11 ms·

> Eventually you'll come across a particular use case where opening a full blown IDE doesn't feel worth the effort, so you'll open vim. Imho there are strictly

by jpe90 5y ago

> Eventually you'll come across a particular use case where opening a full blown IDE doesn't feel worth the effort, so you'll open vim. Imho there are strictly better options than vim for this nowadays for people who are not already invested in vim. Sublime text is easier for people that prefer GUIs. For CLI, Kakoune has better discoverability, better thought/more consistent commands, and actually usable colorschemes and syntax highlighting out of the box.

civilized 5y ago
Yeah. It's pretty easy to delete a line in Sublime, and contrary to CLI fan wisdom, a single accurate trackpad gesture is simpler and faster than the barrage of commands needed to jump to a particular line. The studies that "prove" CLIs are faster than GUIs are decades old now, and my experience says they're obsolete.
- echelon 5y ago
  Vim movements allow you to compose rich intentions with a matter of a few keystrokes. I find it very hard to believe that can be beat with a mouse unless someone is using gestures. More than anything, it's about not switching devices. Typing feels like playing the keyboard. Switching to the mouse feels like having to pick up a trombone between keys. (I know that's a bit dramatic of an analogy, but...)
  - civilized 5y ago
    Bringing up the old mouse makes this conversation sound so dated - as I said, I use a trackpad. Specifically, like millions of others, I work on a MacBook Pro with an incredibly precise trackpad right under the keyboard. I move my hand to and from that trackpad in about 0.1s, and I can click on anything I want in less than half a second. "Rich intentions in a few keystrokes" doesn't sound competitive with that IMO.
    - rendall 5y ago
      I'd happily race using vim against anyone using any pointer device. Your very fast 0.1s accumulates over the day, the week, the year. Versus never moving your hand away from the keyboard.
      - afiori 5y ago
        trackpads are the keyboard, on ThinkPad laptop for example you can use it entirely with only your thumbs.
        stnmtn 5y ago
        How do you handle having to change a function's parameters, for instance? In vim, you just have your cursor inside the (...) and do `ci)`, which is (c)hange (i)nside `(, which instantly deletes all the test inside the (...) and you can type that stuff out easily For a trackpad, don't you have to manually select all that text, hit delete, then start typing again? Or is there a better way I'm not thinking of
        rendall 5y ago
        So. Many. Shortcuts. And, if you use it as an extension to your IDE, say for VSCode, you can still use your pointer. Delete to line's end: d$ Delete to next blank line: d] Replace current character: r Surround the next 3 words with quotes: ys3w" (non standard, but out-of-the-box on VSCode) On and on
        stnmtn 5y ago
        Yep, using Vim in VSCode is just about everything I could ever want
    - unrealhoang 5y ago
      It's all about uninterrupted experience, I don't want to move my hand anywhere off the home row and then move back again, it feels clunky. Regarding competitiveness, with a bit of get used to, you can muscle memory things like: "remove content inside this bracket (), or "", or block {} and place me into insert mode so I can start typing new content" in 3 keystrokes. I don't see how searching manually for start and end then select with mouse/trackpad can ever be competitive to that.
- jpe90 5y ago
  I develop with emacs using my keyboard exclusively and I'm 100% convinced there is no appreciable benefit for doing so, it's pure personal preference. I remember seeing John Carmack express that didn't feel it was worth it to become a text editor power user, and he was getting numerous twitter replies insisting he was missing out on enormous productivity benefits. Imagine saying that to one of the most productive programmers of all time. It cracks me up every time I think about it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- HeyZuess 5y ago
  I think there is merit to learning vim, and merit to using a GUI/IDE. Especially if you can combine both. Submlime, vscode etc all have reasonable vim bindings. I was an avid user of vim for many many years, and I would not describe myself as a vim expert, rather I know a lot of the core commands. I have since switched do vscode (for many reasons) and still use the vim bindings. I also don't believe it is just an issue about speed using the mouse. I believe it's also a movement issue. This is the benefit I get, if it is vim/vscode/jetbrains etc as long as it has vim bindings I know `dd` is going to delete a line etc, the editing experience is fairly static. Block editing and yanking, F, T, ctrl-D, ctrl-U, cw, de, cs"`, vwS(, ci", and many others are all great vim methodologies, just like cmd-p (mac) for sublime and vscode. Multicursor in vscode, feels broken do to me compared to block editing but even if I need to do mutlicursor across distributed lines (something missing from vim) I can use `gd`. I would say vim is more of a methodology than just an editor.
dustintrex 5y ago
The great thing about vi(m) is that it's always there. SSH'd into some random server and need to edit some random config? vim. And Sublime is vim with a user-friendly-ish GUI wrapped around it.
- abhinav22 5y ago
  Does sublime support vim keys?
  - NegativeLatency 5y ago
    A lot of vim/vi plug-ins are buggy and support just enough to really drive you crazy
    - weaksauce 5y ago
      fwiw i've also thought that and moved to vscode with neovim as the backing editor for normal mode and it's generally fantastic. some rough edges but not that many... it's still neovim and vim in the background
      - NegativeLatency 5y ago
        Oh yeah well that’s a whole vim running in there. Ended up settling on MacVim.app which has nice window support. I’ve had good experiences with the visual studio vim plug-in that’s written in F#
  - junon 5y ago
    Yes but I've yet to come across an implementation that gets it right.
- simion314 5y ago
  >The great thing about vi(m) is that it's always there. SSH'd into some random server and need to edit some random config? vim I hate that, I ssh in, then maybe I want to edit cron and I am hit with vim(someone changed the simple nano with it), in the past you had no choice then google how to quit vim but now it will tell you how to do it(I ssh and change config files 1 or 2 times a year). I never learned how to quit, just o use EDITOR=nano command to get a simple editor, I don't need a powerful editor for config files.

