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Unpopular opinion: Programmers like using vim because it feels like solving a puzzle or RTS micro'ing and/or they have already sunk a huge amount of time into

Unpopular opinion: Programmers like using vim because it feels like solving a puzzle or RTS micro'ing and/or they have already sunk a huge amount of time into it and aren't willing to walk away (which is fine, but it's not evidence that these tools are better.) Starting fresh (i.e. no experience with an IDE or vi/emacs) there is zero productivity benefit to choosing vi or emacs over a real IDE in this day and age. Disclaimer: I am a former vi (~5 years) and emacs (~20 years) fanatic.

latortuga 6y ago
Thinking back to my first years as a professional developer, I remember floundering around an IDE trying to find the things I wanted. I ultimately decided that it was worth my time to pick an editor, learn it deeply, and stick with it. That's ultimately where the productivity gain comes from. Lots of people like to talk about how productive vim or emacs or VS code or IDEs are, but I really think it's the fact of knowing your tool really well that leads to the productivity gains. Vim is great and I love it and have used it for 12 years day in and day out. But I wouldn't say it's what makes me productive, just that I got good at it and know it well.
Balooga 6y ago
> Starting fresh (i.e. no experience with an IDE or vi/emacs) there is zero productivity benefit to choosing vi or emacs over a real IDE in this day and age. vi/emacs will definitely still be around in 20 years. Other editors may not be.
- brandonmenc 6y ago
  Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ IDEA are both open source and Eclipse has been around for 18 years. This is not a legitimate concern.
minerjoe 6y ago
A bit myopic. Programmers have many different needs and as with almost anything - it depends. "zero productivity benefit" is blatenly false for many people. Now for you, in your current needs, sure. But why attempt to paint the entire developer world your favarite color?
- radegast 6y ago
  I sincerely hope you will show up with the same comment the next time some vim-nerds come crawling out of the woodwork whenever some other text editor is mentioned. I can't count how many times I have seen the following: Post: Nano editor version XYZ released. Half of the comments: "wHy wOuLd U UsE Nano iF U cAn uSe vim. I just studied vim-fu in the secluded buddhist monastery for 30 years and now I can delete all lines of code containing a specific word in 2 seconds instead of the 10 seconds it would take me when using VS Code! #productivity #justneckbeardthings"
edanm 6y ago
> Programmers like using vim because it feels like solving a puzzle or RTS micro'ing and/or they have already sunk a huge amount of time into it and aren't willing to walk away (which is fine, but it's not evidence that these tools are better.) I am (was?) a heavy vim user - 10 years, a .vimrc with thousands of lines and many custom code and settings. I can vouch that in my case, one of the reasons that I did this is because I enjoyed it. I played around with many editors before I settled on vim, and I enjoyed it immensely. vim was my main editor for many years because it was the best at editing and still is. But for sure I wouldn't have sunk so much time into it without also having fun doing it. In the last few years, I've started experimenting with other editors/IDEs using vim mode, starting from spacemacs, and now using VSCode.

latortuga 6y ago

Thinking back to my first years as a professional developer, I remember floundering around an IDE trying to find the things I wanted. I ultimately decided that it was worth my time to pick an editor, learn it deeply, and stick with it. That's ultimately where the productivity gain comes from. Lots of people like to talk about how productive vim or emacs or VS code or IDEs are, but I really think it's the fact of knowing your tool really well that leads to the productivity gains. Vim is great and I love it and have used it for 12 years day in and day out. But I wouldn't say it's what makes me productive, just that I got good at it and know it well.

Balooga 6y ago

> Starting fresh (i.e. no experience with an IDE or vi/emacs) there is zero productivity benefit to choosing vi or emacs over a real IDE in this day and age. vi/emacs will definitely still be around in 20 years. Other editors may not be.

brandonmenc 6y ago
Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ IDEA are both open source and Eclipse has been around for 18 years. This is not a legitimate concern.

minerjoe 6y ago

A bit myopic. Programmers have many different needs and as with almost anything - it depends. "zero productivity benefit" is blatenly false for many people. Now for you, in your current needs, sure. But why attempt to paint the entire developer world your favarite color?

radegast 6y ago
I sincerely hope you will show up with the same comment the next time some vim-nerds come crawling out of the woodwork whenever some other text editor is mentioned. I can't count how many times I have seen the following: Post: Nano editor version XYZ released. Half of the comments: "wHy wOuLd U UsE Nano iF U cAn uSe vim. I just studied vim-fu in the secluded buddhist monastery for 30 years and now I can delete all lines of code containing a specific word in 2 seconds instead of the 10 seconds it would take me when using VS Code! #productivity #justneckbeardthings"

edanm 6y ago

> Programmers like using vim because it feels like solving a puzzle or RTS micro'ing and/or they have already sunk a huge amount of time into it and aren't willing to walk away (which is fine, but it's not evidence that these tools are better.) I am (was?) a heavy vim user - 10 years, a .vimrc with thousands of lines and many custom code and settings. I can vouch that in my case, one of the reasons that I did this is because I enjoyed it. I played around with many editors before I settled on vim, and I enjoyed it immensely. vim was my main editor for many years because it was the best at editing and still is. But for sure I wouldn't have sunk so much time into it without also having fun doing it. In the last few years, I've started experimenting with other editors/IDEs using vim mode, starting from spacemacs, and now using VSCode.