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I understand Vim. Really, I do. I even know how to use it for the most part. But I guess I just don't get it. It's too obtuse. I don't feel connected to my edi

I understand Vim. Really, I do. I even know how to use it for the most part. But I guess I just don't get it. It's too obtuse. I don't feel connected to my editing while using it, I feel... connected to Vim. Which, I think, might explain why others feel so connected to Vim too. They get attached to it because it's an investment, and as we know from various psych studies, we get attached to things we invest in. This isn't a bad thing, just wanted to throw my 2¢ out there. Vim's a cool language for text editing, but it's not the only one.

solutionyogi 14y ago
I completely understand where you are coming from. For me and others, we actually feel connected to our text instead of Vim. Let me give you an example, let's say I have following sentence. "Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?" my cursor is on the letter 'h' of 'nutheads'. Let's say I decide to change the whole word to 'crazy people'. Here's how you would do it in conventional editor (using EditPlus as an example). Ctrl + <- (to jump to n) Ctrl + Shift + -> (to select the whole world) Shift + <- (to remove the space which was selected. ) Type in "crazy people" Here's how you would do it in Vim. ciw - (change inner word), it gets rid of the whole 'nutheads' word and puts me in INSERT mode. type in "crazy people" As you can see, EditPlus forces to you to navigate the text using conventional method. It doesn't have a concept of a 'word'. Compare this to Vim. I told Vim what I exactly wanted to do ('change inner word') and it let me achieve that without any fuss. As I wrote in my other comment, Vim lets me 'talk' and 'interact' with my text at a semantic level. Vim is like a translator which completely disappears when I am working with my text. The example sentence was borrowed from another excellent article on Vim: http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- calinet6 14y ago
  Excellent comparison, thanks. It's important to note that many modern text editors do have concepts of "words" and "lines" and such that can be used in similar ways. Granted, not near the extent of Vim, but they're still useful. In sublime for example, I can Ctrl+Shift arrow to select words before and after. This even works with multiple selection (multiple caret positions). It's pretty cool. Again, I understand that Vim is more of a language to describe editing text and is very efficient, I'm just saying you can get close with modern editors, and personally I find their visual language to work better for me.
  - solutionyogi 14y ago
    As z92 mentioned in reply, you missed my point about the fact that EditPlus or Sublime will force you to move to the beginning of the word before you can select it. Try the above exercise in Sublime and then in Vim so that you can see the difference clearly. May be that will kick in that bulb in your head and you will see Vim in a whole different light. Trust me, it took me a long time before Vim 'clicked' for me.
    - recursive 14y ago
      > Sublime will force you to move to the beginning of the word before you can select it. Only if you don't know how to use it. Ctrl + D does it in fewer keystrokes than you can in vim.
      - solutionyogi 14y ago
        Sure, there could be a short cut to make this particular example easy. But can you combine this knowledge and use it everywhere? Let's say your sentence was like this: "Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! 'nutheads' use vi?" [Notice that word 'nutheads' is enclosed in single quotes.] If I am on the letter h, I can press [ciw] to only replace nutheads word with my target word, it will keep the single quotes as it is. OR If I wanted to replace the whole word including the quote, I would press [ciW] (notice the capital W) Now, can you use that knowledge of Ctrl + D in this situation in Sublime?
        recursive 14y ago
        I'm by no means a sublime expert, but I'd approach those scenarios like this. For replacing the inner content, Ctrl + D still works. To also replace the quotes, I'd use Ctrl + D, Del, Del, Backspace. Yes, in the second case, Sublime is one additional keystroke. I know you could come up with examples that would show bigger advantages for vim. FWIW I do believe that vim has advantages to some editors in certain scenarios, but I think those advantages are overestimated by the vim-inati. If you've spent years learning one editor, of course it will seem more capable than editors you have used less.

solutionyogi 14y ago

I completely understand where you are coming from. For me and others, we actually feel connected to our text instead of Vim. Let me give you an example, let's say I have following sentence. "Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?" my cursor is on the letter 'h' of 'nutheads'. Let's say I decide to change the whole word to 'crazy people'. Here's how you would do it in conventional editor (using EditPlus as an example). Ctrl + <- (to jump to n) Ctrl + Shift + -> (to select the whole world) Shift + <- (to remove the space which was selected. ) Type in "crazy people" Here's how you would do it in Vim. ciw - (change inner word), it gets rid of the whole 'nutheads' word and puts me in INSERT mode. type in "crazy people" As you can see, EditPlus forces to you to navigate the text using conventional method. It doesn't have a concept of a 'word'. Compare this to Vim. I told Vim what I exactly wanted to do ('change inner word') and it let me achieve that without any fuss. As I wrote in my other comment, Vim lets me 'talk' and 'interact' with my text at a semantic level. Vim is like a translator which completely disappears when I am working with my text. The example sentence was borrowed from another excellent article on Vim: http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
calinet6 14y ago
Excellent comparison, thanks. It's important to note that many modern text editors do have concepts of "words" and "lines" and such that can be used in similar ways. Granted, not near the extent of Vim, but they're still useful. In sublime for example, I can Ctrl+Shift arrow to select words before and after. This even works with multiple selection (multiple caret positions). It's pretty cool. Again, I understand that Vim is more of a language to describe editing text and is very efficient, I'm just saying you can get close with modern editors, and personally I find their visual language to work better for me.
- solutionyogi 14y ago
  As z92 mentioned in reply, you missed my point about the fact that EditPlus or Sublime will force you to move to the beginning of the word before you can select it. Try the above exercise in Sublime and then in Vim so that you can see the difference clearly. May be that will kick in that bulb in your head and you will see Vim in a whole different light. Trust me, it took me a long time before Vim 'clicked' for me.
  - recursive 14y ago
    > Sublime will force you to move to the beginning of the word before you can select it. Only if you don't know how to use it. Ctrl + D does it in fewer keystrokes than you can in vim.
    - solutionyogi 14y ago
      Sure, there could be a short cut to make this particular example easy. But can you combine this knowledge and use it everywhere? Let's say your sentence was like this: "Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! 'nutheads' use vi?" [Notice that word 'nutheads' is enclosed in single quotes.] If I am on the letter h, I can press [ciw] to only replace nutheads word with my target word, it will keep the single quotes as it is. OR If I wanted to replace the whole word including the quote, I would press [ciW] (notice the capital W) Now, can you use that knowledge of Ctrl + D in this situation in Sublime?
      - recursive 14y ago
        I'm by no means a sublime expert, but I'd approach those scenarios like this. For replacing the inner content, Ctrl + D still works. To also replace the quotes, I'd use Ctrl + D, Del, Del, Backspace. Yes, in the second case, Sublime is one additional keystroke. I know you could come up with examples that would show bigger advantages for vim. FWIW I do believe that vim has advantages to some editors in certain scenarios, but I think those advantages are overestimated by the vim-inati. If you've spent years learning one editor, of course it will seem more capable than editors you have used less.