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Where Vim Came From

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Re: Where Vim Came From

#161

Post by Lio »

yoz-y wrote: post #140
Lio wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's always funny. I have the same reaction with IDE users who vocally disdain my use of Vim. Usually, I find they're copying and pasting with a mouse in a solitary window in the centre of the screen whilst boasting about syntax highlighting. :D Of course it's great to see someone who actually really does know any piece of software give a demo of how they use it. For Vim newbies I'd point people first to the Vimtut…

Why not both though? Both Qt Creator and Visual Studio code have quite good Vim Integration and their IDE features dwarf Vim with tons of plugins. I use all three for various purposes, but an IDE is a very useful things when working with languages that can take advantage of it.

Definitely. I can't see a reason not to if it works for you.

The few times I've tried IDE plugins they get the Vi/Vim basics right but usually fall down later.

The terminal means that I can almost always have consistent keyboard based workflow across platforms.

I like being close to the OS and use external tools for things like git, debugging, profiling, etc.

I'll supplement that with GUI tools when it suits me. E.g. for web work I'd use Chrome for it's debugger and profiler.

I really like that things like Language Server Protocol are offering IDE like features without being tied down to a particular GUI IDE.

There' more than one way to do it though so if GUI IDEs are what you prefer more power to you. GUI IDEs haven't been new technology since the 80/90s. They're just different.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

krylon wrote: post #153
raverbashing wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok let me be very honest here, let's look at both editors learning curves - vi/vim You need to learn to open a file, edit it, move around and exit and the edit/view mode. Everybody learns how to do it. At first it sucks but you can learn this in 5 min. Nothing too hard, and yes, do use the direction keys, it's not the 70s anymore. From there you can learn other things - Emacs You try reading anything about it, there'…

> use the direction keys, it's not the 70s anymore. In my experience, the fact that I can navigate a file without taking my hands off the home row far outweighs any disadvantages hjkl might have. With emacs, the big point is that you can do so many things in it that you never have to leave it; that also means once you have the keyboard shortcuts memorized, you can use them everywhere - besides editing text, emacs can…

> that also means once you have the keyboard shortcuts memorized, you can use them everywhere

That's half of the benefit.

The other half is, in Emacs things compose and interoperate. That fancy autocomplete plugin you just installed? It will work for suggesting e-mail addresses just as well as for suggesting function calls in code. Multiple cursors? Regex search-and-replace? Keyboard macros? They work everywhere, whether you're writing code, exploring the filesystem, composing e-mails or tweeting/tooting on Mastodon.

That's the reason many people, myself included, try to move as much of their workflow as possible into Emacs. The right thinking is this: Emacs is an application platform for everything that uses text (or can be made to use text), and has much better defaults and interoperability capabilities than your regular operating system.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#163

Post by krylon »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #57
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selection bias: the crowd on /r/linux is likely not representative.

Why not? Do Emacs users usually use other OS than Linux?

At work, I use Windows, and I use emacs all the time; it's among the first programs I start after logging in. On top of everything else, it has a builtin "shell" that is a reasonable approximation to a Unix shell.

(At home, I use GNU/Linux, though.)

Re: Where Vim Came From

#164

Post by keithnz »

copperx wrote: post #83
keithnz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amused me that the hex file was described as esoteric given how prolific they are in the embeded world.

That brought back memories. When I was a kid I liked to poke around executables in the MS-DOS world. Hex editors were limited in the sense that they wouldn't let me insert bytes into the file, just edit existing ones. Because I didn't have access to an disassembler or an assembler (they were sold at stores but they were too expensive for me), I wrote a simple program that would convert a binary file into a text file…

it's a bit more involved than just hex.... it specifies address ranges and data that goes into those address ranges + more

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HEX

Re: Where Vim Came From

#165

Post by TeMPOraL »

chr15p wrote: post #112
copperx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vim is attractive to many because it launches in a fraction of a second. This is especially important to sysadmins, who don't "live in a text editor." It's also quite popular to use vim without customization. I understand that some people have simple needs. I don't. The editor wars are over for me and Emacs has won.

Not just its launch time but its ubiquity, vi comes installed on pretty much every linux/unix machine no matter how minimal the install so if you are a sysadmin whose job involves jumping between machines a lot it makes far more sense to learn vi then install emacs everywhere. Its also the reason to use it without customization so you dont come to rely on a feature that isn't installed on that one machine with a crit…

That's true. In the eternal Vim vs. Emacs discussion, I found that preference is correlated to whether a particular person feels more like a ops/sysadmin, or more like a programmer. As you wrote, developers tend to work on a single machine, while sysadmins tend to jump between many machines.

