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

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.