Earlier quoted context omitted.
^C as copy is an example of breaking well established patterns that screw new users. Its THE canonical example in fact.
^C is SIGINT. ⌘C is copy. I blame Microsoft.
Didn't Ms"S use to use CTRL-Ins or similar?
Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
391–400 of 489 posts
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#392I'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...
As a sysadmin, this drives me crazy. I log into a lot of systems I didn't set up, and then I press the key at the command prompt to bring it up in an editor, or invoke something that uses an interactive editor, and its nano. I have to exit it, export EDITOR=vi and do it again. I don't even like vi as a standard editor. I just expect the system default of vi, and nano is painfully underpowered. I'd even adapt to it running emacs, but it's like getting a nerf hammer every time you need a real one when the system pulls up nano by default.
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#393I remember my first dealings with Vim. It was awful. I kept having to hit the X button and reconnect, only to find that nothing saved. I've since switched over to nano and prefer it over any editor in Linux. Easy to use, easy to save. That's how it should be!
Sadly, nano has (had?) the nasty habit of adding invisible characters on save (some combination of \r \n). I once almost got into a fist fight with a coworker over this, until he let me show him that his modifying the config was why some application kept crashing on restart.
Good to know miles. I've used VIM, but it is more strict in editing and takes a while to get to know. nano is just a plain editor. I'll keep a lookout for it if something doesn't work.
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd vote against that. I use ^C as the best "esc-replacement-without-straying-far-from-the-home-row" that works in every install, every emulator and every international keyboard.
I try hard to train myself that ^[ is ESC, but of course only in situations where jj doesn't work. =)
why not use ii?
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#395I find files called :waq on my file system at least once per week
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people have no idea why vi made sense way back when (and, in my opinion, does not today). I used VT100 terminals for years on both mainframe and CP/M systems. Keyboards were not very standardized before then, the mouse did not exist and most text editors had to use all sorts of convoluted commands to allow you to do anything. http://www.vintagecomputer.net/digital/VT100/DEC_VT100_SYSBO... I ran the first version…
It is the only editing system that makes sense to me. That's because modal editing means fewer modifier-key combinations are needed, and no mouse is needed. Compare with.. any other editor, where the only thing that might save you from RSI is enabling sticky keys, and even then, if it isn't emacs you still have to heavily use a mouse. For a great number of tasks, being a vim or emacs pro means doing things faster tha…
I disagree. I use VSCode completely without mouse (and no vim mode).
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#397I met my wife because she was stuck in VI. I was a unix sysadmin in the early 90s, and she was a grad student. She came to me for help (like most of the 1st years did) because she couldn't get out of vi. However, to be fair, this was not her fault per-say. She actually knew how to use vi, but just couldn't find the ESC key. Does anybody remember the DEC keyboards where there was no traditional ESC key, but it was F11…
Hottest girl in my class had asked for help with how to install a free antivirus on her laptop because the 1 year free-with-laptop McAfee had expired and she was getting dengerously annoying prompts and thought her laptop might be hacked. By the time I was done with "best free antivirus for Windows" someone else in the lab had done it. In my defence I was a linux guy.
She married a doctor just after college. So that's there. But I learned my lesson. No more "best of .." unless it's critical or is for vanity.
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#398I 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 fas…
I just hate programs that change patterns that are standard everywhere else. E.g. 99% of software uses control+c and control+v to do copy and pasting, so of course software that maps it to something totally different is going to be very frustrating. The same thing with vim using nonstandard way of quitting. Discoverability is another problem. You can have weird keyboard commands, but make it possible to find them wit…
I hate VI not defaulting to wasd for movement like every other single piece of software I used growing up... (e.g. Quake, Marathon...) Ha ha ha. (Or should my games have used hjkl)?
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#399I met my wife because she was stuck in VI. I was a unix sysadmin in the early 90s, and she was a grad student. She came to me for help (like most of the 1st years did) because she couldn't get out of vi. However, to be fair, this was not her fault per-say. She actually knew how to use vi, but just couldn't find the ESC key. Does anybody remember the DEC keyboards where there was no traditional ESC key, but it was F11…
Most people have no idea why vi made sense way back when (and, in my opinion, does not today). I used VT100 terminals for years on both mainframe and CP/M systems. Keyboards were not very standardized before then, the mouse did not exist and most text editors had to use all sorts of convoluted commands to allow you to do anything. http://www.vintagecomputer.net/digital/VT100/DEC_VT100_SYSBO... I ran the first version…
I don't know Vi(m) well at all and that's mostly my impatience and procrastination. Just like I could never truly touch-type. But I totally get how Vim is excellent at what it does and hence why it's important. Not using the mouse and not having a lot of distraction are godsend when doing any work worth your time involving lots of text whether it's reading, or writing code, or a story. Also, I've kind of never even seen all those ancient gadgets you have named - I feel this based on my exp with computers (and starting with a Dell Vostro) since 2007.
edit: I've been getting slightl better at it by forcing myself to use VimFx on Firefox and cVim on Chrome and now I am planning to get IdeaVim for WebStorm and Android Studio.
Re: Helping a Million Developers Exit Vim
#400I 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.
In that case I'd just close the terminal window if I was running the terminal from a GUI session. Does that count?