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Why I Still Use Vim

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Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#71

Post by svantana »

davesque wrote: post #8
lervag wrote: post #2

Last posted 133 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15079857 The title should be same as the blog post title: "Why I still use Vim".

You can also use properly designed IDE's written in native code. I use Vim too by the way.

Xcode is about as native as you can get (developed by the same company as the OS!), yet it becomes more sluggish with each new version. I think the real problem is product managers focusing too heavily on "shiny new features" and less on efficiency/stability, which is mystifying since these are all dev tools, after all.

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#72

Post by roryisok »

_pdp_ wrote: post #45

I am a fan of VIM but I find the whole discussion around Electron rather amusing - almost as if we need to justify our need for regular punishment by reinventing the wheel. It is fun to do things from scratch but it will not get you there fast. Yes, Electron apps are a bloat considering that each one of them brings its entire runtime like games, and you know that most games will exceed several Gs of disc space and me…

UWP apps can be written in HTML/JS. You can run local js / html in a webview in most platforms. React Native is pretty much just this. It's a shame there isn't a cross-platform framework using webviews and native frameworks.

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#73

Post by kccqzy »

sametmax wrote: post #41
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atom claims to have code folding, but (despite having syntax highlighting) the code folding function works naively off of indents, not syntax, so you're out of luck working on any codebase with less-than-meticulous indentation, zero-indent comments, etc. Unfortunately, IIRC, Sublime does exactly the same thing. It's really frustrating. I haven't been able to find a good all-purpose Mac programmer's editor with workin…

Unless you use Python and Saas. In which case indentation is always perfect.

Except for comments.

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#74

Post by krsdcbl »

Thx a lot for including sublime in the benchmarks - i gotta admit I switched from sublime to atom quite a while ago, knowing I'm trading performance for comfort with the large ecosystem around Atom.

But i still kept Sublime installed for handling large files, which would mostly horribly crash Atom or take ages to open.

Spending a lot of time designing it's quite some work to keep up with the technology I'm coding for already, so getting to know vim more in depth always felt a bit overwhelming. So the takeaway for me here is clearly to go back to Sublime, I didn't realize how dramatic the performance difference is in the end and am often feeling itchy waiting up for a lagging Atom on larger projects...

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#75

Post by kesor »

I like to be productive when writing code. That means a linter, and syntax highlighting, and maybe even Wallaby.js that runs tests immediately on file save and shows the results on the lines of the file.

Yes, there is a way to get all that using Vim. Install a bunch of plugins, like `alm` and syntax for stuff, and all of Tim Pope's amazing plugins, etc...

But then just moving the cursor in Vim becomes sluggish and slow. Sometimes hitting the `u` undo button might take 20 seconds or even a whole minute. That is not a fun experience.

The same thing with VS Code is immediate. In the rare occurrence that I want to jump to some weird place, I can move my hand to the mouse but in general, everything is accessible via keyboard shortcuts. The VIM-Mode of VS Code is almost perfect, the only gripe I have with it is that it cannot currently do proper block-mode copy-paste (but it does have block-mode! yey!)

So although I really want to love Vim and use it. The speed of VS Code is more important for me.

All those people who edit code without syntax highlighting, completion, typescript/flowtype popups, auto feedback from tests and lint, ... I just don't get how you can write code that way. It is silly to forego all this just because of a couple hundred megabytes of memory.

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#76

Post by Ndymium »

interfixus wrote: post #31

Look, Electron is a disaster. It's a lazy, bummed-out way of blasting sparrows with tactical nukes. I'm not sure I even understand the reasoning behind the thing. Yeah, fine, we want to do the web-thing in a desktop applikation. But then why a whole Chrome with a showroom of kitchen sinks? We can still run an html-stack without gobbling up every ressource in sight, you know. I'm looking at this HN page in latest Fire…

How would you implement a GUI app in Netsurf that according to their release plan has no support in the rendering engine for JavaScript dynamically changing the DOM? Not to mention the JS support being incomplete anyway even though they are only supporting old standards ("most of HTML 4 and CSS 2").

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#77

Post by scandox »

tangus wrote: post #43

Did he just basically copy Joe Allen's Text Editor Performance Comparison[1] (which is already somewhat obsolete) without attribution? Wow. 1: https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-p... ---- EDIT: I'm sorry, there's a mention at the end of the article. Either I didn't noticed it before or he added it after this comment.

I didn't see it first reading but I can't be 100% sure

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#78

Post by photonios »

kesor wrote: post #75

I like to be productive when writing code. That means a linter, and syntax highlighting, and maybe even Wallaby.js that runs tests immediately on file save and shows the results on the lines of the file. Yes, there is a way to get all that using Vim. Install a bunch of plugins, like `alm` and syntax for stuff, and all of Tim Pope's amazing plugins, etc... But then just moving the cursor in Vim becomes sluggish and sl…

I use (N)VIM. I only use small amount of plugins, which are mostly plugins to enhance syntax highlighting. I write code a lot so I know the linting rules from the top of my head. More often than not the linter won't complain, so I don't really need linting on the fly. For type checking, same thing, I most likely have to look at the code anyways.

I run the linter, type checker and tests in a separate terminal tab (with split views). So before I commit I quickly switch to that terminal tab, see whether everything is ok and I am good to go.

My VIM is blazing fast and barely uses any resources. It launches nearly instantly and rarely gets in my way.

Quite efficient for me personally. I am not saying it would work for you, I am merely showing the way I use it. It's a bit of a different approach. You're trying to use VIM as an IDE. For me, my entire terminal is the IDE, of which VIM is a small part.

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#79

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

Veen wrote: post #44
twblalock wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's shady about asking people to pay for content? It seems like it's pretty much out in the open so you can take it or leave it, not secret or covert or shady in any way.

Nothing is wrong with paying writers. But I do have a problem with the Medium bait-and-switch. They offered a great interface for writing and publishing content that is free, and then years later start charging for access to that content after millions of people have published articles.

Did you think that it would remain completely free (and ad-free, which was its major selling point) forever? I actually quite like what they're trying to do with their new business model.

Re: Why I Still Use Vim

#80

Post by executesorder66 »

pluma wrote: post #14

This article implies the differences matter. Nope, sorry, the conveniences of VSCode are worth the "cost" for me. I have 32 gigs of RAM and the time I spend opening files doesn't register compared to the time I spend writing or reading code. I do wonder whether the measurements take the base overhead of each editor into account. Do the numbers represent the use per file or the total for the file plus the entire app?

> worth the "cost" for me. I have 32 gigs of RAM

I can see this conversation in the future:

"I have 128TB of RAM"

"Why the hell do you need so much RAM, what's the point?"

"I use electron apps."

"Oh..."

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