8 ms·

Definitely, even now as I use emacs, I'm a 100% evil. It's just so natural (once you get it), that I don't know how other bindings (like ctrl-[whatever]) are pr

Definitely, even now as I use emacs, I'm a 100% evil. It's just so natural (once you get it), that I don't know how other bindings (like ctrl-[whatever]) are prevalent in most other software, it's not like they are more memorable or intuitive. Fun story: I was into Free/Libre software as a teen, when I learnt how to move around in vi(m) and in my first tech gig (as a sysadmin), I was interviewed by some greybeard who wanted me to do some maintenance and configuration tasks. I knew the basics of command line environments, but I had never setup LDAP, mail or DNS. So anyway he asked me to setup some repository on yum, and well, at least I knew how to do that. When he saw me using vi commands to quickly edit the file, he stopped the interview, arguing that anybody who was fluent on vi, was obviously a seasoned admin and I got the postion. I never had the guts to tell him otherwise.

busterarm 6y ago
It's proof enough that you'll figure it out. Years of interviewing people for my own teams has shown me that understanding your tools (especially to the point of being opinionated about them) is probably the #1 indicator of success.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  What a great test, and it makes sense - a craftsman cares very much about their tools, an average tech will use the first thing that they're taught.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    It's also what's so hard about hiring junior candidates and why so many companies shy away from it. Truly junior hires don't really know the tools yet. You can't really afford to wait for the rare junior who does, so unfortunately it's not as useful a test in that situation. That's why I think OP's "seasoned sysadmin" line is perfectly valid. The junior that knows their tools has already cleared the hardest hurdle for most companies. Everything else is trainable through mentorship, but tools usage requires experience.
    - chadcmulligan 6y ago
      Indeed, I always advise people who want to be developers to build some stuff to show, to separate yourself from everyone else, and make it easier for the hirer. That is another reason to do it, an IT degree doesn't mean you can write code, as you say the rest can be learnt.
      - jfkebwjsbx 6y ago
        An IT degree is not about writing code. Perhaps you are referring to CS.
  - beojan 6y ago
    You become used to the first tool you pickup, its ways become "natural", and hence you become opinionated.
    - chadcmulligan 6y ago
      I don't know about that, my first tool was vi, I have strong opinions about it :-). I use an all singing IDE (Appcode) now, its not perfect either but works for now.
- duckfruit 6y ago
  Indeed. Someone with the fortitude and discipline to get really good at their tools can probably pick up whatever you throw at them. Its also a good sign that they might be into technology for its own sake, which also doesn't hurt.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Where I work we use a lot of jetbrains IDE's and I've been a massive fan of Intellij, I absolutely love it when I can show someone something that makes their life easier. Whether it's how to implement an external program properly using all the expansions or how to use bookmarks (how people can use an IDE for years and not find that is a good question). I've always RTFM of whatever tool I'm using as the first step then I go look at the default keybindings to see what else there is. The one that blows people away though is the custom exporters you can write for data views, oh you want that result set in a PHP array for a test set, yeah Copy as PHP has you. Intellij is absurdly powerful without writing custom plugins (which is my next step I guess).
  - jng 6y ago
    ... and Jetbrains IDEs support a plugin called IdeaVIM that provides pretty solid vi/vim emulation.
    - okr 6y ago
      (intellij sometimes has recurring problems with lost keyboard input under linux+gnome. IdeaVIM is one of the first plugins i disable, when that happens. and it often helps.)
    - doix 6y ago
      IdeaVim is the uncanny value of vim for me. It's so close to being actual vim, but every now and then it does something unexpected and it completely throws me off. I recorded a macro to change shouldBe([true|false]) to shouldBe[True|False](). Pretty simple: qqf(ds(~$a()<esc>q But the vim-surround plugin emulation doesn't work properly with macros, so it'd get stuck and instead of just doing n@@ , I'd have to do n@@( , i.e pass the seperator I used for the delete surround command. It doesn't have fold toggling, so z[a|A] doesn't work. The undo behaves weird, you usually have to do it twice UNLESS you've not moved the cursor since doing the last edit. The git integration isn't as good as vim-fugitive and I constantly find my self reaching for the mouse to do anything git related, whereas in vim I could do it all with the keyboard. The plugin gets brought up all the time when people talk about the JetBrains tools and no one seems to mention the short comings.
cjhanks 6y ago
Yeah, I think you got lucky. He sounds like a great boss. And, he was probably right.
atmosx 6y ago
Heh, I would fall for that!
Lio 6y ago
(Funnily enough ctrl-[ is one of my most used shortcuts in vim. It’s a convenient alternative to escape if you map caps-lock to ctrl)
- slim 6y ago
  You may be using vim wrong. Good for you if you like it that way
  - Lio 6y ago
    You're going to have to explain that one because I generally switch back to command mode after every edit so I use ctrl-[ a lot. I'd be VERY interested to hear why that's wrong and what you do differently.
    - slim 6y ago
      my reasoning was : you could have mapped caps lock to ESC but you did not. So maybe you are using CTRL too much (CTRL-V maybe?) which is not the best way to use vim.
      - dhagz 6y ago
        Can't speak for everyone, but I use this[1] keyboard most of the time, and it doesn't have a Caps Lock key to remap, but instead has Control where Caps Lock normally is. So using ctrl-[ is much easier than reaching up to the escape key. [1] https://hhkeyboard.us/pro-classic/ https://hhkeyboard.us/pro-classic/
      - Lio 6y ago
        No your reasoning is way off. I map to ctrl rather than escape because I want to make use of the Insert and Ex mode ctrl shortcuts. For example, if I want to insert a register into the ex mode command line I use ctr-r <register>. Or if I want to pop out of insert mode for a single command I use ctr-o. E.g. inserting opening and closing tags when a suitable plugin isn't present. Insert the opening and closing tag, jump back to command mode with ctrl-o, move backwards and you're ready to insert more text.
teekert 6y ago
Such a thing is a proxy character trade and probably told him enough. I'm in bioinformatics, if an applicant tells me they studied biology but have always run a Linux server at home, I can also stop the interview: hired.

