I'm a sysadmin, and most of what I do (editing config files) is very efficiently done in nano. Edit a vhost in apache/nginx. Change a port number on a service.

I'm a sysadmin, and most of what I do (editing config files) is very efficiently done in nano. Edit a vhost in apache/nginx. Change a port number on a service. edit rc.conf, etc... But I've discovered that by using vim macros, the tedious parts of using nano became easy and FASTER then nano. Let's say you have to declare a bunch of IP's and you can't just type a range, you have to type out each one. 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.101 ...etc... 192.168.0.199 192.168.0.200 In nano: copy/paste each line then backspace to change the last octet. TEDIOUS In vim: write it once record a macro of doing it a second time auto-incrementing the last octet. now type: 199@w (or whatever letter you stored that macro in) BOOM, 199 new lines have been input. That 1 use case, made me use vim more. Then I got better. Then I got faster. Now I can edit those same old config files faster then I once did in nano. Please believe me, it's worth the learning curve. There is SO MUCH MORE available then just editing some config files. Nano is fine. There is nothing wrong with nano. If you only edit (config) files a couple of times a year, then maybe you won't want to switch. But I'm so much better at vim then I was before, I use it to do ALL my writing and editing.