10 ms·

This makes me want to ask... why not just use vim?

by xutopia 13y ago

terhechte 13y ago
I'm just guessing here, but you can use all the Sublime Plugins and Key combos while in INSERT mode. The Vim Insert Mode is rather limiting since you're supposed to do mostly just typing in there. I always add the basic emacs keybindings to my vimrc so that I can jump by word, to the beginning of the line / the end or move by character, without leaving insert mode. I really don't like leaving insert mode for just 2 char movements. I know there's CMD-O for that, but I find it too cumbersome still. Apart from that, many people like the looks of Sublime, and (at least for me) the Sublime text view scrolls a lot better for large documents than either Vim, MacVim, or Emacs. Edit: I'm not a Sublime user, I switched from longtime Vim to Emacs + Evil a couple of months ago and couldn't be happier (well, I'd like better scrolling, but I mostly jump anyway)
- recuter 13y ago
  Vim can be setup to look and scroll exactly like Sublime, I recall a mapping where the key for 'go down a screen' is overridden with multiple 'go down 1 line' which makes it feel smooth. (I generally just go '{L,H,M}', 'z{t,m,b}') As for jumping around while in insert mode, I totally understand that instinct but it goes against the grain of Vim. Don't spend extra time in insert mode. I think the real problem with Vim is that you have to wrangle it with a lot of tweaks to make it sane and comfortable and that's a rabbit hole a lot of people (justifiably) don't want to go down. Sublime is very friendly, I like it a lot, Vim demands a long weekend of your life to customize but it really does leapfrog everything once you get it right.
TheSmoke 13y ago
and then there is this: https://github.com/fatih/subvim https://github.com/fatih/subvim sublime in vim :-)
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  or vim in emacs: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil ... I for one, look forward to running emacs in sublime, and in an eterm in emacs running vim, which will of course, be running subvim, full circle.
beaumartinez 13y ago
Because with this you can use Sublime Text's UI (chrome, file browser, and smooth scrolling—all better than Vim's) with Vim's input mode. Best of both worlds.
- 0X1A 13y ago
  The point of vim and its key bindings is to not have to use anything other than the keyboard (and keys that are not too off from the home row), so it's not the best of both worlds at all. Having to click on something forces someone to use their mouse, breaking their concentration and wasting time on clicking on a tab.
  - shawabawa3 13y ago
    You never have to click anything in sublime
  - jonknee 13y ago
    Having to click on something is different from being able to click on something. Vim doesn't let you use one of the two primary input tools of your computer--Sublime lets you use both. To borrow your situation, if you are already using the mouse it's distracting to have to use the keyboard.
    - s0l1dsnak3123 13y ago
      That's actually not true - vim does let you use your mouse: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_the_mouse_for_Vim_in_an_xterm http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_the_mouse_for_Vim_in_an_xter...
    - 0X1A 13y ago
      Maybe you should actually use something before forming an opinion on it. Your lack of knowledge with vim is pretty obvious given that you didn't know that you could use your mouse.
w1ntermute 13y ago
The main reason (for me) is Ctrl+P. Working on a project with lots of files (like Rails) without that is a huge pain.
- L8D 13y ago
  Not only does Vim have a Ctrl+P plugin, but the Ctrl+P feature of Sublime originated from the Vim plugin.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    I know. But it doesn't work the way I want it to. It needs to fuzzy search the directory that I've opened, prioritizing first by reverse chronological order of when they were opened. It's been a while, but I played with the settings for both the CtrlP and the Command-T plug-in, but neither worked like in Sublime.
  - johncoltrane 13y ago
    No. Kien's CtrlP plugin is inspired by Sublime's Ctrl+P (the name is the hint) feature which itself extends TextMate's Cmd+T and Cmd+Shift+T which inspired numerous other Vim plugins like Command-T (hint), FuzzyFinder, LustyExplorer, Unite and many others.
leokun 13y ago
Because vim is broken. I gave up vim after 7 years because of all the segfaults, in-extensibility and just horrible code. Some of the files in the vim code base are over 20,000 lines with hundreds of ifdefs, and littered with unsafe pointer use. The code is a horrible experience to just look at, pre 1989 C style functions, mixed tabs and spaces everywhere, and the files aren't even a valid encoding of any kind whatsoever, instead it has this broken mbyte that will ruin your day if you touch a vim source file in anything but vim. If you use vim as is you may not notice much, but vim will forever be limited to responding only to user interaction with no hope of ever getting any kind of timers, async actions or event loop. Try making a simple clock for your status line that updates every second. You can't. And it will never be possible. Because vim is broken.
- TallboyOne 13y ago
  How much of a challenge would it be to rewrite vim properly? Or is that a crazy idea..
  - recuter 13y ago
    Not that crazy. Vim itself is a reboot of Vi, and there were/are other minimal Vi clones that are very small (couple of KLOCs). You'd be throwing away the horrible Vimscript, and sadly the community is married to it. As a result your neat little Vim2 reboot thing will not be nearly as useful for a long time, so you've lost backwards compatibility for what? Cleaner internals? Doesn't really benefit the end user much. :)
    - lightblade 13y ago
      I really don't care much about backward compatibility with existing plugins. We're using vim not the plugins anyway. I justed wanted an terminal editor with vi bindings.
      - eyko 13y ago
        As long as it can parse my .vimrc (but then, that's vimscript)
msoad 13y ago
Because this happens when you open a large file in Vim http://i.imgur.com/erVrk5j.png http://i.imgur.com/erVrk5j.png
kozikow 13y ago
Better question: why not emacs with evil mode?

