6 ms·

Most people have no idea why vi made sense way back when (and, in my opinion, does not today). I used VT100 terminals for years on both mainframe and CP/M syst

Most people have no idea why vi made sense way back when (and, in my opinion, does not today). I used VT100 terminals for years on both mainframe and CP/M systems. Keyboards were not very standardized before then, the mouse did not exist and most text editors had to use all sorts of convoluted commands to allow you to do anything. http://www.vintagecomputer.net/digital/VT100/DEC_VT100_SYSBOOT.jpg http://www.vintagecomputer.net/digital/VT100/DEC_VT100_SYSBO... I ran the first version of AutoCAD back then on a CP/M system with 64K of RAM, an S-100 RAMDISK card, an 8087 math co-processor on yet another S-100 card, another card with a graphics co-processor and a 1K x 1K CRT-based analog display. This is the reason AutoCAD has the console. You would type the commands on your VT-100 terminal and the graphics would happen on the stand-alone display. You had to load and unload modules based on what you were doing in order to control memory consumption. AutoLISP, the version of LISP included with AutoCAD, was invaluable. Oh, yeah, 8 inch floppies and no hard drives. Everything worked.

linkmotif 9y ago
Why doesn't it make sense today?
- rebootthesystem 9y ago
  In all of the discussions on HN about vi/m this is probably the most intelligent question I've received after posting my opinion. I've been coding for 16 hours straight and have at least another four in front of me (have to deliver tomorrow AM) so I don't have a ton of time to answer this. I'll use today as my example of how irrelevant (and counterproductive) vi/m can be. I'm working on a large Django project and cranking out apps like there's no tomorrow. I use PyCharm for this. Here's a case where experts are making it their business to deliver a superior tool that allows me to get my work done. It has myriad tools configured and configurable to help me. I don't have to futz around with weird custom stuff. It is intelligent about Python, Django, JS, jQuery, databases, HTML, packages, Git, Python console, Django console, etc. It can even talk to my servers. PyCharm is, in my opinion, a nearly unmatched productivity tool. I lied. I am working on two large Django projects simultaneously because some of the work for the new project entails porting from an old one. So, two PyCharm windows on two 24 inch monitors and two browser instances side-by-side on the third monitor. Can you setup vim to do some/all of the above. To some extent, yes. I haven't used it at this level in quite some time so I can't answer the question. What's the question? Can you setup vim to match PyCharm feature for feature? I don't think you can, and, if you could, it'd be a nightmare. A lot of the vim "religion" centers around keeping your hands on the keyboard, not using the mouse, carpal tunnel and speed. Keeping your hands on the keyboard is irrelevant unless you are a data entry clerk. If you are a software developer you are far more likely to spend more time doing things other than typing. Designing data structures, diagramming databases, researching approaches to solving a problem. Thinking. The above is also used hand-in-hand with "vim is faster". Yeah, again, if you are a data entry clerk entering tax return records this might have some value. Software development? Nah. The time one could save by only having to move a finger a few centimeters is but a rounding error in the context of any non-trivial software development project. It's silly, really. Take the entirety of a project and multiply typing time by, I don't know, 1.25. It would still be insignificant when compared to the overall project time. Debugging alone takes orders of magnitude more time than anyone could save by typing faster. Not using the mouse. You know, those of us who grew up using, designing, building and programming computers that did not have a mouse were ecstatic when the mouse arrived. It's just plain silly to malign the mouse. I will say that I switched to a thumb operated trackball a long time ago. I don't go looking for a mouse. My trackball is always there, quite literally touching the right edge of the keyboard. And I don't have to move it all over the place to use it. Carpal tunnel. Serious problem. I suffered from this about fifteen years ago. Doing 18 hour days in front of the keyboard was red-hot painful. I tried different ideas. I knew people who had to have surgery on both wrists and were never again the same. I wanted to avoid that scenario. I ultimately did two things: First, I switched to a thumb operated trackball. Mice are not designed right and you have to move all over the place all the time. This is very repetitive and not good. Second, I designed and built my own desk. I welded a steel framework that supported a surface for the monitors at 29 inches off the floor. The framework also had a full length shelf in the front with the surface dropped down about three inches. The front of that shelf had a 2 inch raised lip. So, my forearms rested on this lip and my keyboard and trackball were two inches below that. My hands naturally drooped into that cavity. No more carpal tunnel. Being in front of the computer doing everything from mechanical to electrical to software engineering using various interfaces for 16+ hours is normal for me. I have not had any issues in 15 years or so. None. All of the arguments for vim are simply irrelevant. The only argument I could find for knowing how to use it at a basic to mid level is this: If you find yourself having to access a remote system with a computer that dates back to the stone age you might have no choice but to have to edit files remotely and you know that vim/vi will be on that system. Personally, I have never in over thirty years had that problem. These days I'll use something like CuteFTP if I have to or, as I said above, PyCharm and other IDE's (PHPStorm, etc.) know how to talk to servers and allow remote editing "in comfort". I mean, you can buy a $200 PC laptop with a large 17 inch screen, full keyboard, etc. these days. No more excuses. Bottom line: vi/vim don't make sense because they do not provide any advantages when compared to state of the art IDE's. Wow, I ended up typing more than I wanted to. Oh well.
  - diegoprzl 9y ago
    I think you're right. Nowadays I only use Emacs+evil for Org-Mode and languages that don't have strong tooling yet. For me the main advantage of vi/vim is that I don't have to learn new editing keybindings each time I change editor/IDE. Vim mode is probably there and the rest I can rebind. Another advantage for Vim/Emacs, especially Emacs, is that they are very extensible so you can actually have features that are more cutting-edge than what commercial IDEs have yet. Still I do think that the IDE package is more productive.
  - h1d 9y ago
    Surprising you type focused, which I agree with the content well, after 16 hours of work but it would be nice to see your table setup in picture.
  - bobwaycott 9y ago
    Everyone always makes fun of my thumb-operated trackball.
    - rebootthesystem 9y ago
