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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?
[1] Would have been emacs 18.something at the time. Not sure if that predates the built-in tutorial or if I just missed it. I remember running the tutorial not long thereafter on a proper workstation where I felt comfortable I could close the window.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
C-M-footpedal1-q
You got it wrong! It's more like: C-M-handstand-q-footpedal
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?
It baffles me that it isn't just ^C like every other unix program.
ed is the standard text editor
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:
golem> ed
?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?
---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think this is a poor argument. If it's the one singular thing that's frustrating this many users, that's a reason to focus on particular on fixing it somehow. You also need to take into account that most users encountering this problem are not deliberate vim learners: they ended up in vim by accident. That said, as others have pointed out, the vim developers can't really be blamed here as it's just a very hard prob…
The problem vim has is that its UI is entirely organized around modes, which makes the "people are terrible at using modal interfaces" problem a hard one for it to cope with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
"Type: quit to exit Vim"
Since the colon is used a separator such as I used it above.
Then they type "quit" and enter, which actually put them in insert mode recording "@u", with a 't' sitting in the text area.
That's well and all for vim but I've been trapped in ed for almost two decades!
The most viewed question is even more relatable: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/927358/how-to-undo-last-... You can get the top viewed questions here: http://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/53109/ques...
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2003505/how-do-i-delete-...
Pretty sure I've got the command down by now, but it's embarassing how many times I forgot the exact syntax. It was especially bad before the "--delete" syntax was introduced.