This makes me want to ask... why not just use vim?

by xutopia 13y ago

This makes me want to ask... why not just use vim?

I'm just guessing here, but you can use all the Sublime Plugins and Key combos while in INSERT mode. The Vim Insert Mode is rather limiting since you're supposed to do mostly just typing in there. I always add the basic emacs keybindings to my vimrc so that I can jump by word, to the beginning of the line / the end or move by character, without leaving insert mode. I really don't like leaving insert mode for just 2 char movements. I know there's CMD-O for that, but I find it too cumbersome still. Apart from that, many people like the looks of Sublime, and (at least for me) the Sublime text view scrolls a lot better for large documents than either Vim, MacVim, or Emacs. Edit: I'm not a Sublime user, I switched from longtime Vim to Emacs + Evil a couple of months ago and couldn't be happier (well, I'd like better scrolling, but I mostly jump anyway)

recuter 13y ago
Vim can be setup to look and scroll exactly like Sublime, I recall a mapping where the key for 'go down a screen' is overridden with multiple 'go down 1 line' which makes it feel smooth. (I generally just go '{L,H,M}', 'z{t,m,b}') As for jumping around while in insert mode, I totally understand that instinct but it goes against the grain of Vim. Don't spend extra time in insert mode. I think the real problem with Vim is that you have to wrangle it with a lot of tweaks to make it sane and comfortable and that's a rabbit hole a lot of people (justifiably) don't want to go down. Sublime is very friendly, I like it a lot, Vim demands a long weekend of your life to customize but it really does leapfrog everything once you get it right.

TheSmoke 13y ago

and then there is this: https://github.com/fatih/subvim https://github.com/fatih/subvim sublime in vim :-)

MetaCosm 13y ago
or vim in emacs: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil ... I for one, look forward to running emacs in sublime, and in an eterm in emacs running vim, which will of course, be running subvim, full circle.

beaumartinez 13y ago

Because with this you can use Sublime Text's UI (chrome, file browser, and smooth scrolling—all better than Vim's) with Vim's input mode. Best of both worlds.

0X1A 13y ago
The point of vim and its key bindings is to not have to use anything other than the keyboard (and keys that are not too off from the home row), so it's not the best of both worlds at all. Having to click on something forces someone to use their mouse, breaking their concentration and wasting time on clicking on a tab.
- shawabawa3 13y ago
  You never have to click anything in sublime
- jonknee 13y ago
  Having to click on something is different from being able to click on something. Vim doesn't let you use one of the two primary input tools of your computer--Sublime lets you use both. To borrow your situation, if you are already using the mouse it's distracting to have to use the keyboard.
  - s0l1dsnak3123 13y ago
    That's actually not true - vim does let you use your mouse: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_the_mouse_for_Vim_in_an_xterm http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_the_mouse_for_Vim_in_an_xter...
  - 0X1A 13y ago
    Maybe you should actually use something before forming an opinion on it. Your lack of knowledge with vim is pretty obvious given that you didn't know that you could use your mouse.

w1ntermute 13y ago

The main reason (for me) is Ctrl+P. Working on a project with lots of files (like Rails) without that is a huge pain.

L8D 13y ago
Not only does Vim have a Ctrl+P plugin, but the Ctrl+P feature of Sublime originated from the Vim plugin.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  I know. But it doesn't work the way I want it to. It needs to fuzzy search the directory that I've opened, prioritizing first by reverse chronological order of when they were opened. It's been a while, but I played with the settings for both the CtrlP and the Command-T plug-in, but neither worked like in Sublime.
- johncoltrane 13y ago
  No. Kien's CtrlP plugin is inspired by Sublime's Ctrl+P (the name is the hint) feature which itself extends TextMate's Cmd+T and Cmd+Shift+T which inspired numerous other Vim plugins like Command-T (hint), FuzzyFinder, LustyExplorer, Unite and many others.

leokun 13y ago

Because vim is broken. I gave up vim after 7 years because of all the segfaults, in-extensibility and just horrible code. Some of the files in the vim code base are over 20,000 lines with hundreds of ifdefs, and littered with unsafe pointer use. The code is a horrible experience to just look at, pre 1989 C style functions, mixed tabs and spaces everywhere, and the files aren't even a valid encoding of any kind whatsoever, instead it has this broken mbyte that will ruin your day if you touch a vim source file in anything but vim. If you use vim as is you may not notice much, but vim will forever be limited to responding only to user interaction with no hope of ever getting any kind of timers, async actions or event loop. Try making a simple clock for your status line that updates every second. You can't. And it will never be possible. Because vim is broken.

TallboyOne 13y ago
How much of a challenge would it be to rewrite vim properly? Or is that a crazy idea..
- recuter 13y ago
  Not that crazy. Vim itself is a reboot of Vi, and there were/are other minimal Vi clones that are very small (couple of KLOCs). You'd be throwing away the horrible Vimscript, and sadly the community is married to it. As a result your neat little Vim2 reboot thing will not be nearly as useful for a long time, so you've lost backwards compatibility for what? Cleaner internals? Doesn't really benefit the end user much. :)
  - lightblade 13y ago
    I really don't care much about backward compatibility with existing plugins. We're using vim not the plugins anyway. I justed wanted an terminal editor with vi bindings.
    - eyko 13y ago
      As long as it can parse my .vimrc (but then, that's vimscript)

msoad 13y ago

Because this happens when you open a large file in Vim http://i.imgur.com/erVrk5j.png http://i.imgur.com/erVrk5j.png

kozikow 13y ago

Better question: why not emacs with evil mode?