Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim • Hacker News Board

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#21

Post by deanstag » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #10

I barely use any Vim, but I'm more confused about there being some hidden complexity in exiting Vim that I'm not aware of. Isn't it just... [Esc] :wq ...or... [Esc] :q! ...depending if you want to save the current document or not?

Correct. But as the article mentions, it might be confusing for developers who predominantly use IDEs and text editors that are not modal in nature.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#22

Post by colechristensen » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #8

I'm somewhat amazed but mostly amused that the Vim developers care so little about user experience that they continue to ignore that people have trouble with exiting their tool and refuse to adapt to a more expected convention for exiting it.

Vim has a steep learning curve and making that one thing easier isn't going to make that curve any easier to climb. Powerful tools require documentation and looking up how to quit is the first task of many to use any of vim's power.

Not everything has to be easy to use, some things benefit from not being obvious.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#23

Post by spydum » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #10

I barely use any Vim, but I'm more confused about there being some hidden complexity in exiting Vim that I'm not aware of. Isn't it just... [Esc] :wq ...or... [Esc] :q! ...depending if you want to save the current document or not?

I think mostly it's people not being familiar with escape key. If you think about it, pretty rare you use Escape in anything other than a game..

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#24

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #3

Obviously my personal bias, but it's emacs I can never remember how to exit from.

It's quite hard to get emacs to open for you when you don't want it. Harder still to get it without a GUI.

Overall, both are about as hard to deal with. Vim has a better help message, but it's still difficult to find.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#25

Post by jayflux » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

vopi wrote: post #12

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #8

I'm somewhat amazed but mostly amused that the Vim developers care so little about user experience that they continue to ignore that people have trouble with exiting their tool and refuse to adapt to a more expected convention for exiting it.

It literally everytime you boot the first screen tells you how to quit and get help. So..read the screen that comes up Everytime? If you try Ctrl c it tells you it's :q.

> developers are often dropped into Vim from a git command or another situation where they didn’t expect to be, and they run into it infrequently enough to forget how they solved it last time.

So the first screen doesn't help in this situation

The sort of developers who get stuck in Vim are not the ones who are using it intentionally

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#26

Post by jaredsohn » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #6

Isn't that exclusively used by middle aged computer scientists?

Even if it is, I don't see the relevance of this comment.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#27

Post by ashark » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

gtsteve wrote: post #15

ZenoArrow wrote: post #10

I barely use any Vim, but I'm more confused about there being some hidden complexity in exiting Vim that I'm not aware of. Isn't it just... [Esc] :wq ...or... [Esc] :q! ...depending if you want to save the current document or not?

Imagine you don't know that. Now try to exit vim.

Add in the bonus confusion that you may not have even been trying to run vim, and in fact may not know what it is (hey, everyone's a beginner some time), but have landed there due to a default $EDITOR value.

[EDIT] also, a typical mid-level computer user's tendency to slap "ESC" when panicked. Ha!

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#28

Post by tcoff91 » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

gtsteve wrote: post #15

ZenoArrow wrote: post #10

I barely use any Vim, but I'm more confused about there being some hidden complexity in exiting Vim that I'm not aware of. Isn't it just... [Esc] :wq ...or... [Esc] :q! ...depending if you want to save the current document or not?

Imagine you don't know that. Now try to exit vim.

Ok, so anyone with any terminal experience but no vim experience would press -c.

Then, the program tells them "Type :quit to exit Vim"

And if the user is capable of reading, they shouldn't have any problem.

If they don't know about ctrl-c, they shouldn't be using a terminal editor.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#29

Post by dsp1234 » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

vopi wrote: post #12

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #8

I'm somewhat amazed but mostly amused that the Vim developers care so little about user experience that they continue to ignore that people have trouble with exiting their tool and refuse to adapt to a more expected convention for exiting it.

It literally everytime you boot the first screen tells you how to quit and get help. So..read the screen that comes up Everytime? If you try Ctrl c it tells you it's :q.

dev: That just typed ':q' into the text area

me: Hit escape first, then :q

dev: Oh, then why doesn't say escape then :q

me: welp

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#30

Post by throwaway2016a » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #3

Obviously my personal bias, but it's emacs I can never remember how to exit from.

My anecdotal experience has been that no matter how many times I'm told how to exit Emacs I can't remember but every developer I have taught ':wq' to has remembered it after one or two times telling them what it is.