by jpe90 5y ago

civilized 5y ago

Yeah. It's pretty easy to delete a line in Sublime, and contrary to CLI fan wisdom, a single accurate trackpad gesture is simpler and faster than the barrage of commands needed to jump to a particular line. The studies that "prove" CLIs are faster than GUIs are decades old now, and my experience says they're obsolete.

echelon 5y ago
Vim movements allow you to compose rich intentions with a matter of a few keystrokes. I find it very hard to believe that can be beat with a mouse unless someone is using gestures. More than anything, it's about not switching devices. Typing feels like playing the keyboard. Switching to the mouse feels like having to pick up a trombone between keys. (I know that's a bit dramatic of an analogy, but...)
- civilized 5y ago
  Bringing up the old mouse makes this conversation sound so dated - as I said, I use a trackpad. Specifically, like millions of others, I work on a MacBook Pro with an incredibly precise trackpad right under the keyboard. I move my hand to and from that trackpad in about 0.1s, and I can click on anything I want in less than half a second. "Rich intentions in a few keystrokes" doesn't sound competitive with that IMO.
  - rendall 5y ago
    I'd happily race using vim against anyone using any pointer device. Your very fast 0.1s accumulates over the day, the week, the year. Versus never moving your hand away from the keyboard.
    - afiori 5y ago
      trackpads are the keyboard, on ThinkPad laptop for example you can use it entirely with only your thumbs.
      - stnmtn 5y ago
        How do you handle having to change a function's parameters, for instance? In vim, you just have your cursor inside the (...) and do `ci)`, which is (c)hange (i)nside `(, which instantly deletes all the test inside the (...) and you can type that stuff out easily For a trackpad, don't you have to manually select all that text, hit delete, then start typing again? Or is there a better way I'm not thinking of
        rendall 5y ago
        So. Many. Shortcuts. And, if you use it as an extension to your IDE, say for VSCode, you can still use your pointer. Delete to line's end: d$ Delete to next blank line: d] Replace current character: r Surround the next 3 words with quotes: ys3w" (non standard, but out-of-the-box on VSCode) On and on
        stnmtn 5y ago
        Yep, using Vim in VSCode is just about everything I could ever want
  - unrealhoang 5y ago
    It's all about uninterrupted experience, I don't want to move my hand anywhere off the home row and then move back again, it feels clunky. Regarding competitiveness, with a bit of get used to, you can muscle memory things like: "remove content inside this bracket (), or "", or block {} and place me into insert mode so I can start typing new content" in 3 keystrokes. I don't see how searching manually for start and end then select with mouse/trackpad can ever be competitive to that.
jpe90 5y ago
I develop with emacs using my keyboard exclusively and I'm 100% convinced there is no appreciable benefit for doing so, it's pure personal preference. I remember seeing John Carmack express that didn't feel it was worth it to become a text editor power user, and he was getting numerous twitter replies insisting he was missing out on enormous productivity benefits. Imagine saying that to one of the most productive programmers of all time. It cracks me up every time I think about it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
HeyZuess 5y ago
I think there is merit to learning vim, and merit to using a GUI/IDE. Especially if you can combine both. Submlime, vscode etc all have reasonable vim bindings. I was an avid user of vim for many many years, and I would not describe myself as a vim expert, rather I know a lot of the core commands. I have since switched do vscode (for many reasons) and still use the vim bindings. I also don't believe it is just an issue about speed using the mouse. I believe it's also a movement issue. This is the benefit I get, if it is vim/vscode/jetbrains etc as long as it has vim bindings I know `dd` is going to delete a line etc, the editing experience is fairly static. Block editing and yanking, F, T, ctrl-D, ctrl-U, cw, de, cs"`, vwS(, ci", and many others are all great vim methodologies, just like cmd-p (mac) for sublime and vscode. Multicursor in vscode, feels broken do to me compared to block editing but even if I need to do mutlicursor across distributed lines (something missing from vim) I can use `gd`. I would say vim is more of a methodology than just an editor.

dustintrex 5y ago

The great thing about vi(m) is that it's always there. SSH'd into some random server and need to edit some random config? vim. And Sublime is vim with a user-friendly-ish GUI wrapped around it.

abhinav22 5y ago
Does sublime support vim keys?
- NegativeLatency 5y ago
  A lot of vim/vi plug-ins are buggy and support just enough to really drive you crazy
  - weaksauce 5y ago
    fwiw i've also thought that and moved to vscode with neovim as the backing editor for normal mode and it's generally fantastic. some rough edges but not that many... it's still neovim and vim in the background
    - NegativeLatency 5y ago
      Oh yeah well that’s a whole vim running in there. Ended up settling on MacVim.app which has nice window support. I’ve had good experiences with the visual studio vim plug-in that’s written in F#
- junon 5y ago
  Yes but I've yet to come across an implementation that gets it right.
simion314 5y ago
>The great thing about vi(m) is that it's always there. SSH'd into some random server and need to edit some random config? vim I hate that, I ssh in, then maybe I want to edit cron and I am hit with vim(someone changed the simple nano with it), in the past you had no choice then google how to quit vim but now it will tell you how to do it(I ssh and change config files 1 or 2 times a year). I never learned how to quit, just o use EDITOR=nano command to get a simple editor, I don't need a powerful editor for config files.