7 ms·

My perspective may be skewed from not being an old-timer, but Vim seems like it's never been more alive. So much of what I rely on in my Vim customizations is

by Legion 15y ago

My perspective may be skewed from not being an old-timer, but Vim seems like it's never been more alive. So much of what I rely on in my Vim customizations is pretty new, and so many of those plugins are new themselves. The core of Vim is timeless (or, in Tim Pope's words, "Vim is forever"), but everything that I plug into it to make it the essential piece of software it is for me (including much of Mr. Pope's work) is very recent.

askedrelic 15y ago
Definitely. All of the "sync vim plugins from github" scripts + combined with Pathogen have made using and trying plugins much easier. Github + better visibility have perhaps raised the overall quality of plugins by making it easier to copy and extend existing plugins. I'm happy with the renewed interest and still learning new things in Vim all the time after 5-6 years of using it.
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  I wish there was a standard format for cheatsheets for vim plugins, I have many installed that I'm not using because I keep forgetting them. Ideally I could keep my current cheatsheet on a e-ink screen on the wall by my desk.
gbog 15y ago
Strangely enough, Vim is part of the trendy Mac / Ruby / polished websites with exclamation mark and one button setup. That may explain this revival atmosphere. Why strange? Why, Mac setup is supposed to be beautiful and easy, Vim is neither.
- amadeus 15y ago
  Easy, no, beautiful? It can be. It can be very beautiful in its simplicity. I like to think learning Vim akin to learning a musical instrument. It's not easy, the learning curve is very steep and it forces you to think about writing code in a completely different way. But once you get the hang of it, the power available to you is absolutely incredible and you'll code with efficiency never thought possible. My 2 cents.
  - gbog 15y ago
    Sorry, but Vim is not beautiful nor "simple". It is, certainly, beautifully crafted, but this is another meaning of the word. In fact, this reminds me French painter Braque being shown a fake Braque, he said: "this is not my work, it is beautiful". What I mean is that "beautiful" in the common sense, the one that applies to clothes, girls, gadgets (including Apple's), commercial movies, 3D games, etc., this superficial aesthetic quality not important. In this sense, Vim, with it's fixed width font, black background, pure-text help, etc. is certainly not beautiful, and therefore a bit of a stranger on a Mac where, apparently, so much money and neuronal activity has been spent to beautify its OS, its casing, its font aliasing, every single icon and even its boxing. Gosh, look at the Vim logo and tell me by which miracle it can have so much sex-appeal in a Mac environment? (Or has it? dasil003 says no in an uncle comment, maybe he is right.)
    - amadeus 15y ago
      Again, I think you are missing the point. Notice how I said it 'can be'. Out of the box, Vim is not very attractive, but with a bit of work it actually looks rather nice (yes, I did modify the application icon, but that's not really what I want to get at here). Some of this beauty is subjective due to the syntax highlighting used, configuration of invisibles, etc, but that's configurable and therefore can be customized to your liking. There are clean and elegant fixed with fonts, which again, you can choose whichever you prefer. What I meant by simple was the complexity (or lack thereof) of the UI. It only shows you some basic information that is readily important, everything else is hidden away in various keyboard shortcuts. This makes it more complex to use, but it also means the beauty of your work, the code, is at the forefront with little distractions. Hell, I even turn off scrollbars. At the risk of starting a discussion of opinions over my choice of syntax highlighting, here's a screenshot of my vim setup: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18782/macvim.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18782/macvim.png I don't really understand how you can call this ugly, unless you're referring to my taste in syntax highlighting.
      - gbog 15y ago
        You can add all the make-up you wish on Vim's face, it will still be Vim, like your screenshot show plentifully. And Vim was not designed with aesthetics in mind. It is not the product of a designer or a "industrial design is kind" company. On the contrary, I would say. Vim is a very nice piece of software done by a hacker for mostly hackers, and the highest concern was probably extensibility, consistency of the commands, orthogonality, etc. (The doc was obviously a primary concern too.) So, my first point still hold, where Textmate is a ease, Vim is a kind of an intruder in a Mac / Ruby / Designer-first set-up.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I see what you mean, but as someone who uses OS X, Ruby and Vim as my primary development tools I don't think Vim is anywhere near a majority. Rather I think the Vim switchers are more numerous and vocal, inflating perception of our numbers. In my case I probably never would have switched if TextMate 2 hadn't been extended vaporware. What it made me realize is that I'm fine using a commercial OS like OS X, or a trendy framework like Rails as long as it's suiting my needs in the short-term. But an editor is my core tool across time and space. I need it to be available on any platform, and be well-suited to any language I might learn in the future, working well over an SSH shell is also a huge bonus (and how I got my feet wet in vim 15 years ago). I appreciate aesthetics, but it doesn't trump pragmatism, and I think many rubyists feel the same way.
- udp 15y ago
  I think you're getting the marketing of Apple products mixed up with why OS X is part of this "trend". OS X is popular among hackers because it's both a Unix-like and polished/supported enough to use as a "serious" workstation (not that Linux or *BSD can't make a decent desktop, but most would rather spend time writing code than config files). It's really just about having an operating system that provides everything you need without having to worry about it, because as a programmer your time belongs with the applications. And when it comes to applications, you choose the right tool for the job (enter vim).
  - derleth 15y ago
    > most would rather spend time writing code than config files That's why I use Ubuntu.

