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Coming Home to Vim

stevelosh.com

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Re: Coming Home to Vim

#61

Post by jdietrich »

stevelosh wrote: post #35
astrofinch wrote: post #31

After a few months of vim use, I did part of the vim tutorial using both vim and a click-and-type editor (gedit) and timed myself. Gedit was significantly faster. Can't say I understand you vim fanatics.

If you say why Gedit was faster perhaps us vim fanatics can help you understand us.

Apple discovered fairly early on that while using a keyboard shortcut seems faster, using the mouse is almost always quicker, even for very advanced users. The illusion stems from how we perceive time when performing the different tasks - we remember time spent searching for the correct target to click, but we forget time spent remembering the right incantation.

This paradox is one of the big reasons why I don't use Vi or EMACS - I think that the productivity gains are nowhere near as great as users make out, but the sense of mastery over such arcane tools is inherently satisfying to the kind of person that spends a lot of time in a text editor.

http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#62

Post by kemiller »

astrofinch wrote: post #31

After a few months of vim use, I did part of the vim tutorial using both vim and a click-and-type editor (gedit) and timed myself. Gedit was significantly faster. Can't say I understand you vim fanatics.

Few months of vim use is not really enough to see major benefits in raw speed. You have to get not just the basics but the advanced movement/replacement commands in your bones. A click-and-type editor will start you off fast and top out quickly.

You can also use vim as if it were TextEdit, mostly, and the gradually add the advanced features, as per wycats. Best of both worlds.

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#64

Post by mrud »

bricestacey wrote: post #59
astrofinch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I need to change a word. With Gedit, I double-click the word and retype it the right way. With Vim, I press j until I'm on the line where the word is, then I press w until I'm at the beginning of the word, then I press cw to change the word, retype it the right way, and press escape to go back to command mode. Triple-clicking in Gedit highlights a line. Triple-clicking and dragging highlights a contiguous g…

when I paste code in to a Vim document, the indentation gets all screwed up. Try :set paste :set nopaste :set invpaste :help paste

Use set pastetoggle= and press F11 to toggle the paste state.

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#65

Post by kemiller »

stevelosh wrote: post #51
astrofinch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I need to change a word. With Gedit, I double-click the word and retype it the right way. With Vim, I press j until I'm on the line where the word is, then I press w until I'm at the beginning of the word, then I press cw to change the word, retype it the right way, and press escape to go back to command mode. Triple-clicking in Gedit highlights a line. Triple-clicking and dragging highlights a contiguous g…

"With Vim, I press j until I'm on the line where the word is, then I press w until I'm at the beginning of the word, then I press cw to change the word, retype it the right way, and press escape to go back to command mode." OK, this is something Vim people need to work on. Using j/k to move more than one or two lines is the wrong way to do things. I know, I know, we extoll the virtues of hjkl constantly, but really t…

:set paste

Should help with indentation issues.

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#66

Post by njharman »

astrofinch wrote: post #47
stevelosh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say why Gedit was faster perhaps us vim fanatics can help you understand us.

Let's say I need to change a word. With Gedit, I double-click the word and retype it the right way. With Vim, I press j until I'm on the line where the word is, then I press w until I'm at the beginning of the word, then I press cw to change the word, retype it the right way, and press escape to go back to command mode. Triple-clicking in Gedit highlights a line. Triple-clicking and dragging highlights a contiguous g…

Reading your comment it is apparent you dont now "enough" vim. It has a long learning slope with many comfortable plateaus. You must be diciplined and interested in mastering your tools to push beyound these.

fyi,

:set paste :set nopaste

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#67

Post by njharman »

wccrawford wrote: post #14

I disagree with everything that he starts with 'I almost never do X so I...' But other than that, I think this is a great list of addons and I already use a few of them myself.

yeah i rely on replacing first pattern all the time!

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#68

Post by astrofinch »

jdietrich wrote: post #61
stevelosh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say why Gedit was faster perhaps us vim fanatics can help you understand us.

Apple discovered fairly early on that while using a keyboard shortcut seems faster, using the mouse is almost always quicker, even for very advanced users. The illusion stems from how we perceive time when performing the different tasks - we remember time spent searching for the correct target to click, but we forget time spent remembering the right incantation. This paradox is one of the big reasons why I don't use…

After reading that long ago, I timed myself doing keyword searches on a webpage using both cntrl-f and accessing search from the menu. cntrl-f was significantly faster.

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#69

Post by blasdel »

kevincolyar wrote: post #44
steve19 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kevincolyar account does nothing but spam HN with links to his application. I am sick of seeing him post spam each time a VIM article hits the homepage.

I'm just trying to get what I think is a useful application into the hands of the people who would find it useful. If you find that irritating, just keep scrolling by.

Try contributing to discussions instead of copy-pasting the same promotional tagline.

You could also make some effort to actually understand vi — your app doesn't take you out of insert mode! Using hjkl and ypu does not somehow make anything vi-like when there's no command mode, no compositionality, and a hotkey that breaks everything else. Seriously, chording‽ If you're going to chord for movement just use the built-in emacs bindings! Instead of ^hjkl it's ^bnpf, if you really want to do something as inane as use modified letters as arrow keys.

Why did you write your cargo-cult app at all? There's at least a half-dozen InputManagers that implement true vi command modes already, and while nobody actually uses them, at least their authors appear to have actually used a vi editor before!

Re: Coming Home to Vim

#70

Post by njharman »

I dont see the appeal of nerdtree and the like. For me they are clumsy and too much information.

I'm very adept at unix cmd line, find, ack, locate, CDPATH, cmd history, and friends. I spend 10-20% of my editing time at the bash prompt. So much so i aliased :e to vim

Having never got the "gui" file managemnet tools i cant say for certain but i wonder if power and productivity gains one sees from truly learning vim can be reproduced by truly learning cmd line.

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