      It's kind of funny watching people who've never used one try to adjust to it. My kids grew up with them and wouldn't use anything else. They have them on their laptops too. I hate laptop touch pads, the single worst UI ever put on computers.
      - bobwaycott 9y ago
        Yeah, I mean, I try to explain the appeal, and nobody is even willing to give it a shot. I can't help but laugh when someone tells me how their Magic Trackpad thing is so much better. The precision is terrible, it doesn't improve on all the standard mouse type of constant wrist movements, and so on. Sometimes I joke that trackpads were meant for species that haven't evolved thumbs, or haven't learned how to use them. :)
  - alexvoda 9y ago
    Since you mentioned using a trackball due to carpal tunnel when using a mouse I thought I should share my setup. I don't really suffer from these issues (with the exception of scrolling) but it pays to prevent them. I only use a mouse when I use many monitors (3+) and the desktop surface area is significant. In all other cases I prefer to use a very customized touchpad setup. I use a business laptop because it has buttons for the touchpad both below and above the touchpad(the buttons for the trackpoint. And I configured it so that all the buttons below are the normal click and a button above is the secondary click. And I disabled tapping because tapping gives you no feedback and prevent you from resting your hand on the touchpad. The main reason I switched is because I find scrolling on a touchpad (either 2 finger scrolling for short distances or circular scrolling for longer distances) a lot more comfortable than the scroll wheel. Scrolling a lot using a scroll wheel makes my middle finger hurt and middle click auto-scrolling doesn't work everywhere. This means I can mouse around using either hand in the same way. Most touch pads are configured with buttons (reals or virtual) in the bottom left and right sides for left and right click. This means using the touchpad is different for the left hand than it is for the right hand. The only other touchpad I found as usable was the Apple trackpad when it still had a button. I clicked with the button and the difference between primary and secondary click was whether I had two fingers on the trackpad.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  To expand on rebootthesystem's excellent answers: * Ease of learning. Any power user learning Vim now (or in the last 20+ years) is coming to it with a headful of useful, versatile conventions and shortcuts that completely don't work. God knows how many times I interrupted my flow by reflexively hitting Ctrl-Z to undo, or Ctrl-V to paste, or Shift-Arrow to highlight, or, hell, just trying to type something normally. It doesn't even sync with other command line conventions. That "Type :quit<enter> to exit Vim" message appears when you hit Ctrl-C: Vim knows what you're trying to do, but it won't do it unless you ask nicely. As far as I can tell, there's no substantial advantage to Vim's mappings except that people who already know Vim can keep using them. Which ties into: * Discoverability. This is less about Vim in particular and more about command-line apps in general, but still. In a GUI app, if you want to do something but don't know how, you can often find it quickly by clicking around menus, and in the process you may find something else useful that you didn't know about. On the command line, you pretty much have to tab out and search for help, whether in Google or the man pages. (And of course learning to navigate command-line help is a whole different skill in itself.
  - cesnja 9y ago
    Spacemacs solves the problem of discoverability by displaying all modal keybindings currently available, if you started typing a modal command sequence, but haven't completed a command yet. The additional bonus here is that once you internalise these commands, they stay the same while you execute them much faster. In mouse-centered environments, one would first learn how to do an action using a mouse and after he felt the need to be faster, he'd need to learn the key combo from scratch (for the sake of the argument, let's ignore the few common conventions like F1, cut/copy/paste and undo/redo). On the other hand, I agree that starting out with CLI is a bit painful. IMO, the middle ground taken by Spacemacs really should be researched (and used) mode.
cryptonector 9y ago
It is the only editing system that makes sense to me. That's because modal editing means fewer modifier-key combinations are needed, and no mouse is needed. Compare with.. any other editor, where the only thing that might save you from RSI is enabling sticky keys, and even then, if it isn't emacs you still have to heavily use a mouse. For a great number of tasks, being a vim or emacs pro means doing things faster than any other editor could do them (except, maybe refactoring). And vim will save you from from more RSI than emacs by having fewer modifier key combinations. Every IDE needs a vi mode. Wherever I can I use tmux+cscope+ctags+vim+shell as my IDE. One tmux session per-project, nested in one big tmux session for all projects. Window #0 has a cscope with a an $EDITOR wrapper that opens new edits in new, appropriately titled tmux windows and returns control to cscope. Windows #1 through #4 are for a shell. The rest are for editing files opened via cscope. It's a dream for C/C++, even Java. cscope needs support for more languages, that's true, certainly, but this gets me quite far.
- therealmarv 9y ago
  I disagree. I use VSCode completely without mouse (and no vim mode).
  - diegoprzl 9y ago
    Yes, you can use a lot of other editors without a mouse. The advantage of learning vim/vim mode is that you can be proficient with them without having to learn their editing keybindings. Vim mode acts as a common interface. I even use those keybindings in Chrome with cVim.
    - therealmarv 9y ago
      This is also not exclusive to Vim. I don't use any plugins and I have a lot of common key bindings (especially for text editing) I can use on every text editor field on my Mac (which are pretty similar on Windows). Heck I even have Emacs keybindings on OS level on macOS nearly everywhere (without installing plugins): http://jblevins.org/log/kbd http://jblevins.org/log/kbd So Vim is an addition where as my key bindings work everywhere except when I go to the console where I had to learn some nano specific key bindings but which match a lot with the basic text editing keybindings from Emacs mentioned above.
balladeer 9y ago
I don't know Vi(m) well at all and that's mostly my impatience and procrastination. Just like I could never truly touch-type. But I totally get how Vim is excellent at what it does and hence why it's important. Not using the mouse and not having a lot of distraction are godsend when doing any work worth your time involving lots of text whether it's reading, or writing code, or a story. Also, I've kind of never even seen all those ancient gadgets you have named - I feel this based on my exp with computers (and starting with a Dell Vostro) since 2007. edit: I've been getting slightl better at it by forcing myself to use VimFx on Firefox and cVim on Chrome and now I am planning to get IdeaVim for WebStorm and Android Studio.

