4 ms·

I can boil my preferences for Vim down to a single thing that I can't find anywhere else: it's fast. I can open stupidly large files and not worry, or mash page

I can boil my preferences for Vim down to a single thing that I can't find anywhere else: it's fast. I can open stupidly large files and not worry, or mash page down and have no lag. It's a pretty much invisible part of my daily workflow and any time I have tried another editor the speed is the first difference I notice and find immediately frustrating. Every other editor I have tried, even including Emacs (sorry), has at least a slight, but perceptible, difference in speed. Yes I probably shouldn't open massive log files and hold page down, but it's nice to know that I can.

jcranmer 6y ago
> I can open stupidly large files and not worry, or mash page down and have no lag. In my experience, vim tends to start choking on files in the 100MB/1GB range.
- robotmay 6y ago
  Haha yeah that's probably close to my experience too. But I wouldn't even dare try in other editors. My experience with vim always seems atypical when I read blog posts like this. For me it's a hard-to-kill, reliable text editor. I barely know any of the commands (despite using it for a decade) because I've honestly never felt like I was missing anything. Just having something reliably fast lets me get away with inefficiencies that are problems elsewhere. I can't stand hjkl navigation, or remember anything more complex than how to find/replace strings. But I'm perfectly happy with it just like that.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  For files that big I often find myself switch back to vi. However, vi also has its limits. If the files are really huge, then grep, head, tail and awk are my best friends.
Osiris 6y ago
I love vim for quickly looking at files, but when it comes to working in a large codebase, I like to have a lot of information visible at once, such as having a Find panel with results, multiple files open in multiple panes, a file list, list of currently changed files, etc. Oh, and I use proportional fonts so VIM is out.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  Aside from the last sentence, I do all of those things with a combination of emacs + tmux. My workflow would easily be translated to vim. I split my screen into multiple windows each with multiple panes. Then use things like fswatch to trigger automatic execution of various things like the test runner and the build system.
  - Osiris 6y ago
    What can I say, I use the mouse a lot. Despite using i3 I still rarely use shortcut keys to change focus. Then again, I shouldn't be apologetic for being a mouse user. It's just another tool. I find moving around tmux panes kind of annoying and scrolling them even more annoying, but that's probably more of a lack of comfortability with it than anything else.
    - soraminazuki 6y ago
      You need a set -g mouse on in your ~/.tmux.conf file.
- 7786655 6y ago
  You can have multiple files open in multiple panes in Vim. It even has a built in terminal emulator, which removes most of the reasons to use tmux.
  - Osiris 6y ago
    Maybe discoverability is the problem. GUI IDEs make discoverability really easy with lots of menus, settings, modals, etc. which lowers the barriers to entry and learning curve.
- soraminazuki 6y ago
  > having a Find panel with results That feature is built into Vim with quickfix commands. > multiple files open in multiple panes That's also built-in. > a file list There's at least two built-in features that provides this, netrw and quickfix. > list of currently changed files That's also built-in? It's like the most basic of features. > I use proportional fonts so VIM is out You can use a terminal that supports it, or perhaps some NeoVim UI.
theonemind 6y ago
Try nvi. It'll open files vim chokes on. Try Ni string esc where N > 1000000 (insert 1000000 copies). Or however high you need to go to watch vim choke and gasp and wheeze and make you think your computer hung. Then go do the same thing in nvi and watch it happen in one second. Likewise, find the file of size that vim can't handle on your machine, then open it with nvi. For those virtues, speed and opening large files, nvi eats vim's lunch.

jcranmer 6y ago

> I can open stupidly large files and not worry, or mash page down and have no lag. In my experience, vim tends to start choking on files in the 100MB/1GB range.

robotmay 6y ago
Haha yeah that's probably close to my experience too. But I wouldn't even dare try in other editors. My experience with vim always seems atypical when I read blog posts like this. For me it's a hard-to-kill, reliable text editor. I barely know any of the commands (despite using it for a decade) because I've honestly never felt like I was missing anything. Just having something reliably fast lets me get away with inefficiencies that are problems elsewhere. I can't stand hjkl navigation, or remember anything more complex than how to find/replace strings. But I'm perfectly happy with it just like that.
tutfbhuf 6y ago
For files that big I often find myself switch back to vi. However, vi also has its limits. If the files are really huge, then grep, head, tail and awk are my best friends.

Osiris 6y ago

I love vim for quickly looking at files, but when it comes to working in a large codebase, I like to have a lot of information visible at once, such as having a Find panel with results, multiple files open in multiple panes, a file list, list of currently changed files, etc. Oh, and I use proportional fonts so VIM is out.

Jtsummers 6y ago
Aside from the last sentence, I do all of those things with a combination of emacs + tmux. My workflow would easily be translated to vim. I split my screen into multiple windows each with multiple panes. Then use things like fswatch to trigger automatic execution of various things like the test runner and the build system.
- Osiris 6y ago
  What can I say, I use the mouse a lot. Despite using i3 I still rarely use shortcut keys to change focus. Then again, I shouldn't be apologetic for being a mouse user. It's just another tool. I find moving around tmux panes kind of annoying and scrolling them even more annoying, but that's probably more of a lack of comfortability with it than anything else.
  - soraminazuki 6y ago
    You need a set -g mouse on in your ~/.tmux.conf file.
7786655 6y ago
You can have multiple files open in multiple panes in Vim. It even has a built in terminal emulator, which removes most of the reasons to use tmux.
- Osiris 6y ago
  Maybe discoverability is the problem. GUI IDEs make discoverability really easy with lots of menus, settings, modals, etc. which lowers the barriers to entry and learning curve.
soraminazuki 6y ago
> having a Find panel with results That feature is built into Vim with quickfix commands. > multiple files open in multiple panes That's also built-in. > a file list There's at least two built-in features that provides this, netrw and quickfix. > list of currently changed files That's also built-in? It's like the most basic of features. > I use proportional fonts so VIM is out You can use a terminal that supports it, or perhaps some NeoVim UI.

theonemind 6y ago

Try nvi. It'll open files vim chokes on. Try Ni string esc where N > 1000000 (insert 1000000 copies). Or however high you need to go to watch vim choke and gasp and wheeze and make you think your computer hung. Then go do the same thing in nvi and watch it happen in one second. Likewise, find the file of size that vim can't handle on your machine, then open it with nvi. For those virtues, speed and opening large files, nvi eats vim's lunch.