busterarm 6y ago

It's proof enough that you'll figure it out. Years of interviewing people for my own teams has shown me that understanding your tools (especially to the point of being opinionated about them) is probably the #1 indicator of success.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
What a great test, and it makes sense - a craftsman cares very much about their tools, an average tech will use the first thing that they're taught.
- busterarm 6y ago
  It's also what's so hard about hiring junior candidates and why so many companies shy away from it. Truly junior hires don't really know the tools yet. You can't really afford to wait for the rare junior who does, so unfortunately it's not as useful a test in that situation. That's why I think OP's "seasoned sysadmin" line is perfectly valid. The junior that knows their tools has already cleared the hardest hurdle for most companies. Everything else is trainable through mentorship, but tools usage requires experience.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    Indeed, I always advise people who want to be developers to build some stuff to show, to separate yourself from everyone else, and make it easier for the hirer. That is another reason to do it, an IT degree doesn't mean you can write code, as you say the rest can be learnt.
    - jfkebwjsbx 6y ago
      An IT degree is not about writing code. Perhaps you are referring to CS.
- beojan 6y ago
  You become used to the first tool you pickup, its ways become "natural", and hence you become opinionated.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    I don't know about that, my first tool was vi, I have strong opinions about it :-). I use an all singing IDE (Appcode) now, its not perfect either but works for now.
duckfruit 6y ago
Indeed. Someone with the fortitude and discipline to get really good at their tools can probably pick up whatever you throw at them. Its also a good sign that they might be into technology for its own sake, which also doesn't hurt.
noir_lord 6y ago
Where I work we use a lot of jetbrains IDE's and I've been a massive fan of Intellij, I absolutely love it when I can show someone something that makes their life easier. Whether it's how to implement an external program properly using all the expansions or how to use bookmarks (how people can use an IDE for years and not find that is a good question). I've always RTFM of whatever tool I'm using as the first step then I go look at the default keybindings to see what else there is. The one that blows people away though is the custom exporters you can write for data views, oh you want that result set in a PHP array for a test set, yeah Copy as PHP has you. Intellij is absurdly powerful without writing custom plugins (which is my next step I guess).
- jng 6y ago
  ... and Jetbrains IDEs support a plugin called IdeaVIM that provides pretty solid vi/vim emulation.
  - okr 6y ago
    (intellij sometimes has recurring problems with lost keyboard input under linux+gnome. IdeaVIM is one of the first plugins i disable, when that happens. and it often helps.)
  - doix 6y ago
    IdeaVim is the uncanny value of vim for me. It's so close to being actual vim, but every now and then it does something unexpected and it completely throws me off. I recorded a macro to change shouldBe([true|false]) to shouldBe[True|False](). Pretty simple: qqf(ds(~$a()<esc>q But the vim-surround plugin emulation doesn't work properly with macros, so it'd get stuck and instead of just doing n@@ , I'd have to do n@@( , i.e pass the seperator I used for the delete surround command. It doesn't have fold toggling, so z[a|A] doesn't work. The undo behaves weird, you usually have to do it twice UNLESS you've not moved the cursor since doing the last edit. The git integration isn't as good as vim-fugitive and I constantly find my self reaching for the mouse to do anything git related, whereas in vim I could do it all with the keyboard. The plugin gets brought up all the time when people talk about the JetBrains tools and no one seems to mention the short comings.

cjhanks 6y ago

Yeah, I think you got lucky. He sounds like a great boss. And, he was probably right.

atmosx 6y ago

Heh, I would fall for that!

Lio 6y ago

(Funnily enough ctrl-[ is one of my most used shortcuts in vim. It’s a convenient alternative to escape if you map caps-lock to ctrl)

slim 6y ago
You may be using vim wrong. Good for you if you like it that way
- Lio 6y ago
  You're going to have to explain that one because I generally switch back to command mode after every edit so I use ctrl-[ a lot. I'd be VERY interested to hear why that's wrong and what you do differently.
  - slim 6y ago
    my reasoning was : you could have mapped caps lock to ESC but you did not. So maybe you are using CTRL too much (CTRL-V maybe?) which is not the best way to use vim.
    - dhagz 6y ago
      Can't speak for everyone, but I use this[1] keyboard most of the time, and it doesn't have a Caps Lock key to remap, but instead has Control where Caps Lock normally is. So using ctrl-[ is much easier than reaching up to the escape key. [1] https://hhkeyboard.us/pro-classic/ https://hhkeyboard.us/pro-classic/
    - Lio 6y ago
      No your reasoning is way off. I map to ctrl rather than escape because I want to make use of the Insert and Ex mode ctrl shortcuts. For example, if I want to insert a register into the ex mode command line I use ctr-r <register>. Or if I want to pop out of insert mode for a single command I use ctr-o. E.g. inserting opening and closing tags when a suitable plugin isn't present. Insert the opening and closing tag, jump back to command mode with ctrl-o, move backwards and you're ready to insert more text.

teekert 6y ago

Such a thing is a proxy character trade and probably told him enough. I'm in bioinformatics, if an applicant tells me they studied biology but have always run a Linux server at home, I can also stop the interview: hired.