5 ms·

Before Vim I had to look for an editor every time I learned a new language. Now I just use Vim. For everything.

panpanna 7y ago
Well, there are two ways to interpret that :)
fnordsensei 7y ago
Try :q! On a more serious note: I have a long-term goal to learn either Vim or Emacs for various reasons, the above mentioned being one of them. It's hard to feel so spectacularly unproductive as I do when I try them out though, so it's easy to give up. What's there best way to go about learning Vim or Emacs?
- bgilroy26 7y ago
  I learned by playing vim adventures, but that might be too kiddie for you. Check out this old HN post[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213054
- jamil7 7y ago
  Not sure about emacs but vim basically requires a period of fighting through how horribly unproductive you will initially be, give it a week or two and you'll be ok.
  - vram22 7y ago
    Doesn't have to be so. See my other comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19923720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19923720
    - jamil7 7y ago
      Nice tips, thanks!
      - vram22 7y ago
        Welcome :)
- wyatwerp 7y ago
  This is going further & further OT, but hey - I didn't start it! What you need is a motivating factor. Vim is almost guaranteed to be there on any Linux/BSD/Mac shell environment, which motivates people in those environments to learn it even if they learn no other editor. Beyond such environments, like on any desktop GUI, what'd motivate you to try GUI Vim? For Emacs, I can say the integration between any set of tools you can imagine could be a motivation. The reason Emacs users don't particularly appreciate IDE's is that Emacs' integration of code editor, compiler output, debugger control makes the development cycle extremely fast. Add any 1 more use to that. File explorer? Emacs dired. Process monitor? Emacs proced. Interactive shells? Emacs integrates Unix shell, Python sessions, anything interactive actually. You will get all your work done in Emacs, just using editor operations! Go to the source code for a compiler error? Hit "Enter" or click on the error in the compile window. Go to the source code being debugged? Stepping in the debugger automatically opens the file at the right line number. Found the bug? The code is already there ready to be fixed; switch to the compile window & compile. Find a file in a directory? Do a text search in its dired window. Rename all files beginning with foo to begin with bar instead? Do a search-replace. Emacs also scales way better than any desktop editor or Vim, whether it is opening GB-sized log files, or binary files viewed/edited in hexadecimal. Before long, you start managing your to-do's using org-mode, and doing all your Git operations in the insanely featureful Magit interface. The list gets longer and longer every release. And many Linux shell environments support the same basic keyboard short-cuts (Ctrl-A to go to beginning of line, Ctrl-E to go to the end, Ctrl-R to search in the shell history), and also provide light-weight Emacs clones like 'zile', 'mg' for editing-only use in the terminal.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    I would like to see a UI designer or UML layout written in elisp, including support for third party components.
- deking 7y ago
  I don't have any reference material/tutorials, but my major breakthrough with Vim was when I understood that normal mode is the norm. Anytime you're not entering text, be in normal mode. Remap jk or jj to escape. Get in the habit of typing it whenever you're done adding text. Use hjkl for movement instead of the arrow keys. Learn the f,t, and o commands. http://cloudhead.io/2010/04/24/staying-the-hell-out-of-insert-mode/ http://cloudhead.io/2010/04/24/staying-the-hell-out-of-inser...
  - leonardmh 7y ago
    “Normal mode” it’s right there in the name :)
- malvosenior 7y ago
  `vimtutor` It's installed everywhere vim is.
- McWobbleston 7y ago
  Clojure for the Brave and True has a really nice Emacs primer
- vram22 7y ago
  Maybe try out my vi quickstart tutorial: https://gumroad.com/l/vi_quick/ https://gumroad.com/l/vi_quick/ vi is the predecessor of, and a subset of, vim, and is probably available on even more platforms than vim is. So knowledge of that single editor (vi) enables you to work on any of those platforms. And you can always progress to (and through - it is big) vim later, at your own pace. I wrote it at the request of two Windows system administrator friends who were given additional charge of some Unix systems. They later told me that it helped them to quickly start using vi to edit text files on Unix.
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    Another nice thing about learning Vi first: no plugins. There are so many plugins that make Vim _worse_. In my experience most novice vimmers end up with a huge vimrc, which overtime is pared down to something pretty small as they learn how vim actually works.
    - vram22 7y ago
      Yes, good point. That's partly why I mentioned that vim is big, above. And there is tendency of some devs (not just beginners) to load many plugins (for any tool, not just vim), before learning the base tool well. Counterproductive, IMO, plus leads to cognitive overload. And at least in the case of vi/vim, you can compose commands, so, even without using things like macros or plugins, you can achieve a lot. So master that first. It will take you a long way.
- dan00 7y ago
  > What's there best way to go about learning Vim or Emacs? Sitting at a unix terminal at the university and being forced - you can't install anything - to learn either of both to get anything done. ;)
- fnord123 7y ago
  Emacs is physically destructive. The chording will destroy your hands. This is why emacs enthusiasts need special keyboards or foot pedals. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_best_keyboard.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_best_keyboard.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html Vim is great, but after 20 years of using it, I'm moving mostly to Jetbrains stack since flying around the code is faster and syntastic (a vim plugin) is slow as shit on large projects. Thankfully the vim bindings in Intellij are pretty darn faithful.
pjmlp 7y ago
If the only thing you do with programming is typing text sure, my IDEs do a little more than that.

