's still more work than setting up a breakpoint and tabbing through my code, but on the other hand I have it available as well, when I need to debug a wordpress plugin a contract worker wrote for my customer 10 years ago on a webserver that has none of my usual settings, plugins etc. In the end the pros and cons equal out I'd say. And let's assume we can agree on that: Great plugins and great skill can on average be just as good. Why do I think that in vim plugins are the wrong course? Because everything in vim is based around skill. You can't even navigate efficiently without spending some time learning search, word/block navigation, etc. If one wants to achieve success with plugins I'd say it's much smarter to build your tools on a foundation that is created for plugins like emacs or an IDE.