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I feel about Vim the way RMS seems to feel about Linux. Even though, (presumably) everyone knows the relationship of vim to vi, I don’t feel there is enough ex

I feel about Vim the way RMS seems to feel about Linux. Even though, (presumably) everyone knows the relationship of vim to vi, I don’t feel there is enough explicit acknowledgement of that fact. Vim is evidently a wonderful tool, (I say this as a confirmed 20 year emacs user for whom emacs is only usable due to excellent vi emulation possibilities) but it clearly wouldn’t exist without the basic foundation provided by canonical vi which is in my estimation a work of genius.

jdnier 6y ago
It's hard to sense how much of vi is in vim, having only ever used vim. But I've never been very happy with vim, even though I've used it for 15 years. Maybe I need to find a "vim, the good parts (aka vi)" book.
- cheez 6y ago
  use spacemacs with vim emulation :-)
  - jamesrcole 6y ago
    I used Vim for a number of years (I'd guess around 10), and for the last year or so I've been using Spacemacs. I think there's so much that's great about both of them, and I'll continue to use one or the other, but geez, there's so many niggling issues with both that can be offputting. A couple of examples. In Spacemacs, the screen regularly goes blank for a while. Or if I have a file open in Spacemacs, close its window, then rename it in the OS, then reopen it in Spacemacs (by double-clicking it in Finder) it reopens it with it's old name. I'm sure there's a way to avoid this, but the fact that it happens in the first place is the issue.
    - cheez 6y ago
      Never had the screen issue, gotta imagine that's the os and emacs. As for the file rename issue, certainly if that's part of your workflow, it's helpful to figure out why it happens. I suspect it's due to the way filesystems work on Linux /Unix.
    - whelming_wave 6y ago
      If you’re on macOS, the screen blanking is a known issue that’s happening because of some unknown interaction between the OS rendering and Emacs double buffering. IIRC, the mailing list thread about it concluded saying that nobody who wanted to work on the Emacs source had the requisite macOS knowledge to fix it and it’s been stuck there for a while?
      - jamesrcole 6y ago
        Yes, I am on MacOS. Thanks for the info.
  - nix23 6y ago
    Oh yes i LOVE Spacemacs, but not vim-mode but the 'IvoryTower'-Mode
adrianN 6y ago
vi itself is just a natural progression from ed, the standard editor.
- bear8642 6y ago
  as is Plan 9's Sam - jumping beyond the Command Line ;)
caymanjim 6y ago
But...who cares? Yes, Vim owes a debt of gratitude to Bill Joy's vi. And vi was built from ex, which was built from ed, ad infinitum back to the dawn of computing. I like trivia, especially computer trivia, and I was there for much of this evolution. But it's not important to know any of it.
- bch 6y ago
  > And vi was built from ex, which was built from ed, [...] I think vi might more charitably be described as a paradigm shift. It also happened to bring terminal independence to everybody by later prompting the development of termcap (like vi, brought to us by Bill Joy). Of course termcap begat terminfo, [n]curses, ... I feel like grandparent wishing for acknowledgement isn’t really out of line. It’s “Show a little respect; you have no idea where we were before vi.”
erklik 6y ago
I use vim regularly on my day job. However, I am not familiar with more of the advanced side of things, and would never call myself an advanced user. That aside, I was always of the impression that vim was simply vi but extended in a sense. Is that not the case? How different is vi to vim?
- aoloe 6y ago
  In my eyes, vi is ok for system administration, but not for programming. The differences are not huge, but even if I have a "small" .vimrc with one single plugin, I have issues using the vim.tiny installed on Debian by default. The Vim help has a list of the differences: https://vimhelp.org/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-1.4 https://vimhelp.org/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-1.4 The most important to me are: - a real undo - buffers - macros (recorded on the fly with ththe q key) - visual mode (included the block selection mode) - text completion (ctrl-p, ctrl-x-f) - automatic indenting - advanced text objects (selecting everyting between '()') Not having one single of them would not hinder me much... but all of them at once: that hurts!
  - mmm_grayons 6y ago
    The "killer feature" for me is asynchronous jobs. It makes life so much easier.
- ljosifov 6y ago
  This advanced tutorial helped me https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/vi/009-index.html https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/vi/009-in.... I have not found many advanced vi/m tutorials, I wish there were more. hth

jdnier 6y ago

It's hard to sense how much of vi is in vim, having only ever used vim. But I've never been very happy with vim, even though I've used it for 15 years. Maybe I need to find a "vim, the good parts (aka vi)" book.