by Legion 15y ago

askedrelic 15y ago

Definitely. All of the "sync vim plugins from github" scripts + combined with Pathogen have made using and trying plugins much easier. Github + better visibility have perhaps raised the overall quality of plugins by making it easier to copy and extend existing plugins. I'm happy with the renewed interest and still learning new things in Vim all the time after 5-6 years of using it.

bostonvaulter2 15y ago
I wish there was a standard format for cheatsheets for vim plugins, I have many installed that I'm not using because I keep forgetting them. Ideally I could keep my current cheatsheet on a e-ink screen on the wall by my desk.

gbog 15y ago

Strangely enough, Vim is part of the trendy Mac / Ruby / polished websites with exclamation mark and one button setup. That may explain this revival atmosphere. Why strange? Why, Mac setup is supposed to be beautiful and easy, Vim is neither.

amadeus 15y ago
Easy, no, beautiful? It can be. It can be very beautiful in its simplicity. I like to think learning Vim akin to learning a musical instrument. It's not easy, the learning curve is very steep and it forces you to think about writing code in a completely different way. But once you get the hang of it, the power available to you is absolutely incredible and you'll code with efficiency never thought possible. My 2 cents.
- gbog 15y ago
  Sorry, but Vim is not beautiful nor "simple". It is, certainly, beautifully crafted, but this is another meaning of the word. In fact, this reminds me French painter Braque being shown a fake Braque, he said: "this is not my work, it is beautiful". What I mean is that "beautiful" in the common sense, the one that applies to clothes, girls, gadgets (including Apple's), commercial movies, 3D games, etc., this superficial aesthetic quality not important. In this sense, Vim, with it's fixed width font, black background, pure-text help, etc. is certainly not beautiful, and therefore a bit of a stranger on a Mac where, apparently, so much money and neuronal activity has been spent to beautify its OS, its casing, its font aliasing, every single icon and even its boxing. Gosh, look at the Vim logo and tell me by which miracle it can have so much sex-appeal in a Mac environment? (Or has it? dasil003 says no in an uncle comment, maybe he is right.)
  - amadeus 15y ago
    Again, I think you are missing the point. Notice how I said it 'can be'. Out of the box, Vim is not very attractive, but with a bit of work it actually looks rather nice (yes, I did modify the application icon, but that's not really what I want to get at here). Some of this beauty is subjective due to the syntax highlighting used, configuration of invisibles, etc, but that's configurable and therefore can be customized to your liking. There are clean and elegant fixed with fonts, which again, you can choose whichever you prefer. What I meant by simple was the complexity (or lack thereof) of the UI. It only shows you some basic information that is readily important, everything else is hidden away in various keyboard shortcuts. This makes it more complex to use, but it also means the beauty of your work, the code, is at the forefront with little distractions. Hell, I even turn off scrollbars. At the risk of starting a discussion of opinions over my choice of syntax highlighting, here's a screenshot of my vim setup: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18782/macvim.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18782/macvim.png I don't really understand how you can call this ugly, unless you're referring to my taste in syntax highlighting.
    - gbog 15y ago
      You can add all the make-up you wish on Vim's face, it will still be Vim, like your screenshot show plentifully. And Vim was not designed with aesthetics in mind. It is not the product of a designer or a "industrial design is kind" company. On the contrary, I would say. Vim is a very nice piece of software done by a hacker for mostly hackers, and the highest concern was probably extensibility, consistency of the commands, orthogonality, etc. (The doc was obviously a primary concern too.) So, my first point still hold, where Textmate is a ease, Vim is a kind of an intruder in a Mac / Ruby / Designer-first set-up.
dasil003 15y ago
I see what you mean, but as someone who uses OS X, Ruby and Vim as my primary development tools I don't think Vim is anywhere near a majority. Rather I think the Vim switchers are more numerous and vocal, inflating perception of our numbers. In my case I probably never would have switched if TextMate 2 hadn't been extended vaporware. What it made me realize is that I'm fine using a commercial OS like OS X, or a trendy framework like Rails as long as it's suiting my needs in the short-term. But an editor is my core tool across time and space. I need it to be available on any platform, and be well-suited to any language I might learn in the future, working well over an SSH shell is also a huge bonus (and how I got my feet wet in vim 15 years ago). I appreciate aesthetics, but it doesn't trump pragmatism, and I think many rubyists feel the same way.
udp 15y ago
I think you're getting the marketing of Apple products mixed up with why OS X is part of this "trend". OS X is popular among hackers because it's both a Unix-like and polished/supported enough to use as a "serious" workstation (not that Linux or *BSD can't make a decent desktop, but most would rather spend time writing code than config files). It's really just about having an operating system that provides everything you need without having to worry about it, because as a programmer your time belongs with the applications. And when it comes to applications, you choose the right tool for the job (enter vim).
- derleth 15y ago
  > most would rather spend time writing code than config files That's why I use Ubuntu.