Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim • Hacker News Board

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#171

Post by blhack » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

I spent almost 10 years doing IT for a company whose backend was based entirely on as/400. If you've ever used a system like that, I'm sure you know where this is going...

The console's that the front-desk or clerical users used every day had a steep learning curve. It was something that you would definitely not be able to walk up to and just intuit.

However, once you figured it out, there is never going to be a faster UI that you are ever going to experience in your life until we figure out direct BCI stuff.

It was funny watching the new people come on board and insist that we should change the UI to something with a mouse (probably web based). They had no idea that more immediately intuitive was actually a step backwards.

My point is that just because something has a steep learning curve, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad design.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#172

Post by Theodores » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

dwyer wrote: post #9

Why would you ever exit vim?

WHAT IS ZZ?

Because your keyboard is stuck on permanent caps lock and you cannot remember the alternative to ':wq' which you cannot enter due to the perma-caps input device that requires a reboot to become a keyboard again.

If you use Synergy then this happens and a reboot can be easier if you are stuck.

In theory you really could forget 'ZZ', I nearly forgot '=aB' for some reason recently, this '=aB' to indent is only really known in muscle memory and the actual '=aB' text is entered and gone quickly from the bottom of the screen, so never seen, merely memorised as muscle memory, not a written or vebalised thing.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#173

Post by falcolas » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #145

falcolas wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modal interfaces are bad; yet it's what differentiates Vim from everything else, and thousands of people actively enjoy using Vim. Not to mention your OS is full of modal interfaces. "Why can't I type?" "You have a menu open." "Why can't I type when my cursor is over this window?" "You have a different window as your focus." "Why doesn't space pause this YouTube video?" "Because play wasn't the last button clicked."…

> Not to mention your OS is full of modal interfaces. "Why can't I type?" "You have a menu open." "Why can't I type when my cursor is over this window?" "You have a different window as your focus." "Why doesn't space pause this YouTube video?" "Because play wasn't the last button clicked." None of these are examples of modes, at least not as the term is used in the context of user interfaces. (See https://en.wikipedi…

How is having an open menu that blocks input NOT a mode? Using your arrow keys will move menu items, enter will select menu items, letters will also often switch menu items attempting to find a menu item with that letter, and getting out of it requires additional clicks or hitting escape.

Ditto the multi window scenario. You have to actively change focus between windows (often between windows in the same application), until which time the application doesn't respond as you expect it to.

Another great example: spreadsheets. You're in one of two modes, editing a cell or moving around cells. Often without great feedback of which mode you're in.

Modal interfaces are everywhere.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#174

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #134

emodendroket wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet between the reflog and aliases you could do that.

I'm requesting the exact syntax I just wrote. EDIT: the replies to this don't get how feature requests work. yes, I could write this basic feature myself. thanks.

[deleted]

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#175

Post by simopaa » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

dsp1234 wrote: post #106

fishywang wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that I've never seen any OS/Linux distribution set default EDITOR to vim. If EDITOR is set to vim, then someone must intentionally did that.

git bash on windows has vim as the default editor when editing commit messages

I switched to nano recently, and it wasn't as easy as it perhaps should have been: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36802996/bash-nano-comma...

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#176

Post by jjrh » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #22

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.

I think a extra bar or indicator (that could be removed with a commandline option or conf) with some reminders could be useful.

The problem is you do crontab -e or something similar on a new or foreign system and get into vim and are now stuck.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#177

Post by dotancohen » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:41 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 is pretty much written by one guy, and like Linus he remains consistent in what his creation's user experience should be. VIM is not meant to be easy to learn, it is meant to be easy to use one you've invested in learning it.

VIM is a bad default editor for that reason. But don't blame VIM for being what it is. Rather convince your distro or whatever to set nano as the default, easy to learn, editor.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#178

Post by manyxcxi » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #108

signal11 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting Ctrl+C still works, it tells you to type ":quit ".

If I expect Ctrl+C to quit immediately, and it doesn't quit immediately, that is not functionality that works.

What if you're normally a Windows user and you pressed CTRL+C trying to copy something out of the terminal? You haven't written to disk in a while, and then poof.

Muscle memory can be a real pain some times.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#179

Post by xxs » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

fishywang wrote: post #116

dsp1234 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

git bash on windows has vim as the default editor when editing commit messages

Maybe someone should file a bug to them? I don't think vim is a sane default value for EDITOR, but I have no idea whether there's any sane alternative on Windows.

'nano' is fine

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#180

Post by xs » Tue, May 23, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

ElijahLynn wrote: post #124

Unfortunately that answer is wrong. The way they should have been taught is: ZQ - Quit without saving ZZ - Quit with saving

But :q and :quit does in fact quit the program. It's also the command I've been using for 20 years... Why do you think it's "wrong"?