linkmotif 9y ago

Why doesn't it make sense today?

rebootthesystem 9y ago
In all of the discussions on HN about vi/m this is probably the most intelligent question I've received after posting my opinion. I've been coding for 16 hours straight and have at least another four in front of me (have to deliver tomorrow AM) so I don't have a ton of time to answer this. I'll use today as my example of how irrelevant (and counterproductive) vi/m can be. I'm working on a large Django project and cranking out apps like there's no tomorrow. I use PyCharm for this. Here's a case where experts are making it their business to deliver a superior tool that allows me to get my work done. It has myriad tools configured and configurable to help me. I don't have to futz around with weird custom stuff. It is intelligent about Python, Django, JS, jQuery, databases, HTML, packages, Git, Python console, Django console, etc. It can even talk to my servers. PyCharm is, in my opinion, a nearly unmatched productivity tool. I lied. I am working on two large Django projects simultaneously because some of the work for the new project entails porting from an old one. So, two PyCharm windows on two 24 inch monitors and two browser instances side-by-side on the third monitor. Can you setup vim to do some/all of the above. To some extent, yes. I haven't used it at this level in quite some time so I can't answer the question. What's the question? Can you setup vim to match PyCharm feature for feature? I don't think you can, and, if you could, it'd be a nightmare. A lot of the vim "religion" centers around keeping your hands on the keyboard, not using the mouse, carpal tunnel and speed. Keeping your hands on the keyboard is irrelevant unless you are a data entry clerk. If you are a software developer you are far more likely to spend more time doing things other than typing. Designing data structures, diagramming databases, researching approaches to solving a problem. Thinking. The above is also used hand-in-hand with "vim is faster". Yeah, again, if you are a data entry clerk entering tax return records this might have some value. Software development? Nah. The time one could save by only having to move a finger a few centimeters is but a rounding error in the context of any non-trivial software development project. It's silly, really. Take the entirety of a project and multiply typing time by, I don't know, 1.25. It would still be insignificant when compared to the overall project time. Debugging alone takes orders of magnitude more time than anyone could save by typing faster. Not using the mouse. You know, those of us who grew up using, designing, building and programming computers that did not have a mouse were ecstatic when the mouse arrived. It's just plain silly to malign the mouse. I will say that I switched to a thumb operated trackball a long time ago. I don't go looking for a mouse. My trackball is always there, quite literally touching the right edge of the keyboard. And I don't have to move it all over the place to use it. Carpal tunnel. Serious problem. I suffered from this about fifteen years ago. Doing 18 hour days in front of the keyboard was red-hot painful. I tried different ideas. I knew people who had to have surgery on both wrists and were never again the same. I wanted to avoid that scenario. I ultimately did two things: First, I switched to a thumb operated trackball. Mice are not designed right and you have to move all over the place all the time. This is very repetitive and not good. Second, I designed and built my own desk. I welded a steel framework that supported a surface for the monitors at 29 inches off the floor. The framework also had a full length shelf in the front with the surface dropped down about three inches. The front of that shelf had a 2 inch raised lip. So, my forearms rested on this lip and my keyboard and trackball were two inches below that. My hands naturally drooped into that cavity. No more carpal tunnel. Being in front of the computer doing everything from mechanical to electrical to software engineering using various interfaces for 16+ hours is normal for me. I have not had any issues in 15 years or so. None. All of the arguments for vim are simply irrelevant. The only argument I could find for knowing how to use it at a basic to mid level is this: If you find yourself having to access a remote system with a computer that dates back to the stone age you might have no choice but to have to edit files remotely and you know that vim/vi will be on that system. Personally, I have never in over thirty years had that problem. These days I'll use something like CuteFTP if I have to or, as I said above, PyCharm and other IDE's (PHPStorm, etc.) know how to talk to servers and allow remote editing "in comfort". I mean, you can buy a $200 PC laptop with a large 17 inch screen, full keyboard, etc. these days. No more excuses. Bottom line: vi/vim don't make sense because they do not provide any advantages when compared to state of the art IDE's. Wow, I ended up typing more than I wanted to. Oh well.
- diegoprzl 9y ago
