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I like toys as much as the next nerd, but how do people see the perceived value of such tools? Personally, I am relatively unconvinced about the advantages of t

by ksk 9y ago

I like toys as much as the next nerd, but how do people see the perceived value of such tools? Personally, I am relatively unconvinced about the advantages of tools like emacs or vim over anything "regular" people use. IMHO Tools should be evaluated by the results they produce, and so are we seeing anything amazing from the users of these tools versus people who just use a notepad or whatever other generic system?

piracykills 9y ago
I too would like a clear answer to this, I've made numerous attempts to learn vim and emacs and can find my way around in both, but I never broke my habit of the old school CUA keybindings and arrow keys so always found myself gravitating back, especially when more full fledged IDEs and such were an option. ReSharper C++ is a major time-saver on a daily basis for me and I have a hard time thinking that would be easily replaced.
- singingboyo 9y ago
  Whether there's an advantage that'll sell you on putting the time in, I don't know, but JetBrains' IDEs are my goto alternative to vim when I'm either stuck using Windows or need more IDE features for whatever language I'm working in. The vim bindings are probably the best I've used - there's still some mismatch, but for editing at least it works great. So, if you ever feel the need to try it, CLion (which I would assume is on par with ReSharper C++) in vim mode may be a good option.
- pasabagi 9y ago
  I think Vim for me is solely in the 'fun' category. I mean, actual text editing is a pretty small portion of the time I spend on programming - thinking, reading, and debugging are much more significant for me. That said, I think that a well-set up version of vim is probably the most fun anybody can have while editing text. I actually enjoy doing finnicky and tricky textual tasks. You feel like a wizard literally every day. That's worth something for me. I actually picked it up because I wanted a new natural-language text editor, and I figured vim would probably still exist in 20 years, and I don't like learning new things. It's been an unmitigated blessing in this role - and it's also pretty nice for programming, if a little bit more annoying to set up.
- manux 9y ago
  > I never broke my habit of the old school CUA keybindings For me it's the opposite. I can't switch to IDEs and sometimes accidentally close browser tabs because my brain has mapped `cut` to Ctrl-W.
BeetleB 9y ago
Although I love Emacs, I can relate very well to your comment. I've seen teams switch from SVN to Git, and have not seen any sign of improved productivity in the long run. Nevertheless, most do not want to switch back to SVN.

by ksk 9y ago

piracykills 9y ago

I too would like a clear answer to this, I've made numerous attempts to learn vim and emacs and can find my way around in both, but I never broke my habit of the old school CUA keybindings and arrow keys so always found myself gravitating back, especially when more full fledged IDEs and such were an option. ReSharper C++ is a major time-saver on a daily basis for me and I have a hard time thinking that would be easily replaced.

singingboyo 9y ago
Whether there's an advantage that'll sell you on putting the time in, I don't know, but JetBrains' IDEs are my goto alternative to vim when I'm either stuck using Windows or need more IDE features for whatever language I'm working in. The vim bindings are probably the best I've used - there's still some mismatch, but for editing at least it works great. So, if you ever feel the need to try it, CLion (which I would assume is on par with ReSharper C++) in vim mode may be a good option.
pasabagi 9y ago
I think Vim for me is solely in the 'fun' category. I mean, actual text editing is a pretty small portion of the time I spend on programming - thinking, reading, and debugging are much more significant for me. That said, I think that a well-set up version of vim is probably the most fun anybody can have while editing text. I actually enjoy doing finnicky and tricky textual tasks. You feel like a wizard literally every day. That's worth something for me. I actually picked it up because I wanted a new natural-language text editor, and I figured vim would probably still exist in 20 years, and I don't like learning new things. It's been an unmitigated blessing in this role - and it's also pretty nice for programming, if a little bit more annoying to set up.
manux 9y ago
> I never broke my habit of the old school CUA keybindings For me it's the opposite. I can't switch to IDEs and sometimes accidentally close browser tabs because my brain has mapped `cut` to Ctrl-W.

BeetleB 9y ago

Although I love Emacs, I can relate very well to your comment. I've seen teams switch from SVN to Git, and have not seen any sign of improved productivity in the long run. Nevertheless, most do not want to switch back to SVN.