cheez 6y ago
use spacemacs with vim emulation :-)
- jamesrcole 6y ago
  I used Vim for a number of years (I'd guess around 10), and for the last year or so I've been using Spacemacs. I think there's so much that's great about both of them, and I'll continue to use one or the other, but geez, there's so many niggling issues with both that can be offputting. A couple of examples. In Spacemacs, the screen regularly goes blank for a while. Or if I have a file open in Spacemacs, close its window, then rename it in the OS, then reopen it in Spacemacs (by double-clicking it in Finder) it reopens it with it's old name. I'm sure there's a way to avoid this, but the fact that it happens in the first place is the issue.
  - cheez 6y ago
    Never had the screen issue, gotta imagine that's the os and emacs. As for the file rename issue, certainly if that's part of your workflow, it's helpful to figure out why it happens. I suspect it's due to the way filesystems work on Linux /Unix.
  - whelming_wave 6y ago
    If you’re on macOS, the screen blanking is a known issue that’s happening because of some unknown interaction between the OS rendering and Emacs double buffering. IIRC, the mailing list thread about it concluded saying that nobody who wanted to work on the Emacs source had the requisite macOS knowledge to fix it and it’s been stuck there for a while?
    - jamesrcole 6y ago
      Yes, I am on MacOS. Thanks for the info.
- nix23 6y ago
  Oh yes i LOVE Spacemacs, but not vim-mode but the 'IvoryTower'-Mode

adrianN 6y ago

vi itself is just a natural progression from ed, the standard editor.

bear8642 6y ago
as is Plan 9's Sam - jumping beyond the Command Line ;)

caymanjim 6y ago

But...who cares? Yes, Vim owes a debt of gratitude to Bill Joy's vi. And vi was built from ex, which was built from ed, ad infinitum back to the dawn of computing. I like trivia, especially computer trivia, and I was there for much of this evolution. But it's not important to know any of it.

bch 6y ago
> And vi was built from ex, which was built from ed, [...] I think vi might more charitably be described as a paradigm shift. It also happened to bring terminal independence to everybody by later prompting the development of termcap (like vi, brought to us by Bill Joy). Of course termcap begat terminfo, [n]curses, ... I feel like grandparent wishing for acknowledgement isn’t really out of line. It’s “Show a little respect; you have no idea where we were before vi.”

erklik 6y ago

I use vim regularly on my day job. However, I am not familiar with more of the advanced side of things, and would never call myself an advanced user. That aside, I was always of the impression that vim was simply vi but extended in a sense. Is that not the case? How different is vi to vim?

aoloe 6y ago
In my eyes, vi is ok for system administration, but not for programming. The differences are not huge, but even if I have a "small" .vimrc with one single plugin, I have issues using the vim.tiny installed on Debian by default. The Vim help has a list of the differences: https://vimhelp.org/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-1.4 https://vimhelp.org/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-1.4 The most important to me are: - a real undo - buffers - macros (recorded on the fly with ththe q key) - visual mode (included the block selection mode) - text completion (ctrl-p, ctrl-x-f) - automatic indenting - advanced text objects (selecting everyting between '()') Not having one single of them would not hinder me much... but all of them at once: that hurts!
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  The "killer feature" for me is asynchronous jobs. It makes life so much easier.
ljosifov 6y ago
This advanced tutorial helped me https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/vi/009-index.html https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/vi/009-in.... I have not found many advanced vi/m tutorials, I wish there were more. hth