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Two decades of vim here, and I switched to VS Code. As a "professional developer", it's just nicer to use, and makes me feel way more productive than ever. I de

Two decades of vim here, and I switched to VS Code. As a "professional developer", it's just nicer to use, and makes me feel way more productive than ever. I definitely wouldn't call it a toy.

cutler 6y ago
It's not like you have to give up Vim anyway considering the good-enough VSVim plugin gives you most of the Vim basics. Personally I have found JetBrains' Vim plugin to be the best.
- theCodeStig 6y ago
  I've tried vim support extensively in VSCode, IntelliJ, and Emacs. The vim plugin for VSCode is sorely lacking; particularly with macro support. For my use case, it's unusable. The vim plugin for IntelliJ is slightly better. It's usable, but I still find it lacking. In my experience, the best (by far), is Evil for Emacs.
  - cutler 6y ago
    I think it's unrealistic to expect a plugin to provide macro support.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  If you use vim to its utmost a plugin that emulates vim in another editor pales in comparison. It is like learning to play an instrument. Some people stop digging into it when they learn to play a few tunes but the true beauty comes out when you really invest the time into it.
  - scruple 6y ago
    I used VsVim for a number of years and felt the same way. Eventually, I was back in vim full-time (moved on from the projects/team that required Visual Studio). I've spent the last year migrating to neovim. I've spent the last month getting into some C# development and the VS Code neovim integration is very well done. It's not the same, and I will not be switching to VS Code for anything other than this C# work (for the foreseeable future, I just really like neovim...), but it's not an emulation layer (with this plugin the VS Code editor is a neovim instance in the backend) and it doesn't feel like one, either.
TaupeRanger 6y ago
I find comments like this incomprehensible. Are you using a Vim emulator in VS Code? If not, how can you possibly be more productive? People use Vim precisely because it offers a faster more efficient way to write code. What is it about VS Code that makes you more productive?
- cylon13 6y ago
  Not the parent, but I switched from vim+plugins to vscode+plugins for most development. I absolutely use the vim plugin because I can't stand to edit text without vim keybindings anymore. The reason I switched is that plugins in vim are more of a pain to configure and they are usually less maintained and polished than their vscode equivalents. For example, let's say I'm not set up to program rust at all. In vscode, I just search "rust" in extensions, grab the most popular one, and it sets itself up magically. In vim, my experience was that I would lose a few hours to configuration, and the plugin would still be a little janky. I still use vim as a plain text editor, and every once in a while I need to open a file in vim to do some serious macro editing (macros aren't perfectly supported by the plugin), but for the most part vscode+vimplugin is just nicer to use for day to day development. I should specify that my daily work languages are typescript & c#/unity on linux, but I've also been writing a fair amount of rust lately.
- snarfy 6y ago
  I use both. If I want to look at a single file I'll use vim. If I want to look at a group of files in a folder I'll use vscode. They are both text editors that support plugins to the point of becoming an ide, but it is far easier to make vscode work as an ide than it is vim, and that's coming from somebody that's been using vim since it's inception.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  There are more aspects to productivity than typing efficiency.
  - TaupeRanger 6y ago
    Sure - that's why I asked. I haven't seen any explanation for why VSCode is more productive than Vim. I hear about viewing files and folders, but you can do that in Vim very easily with no friction.
macinjosh 6y ago
I regret using the term toy. Please forgive me :) From my perspective I just can't see investing my precious time in a commercial tool.
globular-toast 6y ago
You should have switched to emacs. You could have kept the vim UI but got all the stuff (and more) that you get in VSCode. Unfortunately the vim -> emacs path is taken by very few due to religious reasons.

Two decades of vim here, and I switched to VS Code. As a "professional developer", it's just nicer to use, and makes me feel way more productive than ever. I definitely wouldn't call it a toy.

cutler 6y ago

It's not like you have to give up Vim anyway considering the good-enough VSVim plugin gives you most of the Vim basics. Personally I have found JetBrains' Vim plugin to be the best.

theCodeStig 6y ago
I've tried vim support extensively in VSCode, IntelliJ, and Emacs. The vim plugin for VSCode is sorely lacking; particularly with macro support. For my use case, it's unusable. The vim plugin for IntelliJ is slightly better. It's usable, but I still find it lacking. In my experience, the best (by far), is Evil for Emacs.
- cutler 6y ago
  I think it's unrealistic to expect a plugin to provide macro support.
macinjosh 6y ago
If you use vim to its utmost a plugin that emulates vim in another editor pales in comparison. It is like learning to play an instrument. Some people stop digging into it when they learn to play a few tunes but the true beauty comes out when you really invest the time into it.
- scruple 6y ago
  I used VsVim for a number of years and felt the same way. Eventually, I was back in vim full-time (moved on from the projects/team that required Visual Studio). I've spent the last year migrating to neovim. I've spent the last month getting into some C# development and the VS Code neovim integration is very well done. It's not the same, and I will not be switching to VS Code for anything other than this C# work (for the foreseeable future, I just really like neovim...), but it's not an emulation layer (with this plugin the VS Code editor is a neovim instance in the backend) and it doesn't feel like one, either.

TaupeRanger 6y ago

I find comments like this incomprehensible. Are you using a Vim emulator in VS Code? If not, how can you possibly be more productive? People use Vim precisely because it offers a faster more efficient way to write code. What is it about VS Code that makes you more productive?

cylon13 6y ago
Not the parent, but I switched from vim+plugins to vscode+plugins for most development. I absolutely use the vim plugin because I can't stand to edit text without vim keybindings anymore. The reason I switched is that plugins in vim are more of a pain to configure and they are usually less maintained and polished than their vscode equivalents. For example, let's say I'm not set up to program rust at all. In vscode, I just search "rust" in extensions, grab the most popular one, and it sets itself up magically. In vim, my experience was that I would lose a few hours to configuration, and the plugin would still be a little janky. I still use vim as a plain text editor, and every once in a while I need to open a file in vim to do some serious macro editing (macros aren't perfectly supported by the plugin), but for the most part vscode+vimplugin is just nicer to use for day to day development. I should specify that my daily work languages are typescript & c#/unity on linux, but I've also been writing a fair amount of rust lately.
snarfy 6y ago
I use both. If I want to look at a single file I'll use vim. If I want to look at a group of files in a folder I'll use vscode. They are both text editors that support plugins to the point of becoming an ide, but it is far easier to make vscode work as an ide than it is vim, and that's coming from somebody that's been using vim since it's inception.
BeetleB 6y ago
There are more aspects to productivity than typing efficiency.
- TaupeRanger 6y ago
  Sure - that's why I asked. I haven't seen any explanation for why VSCode is more productive than Vim. I hear about viewing files and folders, but you can do that in Vim very easily with no friction.

macinjosh 6y ago

I regret using the term toy. Please forgive me :) From my perspective I just can't see investing my precious time in a commercial tool.

globular-toast 6y ago

You should have switched to emacs. You could have kept the vim UI but got all the stuff (and more) that you get in VSCode. Unfortunately the vim -> emacs path is taken by very few due to religious reasons.