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Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

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Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#211
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can make a bash script named `git-undo` , put it in your path (I use ~/bin): #! /bin/bash git reset HEAD~1 && git checkout .

You can assign git aliases that execute shell commands by prefixing with an exclamation mark.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#212
I'm having a go at using Vim full time after years of dabbling.

I attribute the weirdness of Vim to it being like learning a completely different actual language similar to learning French if you're an English speaker.

With an editor you do almost everything through muscle memory, and so like speaking a language it's subconscious.

Unless you've got a French English dictionary or Google Translate you've got very little hope.

The problem is most GUI editor users assume that it's just an editor like they're used too.

The only way to learn it, is like a language by speaking it all the time and changing the pathways in your brain.

I want to get round to writing a translators guide for Sublime Text users on the basis that's probably the most similar GUI based editor to Vim. Then most people can translate their own editor to what ST does and from there figure out Vim.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#213
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C-M-footpedal1-q

I seriously would like to have a pedalboard with, say, 5 pedals that i could map to specific functions on Emacs. It would be terrific, particularly for Lisp development with SLIME.

Hmm.

MIDI foot controller -> USB MIDI interface -> computer -> driver -> user space scriptology ...

What do you think? That would easily give you ten pedals.

I use a 1993 vintage ART Ultrafoot X-15 I got off Craigslist --- for my guitar rig, not a text editor. :)

https://www.google.ca/search?q=ART+Ultrafoot+x-15&tbm=isch

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, please do chmod your SSH key, netrc, and other sensitive files as world readable! Sincerely, that other guy on your multi-user OS.

chmod 0644 is indeed bad advice in ~/.netrc. Similarly, [Esc] :wq is not too helpful at a bash prompt. If you don't know the difference you're not yet ready for the magic post-it note.

My point is that if you don't understand what chmod 0644 does, you probably shouldn't use it as general advice. chmod 0640 would be better general advice, but it's not a fix-all.

Ditto `:wq`. If you're in vim, and you don't know how to exit, you probably don't want the random keypresses you made while trying to figure out how to exit to be written to the file. Another case where an alternate version might be better: [ESC]:q! nano

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you took the modal interface away from vim, you wouldn't have vim anymore. If you don't want a modal interface, don't use vim. The vast majority of people don't use vim, so this "solution" has already been widely adopted. (Which in turn causes people who like vim to periodically wonder why more people don't use it.) The problem comes because there are scenarios where you don't have a choice as to which editor to…

SSHing into a server implies a basic level of technical competence. The user presumably already knows cd, mv, ls, and family. Why would expecting the user to know a touch of VIM be out of place? That said, any server admin who for whatever reason allows people to SSH in (shared hosting maybe, university, file sharing) should have nano installed. Anything else is just cruel!:wq

> SSHing into a server implies a basic level of technical competence.

They probably learned how to do that in a Stack Overflow thread as well. No competence necessary.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#216

(Attribution is questionable, but as a geezer I feel the need to make sure the younger generations at least are familiar with this:) 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 pruden…

I recently had to use ed. I wanted to write a handful lines of code, but for that I needed the context that was in the terminal history. I didn't want to keep switching back and for with vi. So I decided this was the time I should learn ed. It did the job it was expected to do, I was not disappointed.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chmod 0644 is indeed bad advice in ~/.netrc. Similarly, [Esc] :wq is not too helpful at a bash prompt. If you don't know the difference you're not yet ready for the magic post-it note.

My point is that if you don't understand what chmod 0644 does, you probably shouldn't use it as general advice. chmod 0640 would be better general advice, but it's not a fix-all. Ditto `:wq`. If you're in vim, and you don't know how to exit, you probably don't want the random keypresses you made while trying to figure out how to exit to be written to the file. Another case where an alternate version might be better:…

Of course it's not good general advice. It wasn't given as general advice. It was given as a tongue-in-cheek *nix cheat sheet.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#219
post #7

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...

That link was actually marked visited in my browser. Thank god for SO.

Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim

#220
post #154

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.

I don't particularly like vi, but as a intermittent user for 20 years, I don't like it to be changed just because a few junior front end developers (ok a million) think it's hard to use. The default editor in distros could be set to nano or some other reasonably 'windowsy' editor instead. Those who want vi or emacs know how to fix it anyway...

Or as an emacs user, we deal with a lot of weirdness by modern standards. But when someone asks for a random change, it's more a matter of, "sure, knock yourself out."
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