I'm a developer, not a sysadmin, though I try to do most of my ops work via Tramp these days. I wish an actual sysadmin and Emacs user could chime in and say something about their workflow, and the problems they encounter.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#166

Post by TeMPOraL »

krylon wrote: post #158
cstross wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup time is a non-issue for both Vim and GNU Emacs on modern hardware. (It was not ever so: I remember first meeting Emacs under DOS on a 20MHz 386. It was not speedy.) Perhaps another underrated issue affecting relative uptake is keyboard layout. As the OP explained, Berkeley vi was originally developed on an ADM-3A tty, with no arrow keys and the "Esc" key where a modern keyboard would position the "Tab" key. I…

> every time I've tried to spend serious time in Emacs over the past 30 years on a PC or Mac keyboard, I've ended up with stabbing pains in my wrists within a week I used to think "emacs pinky" was a joke, but it is real. Eventually I learned how to re-map Caps Lock to be a Ctrl-key (I never used Caps Lock anyway), and Caps Lock is far more comfortable to reach with my pinky than either of the regular Ctrl-keys.

Yup. Remapping Caps Lock is kind of a shibboleth for Vim/Emacs users. Emacs users remap to CTRL; I hear Vim users remap to ESC.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#167

Post by raverbashing »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #160
raverbashing wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok let me be very honest here, let's look at both editors learning curves - vi/vim You need to learn to open a file, edit it, move around and exit and the edit/view mode. Everybody learns how to do it. At first it sucks but you can learn this in 5 min. Nothing too hard, and yes, do use the direction keys, it's not the 70s anymore. From there you can learn other things - Emacs You try reading anything about it, there'…

> Nothing too hard, and yes, do use the direction keys, it's not the 70s anymore. Yet another thing 70s got better than today's software. The defaults you're used to are a historical accident, and are also crap - that is, an impediment to productivity. > I tried opening the help of both programs (...) > Emacs? I'll copy-paste here (key bindings help) How on Earth did you get there? The very first thing in the Help me…

> The defaults you're used to are a historical accident, and are also crap

Agreed, that's why I use modern IDEs as well when vim gets in the way

> How on Earth did you get there?

f1 + ? then "describe bindings" which looks like the most relevant option

(I had opened a file with emacs first, I see the welcome page has more helpful guidance, but opening a file is usually what people do first)

> following a (somewhat) consistent set of UX principles that are older than IBM CUA

Sure, it's the same with vim, old standards

> a tool for serious users

Thanks for reinforcing my point that Emacs is more worried about gatekeeping people than being friendly

Re: Where Vim Came From

#168

Post by jhbadger »

I'm an Emacs user but I'm really surprised at the number of (presumably, as HN skews young) younger people here using vi or derivatives. Most younger people I know use neither vi nor emacs, using Sublime Text or an IDE or something, but vi seems much more alien to the modern worldview than Emacs, as it a modal editor, which has died out in all but vi-clones these days.

Re: Where Vim Came From

#169

Post by TeMPOraL »

raverbashing wrote: post #167
TeMPOraL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing too hard, and yes, do use the direction keys, it's not the 70s anymore. Yet another thing 70s got better than today's software. The defaults you're used to are a historical accident, and are also crap - that is, an impediment to productivity. > I tried opening the help of both programs (...) > Emacs? I'll copy-paste here (key bindings help) How on Earth did you get there? The very first thing in the Help me…

> The defaults you're used to are a historical accident, and are also crap Agreed, that's why I use modern IDEs as well when vim gets in the way > How on Earth did you get there? f1 + ? then "describe bindings" which looks like the most relevant option (I had opened a file with emacs first, I see the welcome page has more helpful guidance, but opening a file is usually what people do first) > following a (somewhat) c…

> Thanks for reinforcing my point that Emacs is more worried about gatekeeping people than being friendly

Any ideas how it could be better?

It has a built-in tutorial. It has thorough help. It welcomes you with instructions on getting help, as you noted yourself. There's plenty of guides and tutorials on-line, too. What else could it do to be more friendly, that would not involve sacrificing its productivity features?

Because it's not really gatekeeping - otherwise why would Emacs have so many, often annoying (myself included), evangelists? It's just about keeping the productivity ceiling high.

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