Well, there are two ways to interpret that :)

Try :q! On a more serious note: I have a long-term goal to learn either Vim or Emacs for various reasons, the above mentioned being one of them. It's hard to feel so spectacularly unproductive as I do when I try them out though, so it's easy to give up. What's there best way to go about learning Vim or Emacs?

bgilroy26 7y ago
I learned by playing vim adventures, but that might be too kiddie for you. Check out this old HN post[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213054
jamil7 7y ago
Not sure about emacs but vim basically requires a period of fighting through how horribly unproductive you will initially be, give it a week or two and you'll be ok.
- vram22 7y ago
  Doesn't have to be so. See my other comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19923720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19923720
  - jamil7 7y ago
    Nice tips, thanks!
    - vram22 7y ago
      Welcome :)
wyatwerp 7y ago
This is going further & further OT, but hey - I didn't start it! What you need is a motivating factor. Vim is almost guaranteed to be there on any Linux/BSD/Mac shell environment, which motivates people in those environments to learn it even if they learn no other editor. Beyond such environments, like on any desktop GUI, what'd motivate you to try GUI Vim? For Emacs, I can say the integration between any set of tools you can imagine could be a motivation. The reason Emacs users don't particularly appreciate IDE's is that Emacs' integration of code editor, compiler output, debugger control makes the development cycle extremely fast. Add any 1 more use to that. File explorer? Emacs dired. Process monitor? Emacs proced. Interactive shells? Emacs integrates Unix shell, Python sessions, anything interactive actually. You will get all your work done in Emacs, just using editor operations! Go to the source code for a compiler error? Hit "Enter" or click on the error in the compile window. Go to the source code being debugged? Stepping in the debugger automatically opens the file at the right line number. Found the bug? The code is already there ready to be fixed; switch to the compile window & compile. Find a file in a directory? Do a text search in its dired window. Rename all files beginning with foo to begin with bar instead? Do a search-replace. Emacs also scales way better than any desktop editor or Vim, whether it is opening GB-sized log files, or binary files viewed/edited in hexadecimal. Before long, you start managing your to-do's using org-mode, and doing all your Git operations in the insanely featureful Magit interface. The list gets longer and longer every release. And many Linux shell environments support the same basic keyboard short-cuts (Ctrl-A to go to beginning of line, Ctrl-E to go to the end, Ctrl-R to search in the shell history), and also provide light-weight Emacs clones like 'zile', 'mg' for editing-only use in the terminal.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  I would like to see a UI designer or UML layout written in elisp, including support for third party components.
deking 7y ago
I don't have any reference material/tutorials, but my major breakthrough with Vim was when I understood that normal mode is the norm. Anytime you're not entering text, be in normal mode. Remap jk or jj to escape. Get in the habit of typing it whenever you're done adding text. Use hjkl for movement instead of the arrow keys. Learn the f,t, and o commands. http://cloudhead.io/2010/04/24/staying-the-hell-out-of-insert-mode/ http://cloudhead.io/2010/04/24/staying-the-hell-out-of-inser...
- leonardmh 7y ago
  “Normal mode” it’s right there in the name :)
malvosenior 7y ago
`vimtutor` It's installed everywhere vim is.
McWobbleston 7y ago
Clojure for the Brave and True has a really nice Emacs primer
vram22 7y ago
Maybe try out my vi quickstart tutorial: https://gumroad.com/l/vi_quick/ https://gumroad.com/l/vi_quick/ vi is the predecessor of, and a subset of, vim, and is probably available on even more platforms than vim is. So knowledge of that single editor (vi) enables you to work on any of those platforms. And you can always progress to (and through - it is big) vim later, at your own pace. I wrote it at the request of two Windows system administrator friends who were given additional charge of some Unix systems. They later told me that it helped them to quickly start using vi to edit text files on Unix.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  Another nice thing about learning Vi first: no plugins. There are so many plugins that make Vim _worse_. In my experience most novice vimmers end up with a huge vimrc, which overtime is pared down to something pretty small as they learn how vim actually works.
  - vram22 7y ago
    Yes, good point. That's partly why I mentioned that vim is big, above. And there is tendency of some devs (not just beginners) to load many plugins (for any tool, not just vim), before learning the base tool well. Counterproductive, IMO, plus leads to cognitive overload. And at least in the case of vi/vim, you can compose commands, so, even without using things like macros or plugins, you can achieve a lot. So master that first. It will take you a long way.
dan00 7y ago
> What's there best way to go about learning Vim or Emacs? Sitting at a unix terminal at the university and being forced - you can't install anything - to learn either of both to get anything done. ;)
fnord123 7y ago
Emacs is physically destructive. The chording will destroy your hands. This is why emacs enthusiasts need special keyboards or foot pedals. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_best_keyboard.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_best_keyboard.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html Vim is great, but after 20 years of using it, I'm moving mostly to Jetbrains stack since flying around the code is faster and syntastic (a vim plugin) is slow as shit on large projects. Thankfully the vim bindings in Intellij are pretty darn faithful.

pjmlp 7y ago

If the only thing you do with programming is typing text sure, my IDEs do a little more than that.