  I think you're right. Nowadays I only use Emacs+evil for Org-Mode and languages that don't have strong tooling yet. For me the main advantage of vi/vim is that I don't have to learn new editing keybindings each time I change editor/IDE. Vim mode is probably there and the rest I can rebind. Another advantage for Vim/Emacs, especially Emacs, is that they are very extensible so you can actually have features that are more cutting-edge than what commercial IDEs have yet. Still I do think that the IDE package is more productive.
- h1d 9y ago
  Surprising you type focused, which I agree with the content well, after 16 hours of work but it would be nice to see your table setup in picture.
- bobwaycott 9y ago
  Everyone always makes fun of my thumb-operated trackball.
  - rebootthesystem 9y ago
    It's kind of funny watching people who've never used one try to adjust to it. My kids grew up with them and wouldn't use anything else. They have them on their laptops too. I hate laptop touch pads, the single worst UI ever put on computers.
    - bobwaycott 9y ago
      Yeah, I mean, I try to explain the appeal, and nobody is even willing to give it a shot. I can't help but laugh when someone tells me how their Magic Trackpad thing is so much better. The precision is terrible, it doesn't improve on all the standard mouse type of constant wrist movements, and so on. Sometimes I joke that trackpads were meant for species that haven't evolved thumbs, or haven't learned how to use them. :)
- alexvoda 9y ago
  Since you mentioned using a trackball due to carpal tunnel when using a mouse I thought I should share my setup. I don't really suffer from these issues (with the exception of scrolling) but it pays to prevent them. I only use a mouse when I use many monitors (3+) and the desktop surface area is significant. In all other cases I prefer to use a very customized touchpad setup. I use a business laptop because it has buttons for the touchpad both below and above the touchpad(the buttons for the trackpoint. And I configured it so that all the buttons below are the normal click and a button above is the secondary click. And I disabled tapping because tapping gives you no feedback and prevent you from resting your hand on the touchpad. The main reason I switched is because I find scrolling on a touchpad (either 2 finger scrolling for short distances or circular scrolling for longer distances) a lot more comfortable than the scroll wheel. Scrolling a lot using a scroll wheel makes my middle finger hurt and middle click auto-scrolling doesn't work everywhere. This means I can mouse around using either hand in the same way. Most touch pads are configured with buttons (reals or virtual) in the bottom left and right sides for left and right click. This means using the touchpad is different for the left hand than it is for the right hand. The only other touchpad I found as usable was the Apple trackpad when it still had a button. I clicked with the button and the difference between primary and secondary click was whether I had two fingers on the trackpad.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
To expand on rebootthesystem's excellent answers: * Ease of learning. Any power user learning Vim now (or in the last 20+ years) is coming to it with a headful of useful, versatile conventions and shortcuts that completely don't work. God knows how many times I interrupted my flow by reflexively hitting Ctrl-Z to undo, or Ctrl-V to paste, or Shift-Arrow to highlight, or, hell, just trying to type something normally. It doesn't even sync with other command line conventions. That "Type :quit<enter> to exit Vim" message appears when you hit Ctrl-C: Vim knows what you're trying to do, but it won't do it unless you ask nicely. As far as I can tell, there's no substantial advantage to Vim's mappings except that people who already know Vim can keep using them. Which ties into: * Discoverability. This is less about Vim in particular and more about command-line apps in general, but still. In a GUI app, if you want to do something but don't know how, you can often find it quickly by clicking around menus, and in the process you may find something else useful that you didn't know about. On the command line, you pretty much have to tab out and search for help, whether in Google or the man pages. (And of course learning to navigate command-line help is a whole different skill in itself.
- cesnja 9y ago
  Spacemacs solves the problem of discoverability by displaying all modal keybindings currently available, if you started typing a modal command sequence, but haven't completed a command yet. The additional bonus here is that once you internalise these commands, they stay the same while you execute them much faster. In mouse-centered environments, one would first learn how to do an action using a mouse and after he felt the need to be faster, he'd need to learn the key combo from scratch (for the sake of the argument, let's ignore the few common conventions like F1, cut/copy/paste and undo/redo). On the other hand, I agree that starting out with CLI is a bit painful. IMO, the middle ground taken by Spacemacs really should be researched (and used) mode.

