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Vim for Humans

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Re: Vim for Humans

#111

Post by gravypod »

vlunkr wrote: post #52
gravypod wrote: post #10

I wish I could use vim or emacs. I don't know if I'm stupid or something but all of the key bindings, everything you have to remember, it just doesn't make sense to me. I wish there was something like nano + plugins. If I had that I could implement most of what I need (other then auto-completion for a crap load of languages).

Just curious, what editor(s) do you use? I was using Sublime Text, and for the hardest part of switching to Vim was feeling the huge productivity drop in the beginning as I relearned how to do everything.

I used sublime for a bit, but I didn't like getting nagged. Right now I'm using some JetBrains products and Nano.

I sketch everything out into nano, then I pull it into CLion when it's ready to be cleaned, updated, iterated, and in general changed to become a "final" version.

Re: Vim for Humans

#112

Post by jedberg »

jon_richards wrote: post #82
ifoundthetao wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vim is very easy, I think it's just simple to get overwhelmed with it. There are a couple of tools which gamify Vim. I personally haven't used them. But some say they're pretty good. For me, what worked was just jumping in and going whole hog. I tried disabling the arrow keys in Normal Mode, so I would have to use hjkl for navigation. But my keyboard puts the arrow keys in easy reach (Kinesis Advantage), so it turned…

Why do people not like :x ?

It's an extra thing to remember. When I'm coding I usually just do :w, so when I'm editing config files I do :wq because it's the same thing (write the file) plus a new action (quit) in my head, instead of a totally different action (save and quit)

Re: Vim for Humans

#113

Post by ensiferum »

echelon wrote: post #104
ensiferum wrote: post #21

the only thing you need to know about vim, "kill -9 `pidof vim`" Seriously, why bother with this esoteric and cryptic software when something like Atom,SublimeText and VSCode exist...

"esoteric" and "cryptic"? Have you ever learned vim keybindings? They improve my productivity by a nontrivial percentage. Tens of thousands of other developers have the same opinion. Unlike Atom and Sublime, vim is far more performant and is available on every machine I SSH into. I'd drop into an IDE (with vim keybindings) for a large Java or C++ project, but vim wins every other time. You should give learning vim a…

I used emacs (so I use the emacs key bindings), then I moved onto SublimeText and never looked back. I totally agree that vim/emacs like keybindings can improve productivity. But many editors can easily support this, so you don't have to succumb to these editors like vim/emacs where everything is then complicated when you really just want the keybindings.

P.s here's some Elisp for all the emacks hackers. Very useful, feel free to use (;

(((((((((((((((((((((((

Re: Vim for Humans

#114

Post by ThrustVectoring »

jtmarmon wrote: post #96
olalonde wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning Vim is probably a bit like learning to bicycle/swim. It requires a lot of conscious effort at first but eventually becomes a second nature. Also, I doubt many vim users would use "nano + plugins" if vim suddenly disappeared. The fact that vim has many plugins and runs in the terminal is nice but isn't the main reason people use it IMO. I second the suggestion of using vimtutor to get started (uninstalling ot…

the problem with learning vim is that it's like learning to bike by biking to work. most people use vim when they code, and they code at work, so using vim is directly in the way of getting any productive work done. i was just one of the ones stupid enough to waste two weeks of productivity to learn a new tool lol

I managed to stack learning vim with normal on-boarding related slack by picking it up on my first day at my first coding job. IMO, one of the top ten decisions I've made in my life.

Re: Vim for Humans

#115

Post by ancarda »

BurningFrog wrote: post #84

I continue to be baffled that software written 40+ years ago, to deal with constraints and realities that are long long gone keep being used by people on the cutting edge of technology change.

I don't use Vim because I have to due to limitations, I use it because it's a joy to use.

What would you suggest people use instead?

Re: Vim for Humans

#116

Post by alphapapa »

malnourish wrote: post #31
triangleman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would also be incorrect.

Incorrect according to whom? If you can understand it, it's not incorrect. You might not like the style, but that doesn't make it wrong.

> If you can understand it, it's not incorrect.

acn yuo stunderand htis? i no oyu cna so acocrding ot yuo its nto rwong. oaky.

Re: Vim for Humans

#117

Post by Symmetry »

test1235 wrote: post #50
exDM69 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy over one file (.vimrc) and you're done. If you use plugins, then copy them over with git or whatever. And my setup is very conservative so it's mild annoyance at worst. The defaults are just bad, I recommend using vim-sensible or doing your own lean and mean vim config.

As someone who only uses Vim casually, what's an example of a bad default? For someone who is new to Vim, they wouldn't know if the controls are bad, or tough to learn e.g. using jkl; instead of arrow keys.

For instance one of the first things to do is set incsearch for incrimental search as you type out search terms, the way every modern web browser, IDE, and emacs work. Also I think using 'set hidden' should be a good default for pretty much everyone.

Re: Vim for Humans

#118

Post by Lio »

yodsanklai wrote: post #105
allengeorge wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be, but it's tough to use a customized vim on your local machine, and then switch to a stock install on a server somewhere, no?

I agree. Personally, I prefer getting used to the defaults than going through the pain of customization. I tried it, but it meant additional syncing between my machines, fighting with plugins, and it's not always possible to customize vi mode in some environments (like Eclipse or Sublime). Overall, I think vim is great for simple and fast editing, but as soon as I need to work on a multiple files projects, I switch t…

Well considering things like visual mode and line numbering are not defaults that seems to be leaving an aweful lot of functionality switched off.

Re: Vim for Humans

#119

Post by Avshalom »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #44
anondon wrote: post #22

A little background. I am familiar with vi and use it only when I ssh into a server. But I never really felt it was more convenient or an improvement over a GUI based text editor or IDE on my development machine. Eg- gedit for simple text editing, Android Studio for android development, Atom for python coding. Everything works out of the box with minimal tweaking required. Genuine questions: -At what point on the lea…

>-The common argument of only keyboard, no mouse when using vim... I don't get. Is using a mouse such a major factor that slows you down or affects you negatively? Yes, it hurts my wrist. If I use it continuously for too long it becomes disabling. I use awesome window manager, tmux, vim, vimium browser plugins so that I never have to touch the mouse. Keyboards hurt my wrists too but it's much more manageable. I havn'…

How are you using your mouse? like writing and well everything actually 90% or more of the movement should come from your shoulder/elbow.

Re: Vim for Humans

#120

Post by globuous »

mikegerwitz wrote: post #61
Rainymood wrote: post #59

The very first thing I do on any default Vim config is :imap kj And then Vim kinda makes sense to me. Pressing each time is such an anti-pattern imho.

C-[ is equivalent to , and is much more natural. I also bind caps lock to ctrl (setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps on a GNU/Linux system), which makes this all the more natural.

Remaping caps lock to ctrl changed my life on vim (amongst other things).

I didn't know about C-[ though, i've been using C-c which is also an equivalent by default. On MacOS anyway.

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