Amazing. I came into programming from a bit of an unorthodox professional background. When I started learning web app development in a serious way, I got blindsided by some of the encounters with vim. In fact it took a long time before I even realized that it was vim I was interfacing with at first. wish I had this back then.
Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
161–170 of 265 posts
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#162> Let me know what you guys think about it :) Same as the last time you posted it: learning Vim has nothing to do with muscle memory and doing it outside of Vim is pointless. Plus, the "master Vim" claim is dubious given how basic the lessons seem to be. :help user-manual is easy, built-in, and it goes way beyond this. And it's free.
> learning Vim has nothing to do with muscle memory See this definition for muscle memory from Wikipedia: "Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used synonymously with motor learning. When a movement is repeated over time, the brain creates a long-term muscle memory for that task, eventually allowing it to be perfo…
> I don't see why Vim commands would be any different from typing on keyboards, or playing a musical instrument. They are tactile, and rely on motor control.
They are not tactile and they don't rely on motor control. It's typing them on your keyboard that is tactile and relies on motor control. I make use of muscle memory to type these words, not to decide what to type. Learning Vim is learning how to decide what to type, learning how to type it or to type it quickly is just learning typing.
The "memory system" mentioned in that quote is definitely involved in learning and using Vim but the other "system" mentioned, the "motor system" only deals with _typing_ things. The real hero, here, would be the "language system" in charge of assembling commands.
> I see no reason at all why this should be true.
And yet it is.
> Does the tool let the learner use keyboard to practice memorizing the commands, and they produce the exact same effects as inside Vim? If yes, then by what claim do you say it is pointless?
The learner can do all that within Vim itself so why do it outside Vim, which is freely available and comes with an extensive yet very approachable tutorial that goes way beyond what is offered in those online knock-offs?
Again, the tool in question only seems to cover very basic topics that are not going to help anyone "master Vim" anyway so why bother with it at all?
And again, learning Vim, let alone "mastering" it, has nothing to do with muscle memory and rote learning at all.
Vim itself comes with everything one needs to learn it. Learn Vim in Vim.
> Are you mad that it isn't free? Just come out and say that.
Well, I noticed that it went from $25 to $10 between posts. Who knows? Maybe it will be free by the third repost? Whatever the cost, the claims are false and there are much better ways to learn Vim anyway.
> No need to attack him so strongly.
Persons curious about Vim don't really need to be fed outlandish claims and promises one can't deliver either.
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#163This is the wrong way to go, if the UI is so bad it requires a course, then the problem is clearly the tool.
Good UI is not always optimizing for beginners. If you're using a tool for 8 hours a day, everyday, for years, you won't be a beginner for very long. The program must be optimized for the people who are going to use it for thousands of hours. Not for the users who are heard about vim yesterday.
Hard to learn doesn't mean good.
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#164I write C# three days a week. Is learning vim worth it?
If you plan to code for many years, it's definitely worth it. But it has a steep learning curve. It could take you a few weeks before you feel like Vim is not actually slowing you down. But past that point, you will continuously gain productivity and will eventually refuse to use anything else. I've been using Vim for almost a decade and I'm still learning new tricks that boost my productivity.
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#165Amazing. I came into programming from a bit of an unorthodox professional background. When I started learning web app development in a serious way, I got blindsided by some of the encounters with vim. In fact it took a long time before I even realized that it was vim I was interfacing with at first. wish I had this back then.
Mind sharing what professional background you came into programming from? I find such info always interesting.
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#166:set nu / whatever you want to find [return] i *edit stuff and use arrow keys for nav* :wq Or :q to quit without saving That’s all the vim most people need. The fact that less is installed on many more systems than nano is a testament to the bad assumptions too many devs make about who will be using these systems in the future. And yes, it’s not hard to "apt -y install nano" except at work where we have proxies and i…
Absolutely haram
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#167:set nu / whatever you want to find [return] i *edit stuff and use arrow keys for nav* :wq Or :q to quit without saving That’s all the vim most people need. The fact that less is installed on many more systems than nano is a testament to the bad assumptions too many devs make about who will be using these systems in the future. And yes, it’s not hard to "apt -y install nano" except at work where we have proxies and i…
Nano and commandline is good enough. If apt is available, Micro is even better.
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#168This is the wrong way to go, if the UI is so bad it requires a course, then the problem is clearly the tool.
How do you reconcile that with Vim's massive popularity? Surely, Vim users are aware that there are many "easy to learn" editors.
Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you interested in learning a potentially new and more efficient way of doing things? Then you have to stop being annoyed that your habitual way of doing things is unavailable to you, and stop assuming your habits are the obvious and correct way. The modal nature of Vim is one of it's key features and makes a lot of sense. If you consider the keyboard the primary, if not singular, means of interaction, then there…
>...more efficient way of doing things? Is that a fact, or you just parroted other people who made similar claim?
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Re: Show HN: I built an interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may be a little elitist, but if you're not going to use vim the way it's really made to be used, why even bother? I get that `mouse=a` makes it more familiar, but if you're always going to reach for your mouse, you're never going to really get used to the motions.
Vim was designed on qwerty keyboards. On other layouts (e.g. neo2) hjkl are not in a row.
Specifically, it was designed on the ADM3A keyboard, which had the arrows printed on the H, J, K and L keys. Also of note is the key in the upper right, which is labeled with "HOME", ~ and ^ (which explains why shells use "~/" to represent the users home directory).
And while I'm diving into history here, vi (which stands for "visual") was a modification of "ex" to use the newfangled "video terminal" instead of the battle tested teletype machine.