3 ms·

Why wouldn't we use them? - FOSS, That means we don't have to pay money to be allowed to code by somebody else - Available everywhere, even in terminals - Lo

Why wouldn't we use them? - FOSS, That means we don't have to pay money to be allowed to code by somebody else - Available everywhere, even in terminals - Low resource usage, so I have more available for the other tools I need to use (browser, chat, vm, compiler, streaming...) - Fast, they are extremely fast at editing code, with low latency - Easy to extend, at least Emacs is, you write a function in a file and boom, done - Feature rich, at least for some languages like Ruby there is nothing commercial editors offer you that you don't already have, or 99% there - No mouse needed, so my wrist does not hurt anymore. - No spyware, seriously, why do I have to disable google anlytics in my code editor, and keep an eye out in case an update re-enables it And the "price" you have to pay to use them? Just learn their keybindings, literally what you have to do in any code editor as each has their own, just that these two have more, and they're quite different compared to what you might already know. Note, I've tried out many editors over the years: Visual Studio, Notepad++, Eclipse, Netbeans, Intellij and it's language specific clones like WebStorm and RubyMine, Sublime, Atom, VSCode, pure Vim, pure Emacs, and now finally Spacemacs. Only the last one managed to fit the bill for me perfectly, being feature rich, fast, and it stood out of my way when I needed to focus. If they dissapeared over night, it might surprise you, but I would go back to Netbeans, for the same reasons, as far as I'm concerned, giving me just enough functionality and then staying out of my way when I need to do my work is what I value the most in them. That being said, I acknowledge both Vim and Emacs have their quirks and baggage, but so do the others, and I preffer to deal with learning Vim movements compared to staring blankly at a screen until I remember where to click through menues. My advice, use all of them, but take it seriously, dedicate x > 2 months to each one you would like to try and use them intensively, learn as much about their capabilities as possible. At the end choose what works best for you. And don't just use something because somebody else tells you (or makes fun of you because you're not on the latest trend). You are you, not them. It might not be what I would choose but why do you, or I, care?

iratewizard 6y ago
> Why wouldn't we use them? On an individual level: learning curve, company policy, integrations to dev ops flavor-of-the-week and the initial difficulty to extend the editor. With that said, learning Vim is a good way to get exposure to a very different type of user experience in software. Plus, you may see an increase in productivity. I don't see that increase, but I at least gave it a fair shake 10 years ago.
- sdwolfz 6y ago
  My increase in productivity was because of the auto completion feature from Sublime that I could not turn off, I found myself typing two letters and then waiting half a second for the drop down to appear so I could select the word. When I tried making a Jupyter notebook for a presentation I was planning and tried to type code there I realized: "I don't know the syntax, because I never needed to learn it. If I present like this I'll look like someone who doesn't know how to code". Was really ashamed of myself at that point. So I forced myself to write code in Vim without any plugins for two weeks until I could type fluently. I was in insert mode most of the time, and did not use hjkl movement naturally, but it worked wonders, I could write words without interruption, my thoughts flowed freely. Then I tried switching back to Sublime and felt less precise. Like vim was this stone path I was walking with confidence, and Sublime this fluid river I needed to row a boat on. Also for some reason I noticed that when using Vim, my wrist would feel lighter, while switching back to Sublime and using a mouse my wrist would suddenly gain "pressure". That's when I made the switch to Vim permanently and started customizing it. Only switched to Emacs, and later Spacemacs due to poor "Find and replace in project" functionality.

iratewizard 6y ago

> Why wouldn't we use them? On an individual level: learning curve, company policy, integrations to dev ops flavor-of-the-week and the initial difficulty to extend the editor. With that said, learning Vim is a good way to get exposure to a very different type of user experience in software. Plus, you may see an increase in productivity. I don't see that increase, but I at least gave it a fair shake 10 years ago.

sdwolfz 6y ago
My increase in productivity was because of the auto completion feature from Sublime that I could not turn off, I found myself typing two letters and then waiting half a second for the drop down to appear so I could select the word. When I tried making a Jupyter notebook for a presentation I was planning and tried to type code there I realized: "I don't know the syntax, because I never needed to learn it. If I present like this I'll look like someone who doesn't know how to code". Was really ashamed of myself at that point. So I forced myself to write code in Vim without any plugins for two weeks until I could type fluently. I was in insert mode most of the time, and did not use hjkl movement naturally, but it worked wonders, I could write words without interruption, my thoughts flowed freely. Then I tried switching back to Sublime and felt less precise. Like vim was this stone path I was walking with confidence, and Sublime this fluid river I needed to row a boat on. Also for some reason I noticed that when using Vim, my wrist would feel lighter, while switching back to Sublime and using a mouse my wrist would suddenly gain "pressure". That's when I made the switch to Vim permanently and started customizing it. Only switched to Emacs, and later Spacemacs due to poor "Find and replace in project" functionality.