4 ms·

> It's a trade-off: Do I use a bit of mental power, and save some finger movement? hammerandtongs already suggested this: it's not a trade-off, you just didn't

by dozzie 9y ago

> It's a trade-off: Do I use a bit of mental power, and save some finger movement? hammerandtongs already suggested this: it's not a trade-off, you just didn't get to learn Vim appropriately (you say yourself that you're "part time vim user"). Vim is so convenient for its regular users not because it saves them keystrokes, but because it saves them this mental power you talk about. I don't think what commands I want to execute. I think where I want to get in the file or what should the text look like, and then the logic behind the structure of vi/Vim commands takes me there. It's very similar to proficiency in any other editor, except Vim has so much more to offer with regard to editing (both in first-order commands and in composing the commands). So much more that watching how a proficient Vim user edits a file is akin to observing a stage magician. Most of the people cannot keep up with the changes to the text.

ice109 9y ago
>I don't think what commands I want to execute. I think where I want to get in the file or what should the text look like, and then the logic behind the structure of vi/Vim commands takes me there. this is gibberish unless vim comes with some sort of spinal cord dongle. either it's muscle memory or thinking but you still have to have practiced the keystrokes.
- antoinealb 9y ago
  Muscle memory is not using some brain power as the GP says. Once you are used to it (2-3 weeks), it feels very natural, I think "Oh I need to change the end of this sentence" and my fingers will take me there. It really is an extension of touch typing.
  - pweissbrod 9y ago
    Gee I got to the point of feeling natural after 2-3 months...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- savanaly 9y ago
  He's describing how it feels to be a good vim user, not how it works in reality. A great tennis player might say "I don't think about how to hit the ball, I just think about where I want it to go and it goes there", and that would be reasonable. Then you come in and say no that's gibberish, unless he has a spinal cord dongle hooked up to a robot that hits it for him, he has to be thinking about doing the actions, they're not automatic after all!
- OJFord 9y ago
  Do you think about each key you want to press to type a sentence? I expect not. Vim, for those that use it, is merely an extension of that.
- type0 9y ago
  > unless vim comes with some sort of spinal cord dongle cerebellum is largely responsible for your muscle memory but premotor cortex stll needs to initialize those commands (what keys to press) then the cerebellum adjusts the precision i.e touch-typing part of it guess...
atomi 9y ago
Saves mental power? These regular vim users must be some kind of super humans to autopilot some of these incantations. http://deliberate-software.com/vim-refactoring-patterns/ http://deliberate-software.com/vim-refactoring-patterns/
- dozzie 9y ago
  Which ones? All I see is just a handful of distinct commands. Those commands take arguments, and they are called with those arguments over and over again, but there's very little magic in the article. And, in fact, very little of the commands available to and regularly used by Vim user were shown. (And I think this was the point of the article.) It's like you were arguing that printf("foo\n") and printf("bar\n") were some fundamentally different magic incantations in C that you need to remember separately.
  - atomi 9y ago
    That's right. You've made a great point. Learning vim is like learning a new language. Which isn't trivial for most people as exemplified by software like nano and the new micro.
hashhar 9y ago
Macros are the best part of vim for me. They allow me to transform large quantities of text which would be difficult to do using a regular expression even. Also, after enough use (I'd say 4 weeks in my case) a lot of the commands become muscle memory and I don't have to think about what I'm hitting. I think about a goal and know what to do to get there.

by dozzie 9y ago

ice109 9y ago

>I don't think what commands I want to execute. I think where I want to get in the file or what should the text look like, and then the logic behind the structure of vi/Vim commands takes me there. this is gibberish unless vim comes with some sort of spinal cord dongle. either it's muscle memory or thinking but you still have to have practiced the keystrokes.

antoinealb 9y ago
Muscle memory is not using some brain power as the GP says. Once you are used to it (2-3 weeks), it feels very natural, I think "Oh I need to change the end of this sentence" and my fingers will take me there. It really is an extension of touch typing.
- pweissbrod 9y ago
  Gee I got to the point of feeling natural after 2-3 months...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
savanaly 9y ago
He's describing how it feels to be a good vim user, not how it works in reality. A great tennis player might say "I don't think about how to hit the ball, I just think about where I want it to go and it goes there", and that would be reasonable. Then you come in and say no that's gibberish, unless he has a spinal cord dongle hooked up to a robot that hits it for him, he has to be thinking about doing the actions, they're not automatic after all!
OJFord 9y ago
Do you think about each key you want to press to type a sentence? I expect not. Vim, for those that use it, is merely an extension of that.
type0 9y ago
> unless vim comes with some sort of spinal cord dongle cerebellum is largely responsible for your muscle memory but premotor cortex stll needs to initialize those commands (what keys to press) then the cerebellum adjusts the precision i.e touch-typing part of it guess...

atomi 9y ago

Saves mental power? These regular vim users must be some kind of super humans to autopilot some of these incantations. http://deliberate-software.com/vim-refactoring-patterns/ http://deliberate-software.com/vim-refactoring-patterns/

dozzie 9y ago
Which ones? All I see is just a handful of distinct commands. Those commands take arguments, and they are called with those arguments over and over again, but there's very little magic in the article. And, in fact, very little of the commands available to and regularly used by Vim user were shown. (And I think this was the point of the article.) It's like you were arguing that printf("foo\n") and printf("bar\n") were some fundamentally different magic incantations in C that you need to remember separately.
- atomi 9y ago
  That's right. You've made a great point. Learning vim is like learning a new language. Which isn't trivial for most people as exemplified by software like nano and the new micro.

hashhar 9y ago

Macros are the best part of vim for me. They allow me to transform large quantities of text which would be difficult to do using a regular expression even. Also, after enough use (I'd say 4 weeks in my case) a lot of the commands become muscle memory and I don't have to think about what I'm hitting. I think about a goal and know what to do to get there.