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A random sidenote (because I can't be bothered to write a blog post about it). I wonder if I am the only person who feels 'vim shame' (and the closely related

A random sidenote (because I can't be bothered to write a blog post about it). I wonder if I am the only person who feels 'vim shame' (and the closely related 'emacs shame'). 'vim shame' - the feeling that you would be a better, more productive coder if only you could master this mysterious editor, but every time you try (about once every couple of years), somewhere between two days and two weeks you find you have drifted back to textmate / sublime editor / eclipse.

z92 15y ago
I feel 'vim shame' too. But in some opposite way. I am ashamed of people discovering I use vim as primary editor and not some GUI-IDE. Therefore I mostly pretend like I am making quick fixes using vim when someone is hanging around.
- CJefferson 15y ago
  Interesting, must be a culture thing. Here in academia (or to be exact, here in the computing department I am in), most people consider anything other than vim/emacs a 'toy' editor.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Zolomon 15y ago
I was once a victim of emacs shame. A few months after first succumbing to the shame, I got ill for two days. I couldn't lie in bed all time, so I gave Emacs all I got. It took around 20 hours in total, then I never switched back. Disclaimer: I am still conf:ing my .emacs file. :'D
- CJefferson 15y ago
  You are one of the worst things for an emacs/vim-shame victim, the "Honest, if you keep trying, you'll get it and it will fix your life!" Just to be clear, I'm happy you enjoy your text editor :)
joshmanders 15y ago
Don't worry about it. Not everyone is a vim god from the start. Everyone felt this way at first. Just have to keep on pushing and get going. Those vim users who act like they're god? Who cares what they think. Personally it doesn't matter if you use vim, emacs, Textmate, Sublime, or even Dreamweaver. Whatever you're comfortable with, is what you should use. I have been a Dreamweaver user since Macromedia made version 4. I then left Windows and went to Ubuntu and started using Gedit... Now I switched to vim... I am by no means a vim god... But I know enough to do what I need to, the rest will come to me with time.
pavelkaroukin 15y ago
Use right tool. If you notice you slide into textmate/sublime/eclipse - then it means you use right tool. For me VIM became main tool when I started to work in multi server environment where all access done through SSH. I could use my most favorite GUI editor Kate to edit files of SSH, but it was less effective due upload/download required. Do not try to force some tool in your workflow. Instead try it for new tasks/projects and see if it fits naturally. I.e. you should be always aware of other existing technologies, but not forced to use these just because some think it is cool.
- Avshalom 15y ago
  Yeah ditto on when I came to vim (also why I leave it almost completely unmodified on my own machines). If you do all your coding on one machine there isn't much difference between emacs/vim/textmate/jedit/sublime and if you do it in mostly one or two languages IDEs are fine. Vim isn't compellingly more useful until its ubiquity becomes compellingly useful.
  - pavelkaroukin 15y ago
    I tend to customize VIM with plugins and .vimrc file. But to keep environment the same everywhere - I am using git with github. Works pretty well.
tomg 15y ago
Yes. I realized recently that a big reason I'd end up eventually drifting away from vim was the inconsistent vim config/plugin options on different machines (work, home, etc). Or worse, starting on a fresh environment and having none of my config/plugins available. Now I've started to keep my vim config / plugin files in a git repo and deploy them whenever I'm on a new machine. Also as I'm slowly adding new functionality it gets reflected across all environments. I'm hoping this helps this time around.
mwexler 15y ago
Oh my goodness. So, I'm not alone. We should start a support group.
macco 15y ago
This shouldn't bother you. The big problem with vim and emacs is that their shortcuts are so different to everything else. Or in other words, they are not CUA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_User_Access http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_User_Access). It's not the problem to learn vim, but to unlearn Gimp, Inkscape, etc.

z92 15y ago

I feel 'vim shame' too. But in some opposite way. I am ashamed of people discovering I use vim as primary editor and not some GUI-IDE. Therefore I mostly pretend like I am making quick fixes using vim when someone is hanging around.

CJefferson 15y ago
Interesting, must be a culture thing. Here in academia (or to be exact, here in the computing department I am in), most people consider anything other than vim/emacs a 'toy' editor.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

Zolomon 15y ago

I was once a victim of emacs shame. A few months after first succumbing to the shame, I got ill for two days. I couldn't lie in bed all time, so I gave Emacs all I got. It took around 20 hours in total, then I never switched back. Disclaimer: I am still conf:ing my .emacs file. :'D

CJefferson 15y ago
You are one of the worst things for an emacs/vim-shame victim, the "Honest, if you keep trying, you'll get it and it will fix your life!" Just to be clear, I'm happy you enjoy your text editor :)

joshmanders 15y ago

Don't worry about it. Not everyone is a vim god from the start. Everyone felt this way at first. Just have to keep on pushing and get going. Those vim users who act like they're god? Who cares what they think. Personally it doesn't matter if you use vim, emacs, Textmate, Sublime, or even Dreamweaver. Whatever you're comfortable with, is what you should use. I have been a Dreamweaver user since Macromedia made version 4. I then left Windows and went to Ubuntu and started using Gedit... Now I switched to vim... I am by no means a vim god... But I know enough to do what I need to, the rest will come to me with time.

pavelkaroukin 15y ago

Use right tool. If you notice you slide into textmate/sublime/eclipse - then it means you use right tool. For me VIM became main tool when I started to work in multi server environment where all access done through SSH. I could use my most favorite GUI editor Kate to edit files of SSH, but it was less effective due upload/download required. Do not try to force some tool in your workflow. Instead try it for new tasks/projects and see if it fits naturally. I.e. you should be always aware of other existing technologies, but not forced to use these just because some think it is cool.

Avshalom 15y ago
Yeah ditto on when I came to vim (also why I leave it almost completely unmodified on my own machines). If you do all your coding on one machine there isn't much difference between emacs/vim/textmate/jedit/sublime and if you do it in mostly one or two languages IDEs are fine. Vim isn't compellingly more useful until its ubiquity becomes compellingly useful.
- pavelkaroukin 15y ago
  I tend to customize VIM with plugins and .vimrc file. But to keep environment the same everywhere - I am using git with github. Works pretty well.

tomg 15y ago

Yes. I realized recently that a big reason I'd end up eventually drifting away from vim was the inconsistent vim config/plugin options on different machines (work, home, etc). Or worse, starting on a fresh environment and having none of my config/plugins available. Now I've started to keep my vim config / plugin files in a git repo and deploy them whenever I'm on a new machine. Also as I'm slowly adding new functionality it gets reflected across all environments. I'm hoping this helps this time around.

mwexler 15y ago

Oh my goodness. So, I'm not alone. We should start a support group.

macco 15y ago

This shouldn't bother you. The big problem with vim and emacs is that their shortcuts are so different to everything else. Or in other words, they are not CUA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_User_Access http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_User_Access). It's not the problem to learn vim, but to unlearn Gimp, Inkscape, etc.