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> I discovered that some people deliberately choose to write stories in terminal-based text-editors like Nano or Vim Vim and nano couldn't be more different, t

by doix 3y ago

> I discovered that some people deliberately choose to write stories in terminal-based text-editors like Nano or Vim Vim and nano couldn't be more different, the only similarity is that they are terminal editors. I wrote my thesis in vim + LaTeX (along with most of university assignments). I find it does make it much easier to focus on the content. I setup some basic layout at the start, write all the content and then maybe tweak the layout towards the end. Since it's plaintext, you can use git for version control. Plus vim has a great history tree (rather than being linear), which saved my ass a few times. Disclaimer: vim is basically my religion ;)

neontomo 3y ago
Yes, I've used both. Personally, I like Nano because it's just so simple. There's something about tools that are scaled down in complexity, but not being so simple that they're unusable, that I enjoy a lot. I can see Vim being the better choice for a thesis, especially considering the history tree. Did you edit it in a word processor after?
- doix 3y ago
  > Did you edit it in a word processor after? No, straight to PDF, I suspect that's how most people use LaTeX [0]. It's kind of hard to explain if you've never used it. But basically you setup rules for how things should render (separately) from the content. You shouldn't need to edit it in a word processor afterwards (ideally anyway). > Personally, I like Nano because it's just so simple. There's something about tools that are scaled down in complexity, but not being so simple that they're unusable, that I enjoy a lot. I can see Vim being the better choice for a thesis, especially considering the history tree. Yeah, that's fair. I've used vim so much that I find nano unusable. It's not about the history tree (just a minor feature that happened to come in handy), it's the jumping between sections efficiently and reorganizing sections quickly. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX
- etrautmann 3y ago
  Oof wow definitely not. The magic of latex is in the automatic figure numbering, captions, table of contents etc. For a thesis length document, it’s crazy to me to imagine doing that in word. That being said, I had some typos in my thesis without an auto spell check, which I was surprised to discover later.
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    Word will manage your TOC and numbering easily and automatically. I still prefer TeX/LaTeX for longer documents, but it only takes a few minutes to get Word setup correctly for managing a thesis length or longer text.
    - doublepg23 3y ago
      Yeah my understanding is most publishing houses will only accept DOCX with few exceptions.
BaseballPhysics 3y ago
Vim + vim-pencil + goyo + limelight is my go-to distraction free writing environment. I'm not sure I'd say vim and nano are that different when you're writing prose. But the minute you start doing any kind of moderately complex text manipulation, the differences definitely become more obvious.
wenc 3y ago
I wrote my dissertation with vim+latex too but I would say it’s not distraction free. The output was beautiful but the writing process was far from easy. I had to google tikZ notation and math symbols and error messages to debug issues (including bibtex issues). Word-wrap was a pain (I want to wrap paragraphs) and spelling/grammar checks were painful too (because of mixed prose and math syntax — too many false positives) I think the only people who can write distraction free in plain text are prose writers, where the need for structure is limited. It’s a romantic idea to be able to write a masterpiece on a typewriter. The rest of us who write complex structured docs need a bit more help. I write Markdown in VS Code these days and I need help with tables for example. Markdown has very limited support for anchors links etc. and images so I need plugins for those too. I also use LogSeq and definitely appreciate the plug-in ecosystem there too. I would say don’t romanticize distraction free plain text writing. It’s really only good for the simplest forms of writing.

by doix 3y ago

neontomo 3y ago

Yes, I've used both. Personally, I like Nano because it's just so simple. There's something about tools that are scaled down in complexity, but not being so simple that they're unusable, that I enjoy a lot. I can see Vim being the better choice for a thesis, especially considering the history tree. Did you edit it in a word processor after?

doix 3y ago
> Did you edit it in a word processor after? No, straight to PDF, I suspect that's how most people use LaTeX [0]. It's kind of hard to explain if you've never used it. But basically you setup rules for how things should render (separately) from the content. You shouldn't need to edit it in a word processor afterwards (ideally anyway). > Personally, I like Nano because it's just so simple. There's something about tools that are scaled down in complexity, but not being so simple that they're unusable, that I enjoy a lot. I can see Vim being the better choice for a thesis, especially considering the history tree. Yeah, that's fair. I've used vim so much that I find nano unusable. It's not about the history tree (just a minor feature that happened to come in handy), it's the jumping between sections efficiently and reorganizing sections quickly. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX
etrautmann 3y ago
Oof wow definitely not. The magic of latex is in the automatic figure numbering, captions, table of contents etc. For a thesis length document, it’s crazy to me to imagine doing that in word. That being said, I had some typos in my thesis without an auto spell check, which I was surprised to discover later.
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  Word will manage your TOC and numbering easily and automatically. I still prefer TeX/LaTeX for longer documents, but it only takes a few minutes to get Word setup correctly for managing a thesis length or longer text.
  - doublepg23 3y ago
    Yeah my understanding is most publishing houses will only accept DOCX with few exceptions.

BaseballPhysics 3y ago

Vim + vim-pencil + goyo + limelight is my go-to distraction free writing environment. I'm not sure I'd say vim and nano are that different when you're writing prose. But the minute you start doing any kind of moderately complex text manipulation, the differences definitely become more obvious.

wenc 3y ago

I wrote my dissertation with vim+latex too but I would say it’s not distraction free. The output was beautiful but the writing process was far from easy. I had to google tikZ notation and math symbols and error messages to debug issues (including bibtex issues). Word-wrap was a pain (I want to wrap paragraphs) and spelling/grammar checks were painful too (because of mixed prose and math syntax — too many false positives) I think the only people who can write distraction free in plain text are prose writers, where the need for structure is limited. It’s a romantic idea to be able to write a masterpiece on a typewriter. The rest of us who write complex structured docs need a bit more help. I write Markdown in VS Code these days and I need help with tables for example. Markdown has very limited support for anchors links etc. and images so I need plugins for those too. I also use LogSeq and definitely appreciate the plug-in ecosystem there too. I would say don’t romanticize distraction free plain text writing. It’s really only good for the simplest forms of writing.