cryptonector 9y ago

It is the only editing system that makes sense to me. That's because modal editing means fewer modifier-key combinations are needed, and no mouse is needed. Compare with.. any other editor, where the only thing that might save you from RSI is enabling sticky keys, and even then, if it isn't emacs you still have to heavily use a mouse. For a great number of tasks, being a vim or emacs pro means doing things faster than any other editor could do them (except, maybe refactoring). And vim will save you from from more RSI than emacs by having fewer modifier key combinations. Every IDE needs a vi mode. Wherever I can I use tmux+cscope+ctags+vim+shell as my IDE. One tmux session per-project, nested in one big tmux session for all projects. Window #0 has a cscope with a an $EDITOR wrapper that opens new edits in new, appropriately titled tmux windows and returns control to cscope. Windows #1 through #4 are for a shell. The rest are for editing files opened via cscope. It's a dream for C/C++, even Java. cscope needs support for more languages, that's true, certainly, but this gets me quite far.

therealmarv 9y ago
I disagree. I use VSCode completely without mouse (and no vim mode).
- diegoprzl 9y ago
  Yes, you can use a lot of other editors without a mouse. The advantage of learning vim/vim mode is that you can be proficient with them without having to learn their editing keybindings. Vim mode acts as a common interface. I even use those keybindings in Chrome with cVim.
  - therealmarv 9y ago
    This is also not exclusive to Vim. I don't use any plugins and I have a lot of common key bindings (especially for text editing) I can use on every text editor field on my Mac (which are pretty similar on Windows). Heck I even have Emacs keybindings on OS level on macOS nearly everywhere (without installing plugins): http://jblevins.org/log/kbd http://jblevins.org/log/kbd So Vim is an addition where as my key bindings work everywhere except when I go to the console where I had to learn some nano specific key bindings but which match a lot with the basic text editing keybindings from Emacs mentioned above.

balladeer 9y ago

I don't know Vi(m) well at all and that's mostly my impatience and procrastination. Just like I could never truly touch-type. But I totally get how Vim is excellent at what it does and hence why it's important. Not using the mouse and not having a lot of distraction are godsend when doing any work worth your time involving lots of text whether it's reading, or writing code, or a story. Also, I've kind of never even seen all those ancient gadgets you have named - I feel this based on my exp with computers (and starting with a Dell Vostro) since 2007. edit: I've been getting slightl better at it by forcing myself to use VimFx on Firefox and cVim on Chrome and now I am planning to get IdeaVim for WebStorm and Android Studio.