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How Did Vim Become So Popular?

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Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#411

Post by verytrivial »

Lio wrote: post #217
licebmi__at__ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely, even now as I use emacs, I'm a 100% evil. It's just so natural (once you get it), that I don't know how other bindings (like ctrl-[whatever]) are prevalent in most other software, it's not like they are more memorable or intuitive. Fun story: I was into Free/Libre software as a teen, when I learnt how to move around in vi(m) and in my first tech gig (as a sysadmin), I was interviewed by some greybeard who…

(Funnily enough ctrl-[ is one of my most used shortcuts in vim. It’s a convenient alternative to escape if you map caps-lock to ctrl)

This is now my muscle memory escape key since an embarrassingly cheap Bluetooth keyboard of mine only allowed escape == home button on my Android devices.

Pro Tip: Park the flesh of your left palm near the left ctrl key and use that instead of your pinky for ctrl. I admit this feels a bit weird at first but avoids the need to lift your fingers from the home row. Super bonus: use ^H for backspace. Try it out!

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#412

Post by arcturus17 »

Lio wrote: post #341
arcturus17 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried getting vim to match my favorite features in VSCode / Jetbrains IDEs and almost went crazy. Rather simple things like code completion or syntax highlighting were already moderately complex to set up. The command palette present in both Jetbrains and VSCode also has thousands of actions easily searchable in plain language, the most simple of which can be replicated with vim (ex: open file) but many of which wo…

I'm not going to argue with your personal choice or that you should spend time configuring vim. I'll just point out that the things you've discussed are possible in Vim if you want them. E.g. live-templates (snippets) https://github.com/neoclide/coc-snippets and that if you don't want to spend the time configuring yourself projects like https://spacevim.org/ exist. Now there probably are some IDE features that vim ca…

The most important part of my point is not that I believe that they can’t be replicated, it’s that an IDE offers them with a time investment that’s nearly zero (I spend a couple hours per year fiddling with my IDE settings, tops).

I’d add that I am also quite doubtful that although they may be replicated, in many cases there aren’t going to be gotchas and UX problems not present in one of the popular IDEs. I can’t remember the specifics but I know that when I set up code completion in vim it wasn’t nearly as good as the one in my editor.

Never heard of spacevim but I have tried a few other “plug-and-play” vim adjutants like Pathogen and always ended up running into problems and spending more time on the issue than I had signed up for. Might solve some of the problems I mention, but I’m afraid it’s too late for me.

My IDE does everything I need and more, working out of the box on all machines I own (they’re not even that powerful) with fantastic UX and minimal fuss. I’m a Jetbrains guy so it costs me 6€/month but amortized per hour spent it might as well be free. If I wanted to save that nominal cost I’d go with VSCode, which I’ve worked with before and is nearly as good.

I’d turn this around and ask, why would I ever switch to pure vim?

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#413

Post by 0-_-0 »

488643689 wrote: post #410
squiggleblaz wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every editor allows you to interact with it as though it's Vim. But most editors don't allow you to interact with them as though they're any other editor. I think that's a point in Vim's favor? (I certainly don't use Vim for most of my coding. It's not good enough. But I do use Vi keybindings in VSCode, Visual Studio and PhpStorm depending on what language I'm using. I'm not particular enamored of VSCode eithe…

This. I just want hjkl and dd in every editor, but I don't use any other vim idiom often, and things like multiple cursors or alt+up/down move lines are the editor's fancy features I rely on most. (Sadly the VS Code vim plugin is broken all the time) But hjkl I need even in my webbrowser. (In Thunderbird I've send many mails to junk by accident.)

I use Autohotkey to map Caps+H to Left, etc. systemwide

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#414

Post by VectorLock »

axiom92 wrote: post #169
VectorLock wrote: post #144

Ever year or so I look at the nice sugar that things like VScode or other IDEs have and think "it has vim mode, those nice things would be good to have" - autocomplete, things like that. So I try the IDE and I get so tired of _in the way_ it gets that I just go back to vanilla Vim. Then I think "maybe I'll try these IDE like plugins for Vim" and get so frustrated by the Vim plugin system that its back to vanilla Vim…

I was wondering what language do you code in? I am a proficient Vim user but the more I use VScode for writing Python code, the harder it gets for me to justify using Vim for serious development.

Python mostly. VScode just seems to get in the way with a lot of things.

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#415

Post by VectorLock »

nepeckman wrote: post #175
VectorLock wrote: post #144

Ever year or so I look at the nice sugar that things like VScode or other IDEs have and think "it has vim mode, those nice things would be good to have" - autocomplete, things like that. So I try the IDE and I get so tired of _in the way_ it gets that I just go back to vanilla Vim. Then I think "maybe I'll try these IDE like plugins for Vim" and get so frustrated by the Vim plugin system that its back to vanilla Vim…

What I want so badly is real vim with an easy and expansive plugin system. I get by okay with neovim + Plug, but there's still more friction than I'd like. Bought the Oni2 early access because it looks promising, but its not quite there yet.

I'm deeply turned off by Oni2's pre-release increasing price model.

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#416

Post by antonvs »

me_me_me wrote: post #409
Bnshsysjab wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are many things that are not ideal I’ve never used vim, mind sharing what it’s weaknesses are?

Code browsing and inspection is somewhat hampered by the fact its CLI. I use ctags and macros to move around code but its not always perfect. But then again there are many things I dislike in modern IDEs, I don't think there is a ideal solution, just like there is no one language to solve all problems.

There are graphical versions of vim. Gvim is my main editor. It's a bit of a hybrid, since many things that would exploit the GUI in an IDE are still textual in vim. But it has quite a few benefits over pure command line.

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#417

Post by tralarpa »

me_me_me wrote: post #409
Bnshsysjab wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are many things that are not ideal I’ve never used vim, mind sharing what it’s weaknesses are?

Code browsing and inspection is somewhat hampered by the fact its CLI. I use ctags and macros to move around code but its not always perfect. But then again there are many things I dislike in modern IDEs, I don't think there is a ideal solution, just like there is no one language to solve all problems.

> Code browsing and inspection is somewhat hampered by the fact its CLI.

That's interesting because code browsing and inspection are by far the most important reason why I use a modern IDE. I tolerate all their weaknesses (slow, high memory consumption, errors after updates, etc.) because of this. I am surprised that somebody would say "I am using editor XYZ despite its weaknesses in code browsing and inspection".

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#418

Post by MFogleman »

deergomoo wrote: post #395
koonsolo wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is too bad. I'm a Vim user and combine the best of both worlds: vim plugin in VSCode. A few of my colleagues are vim users, and fortunately for the others we are not as vocal as you describe. I already accepted of being the weirdo that uses vim, because my programming skills make up for it ;). I do have a shortcut to disable it, when we do some pair programming.

> vim plugin in VSCode. How is that these days? I used it a couple of years ago but it had issues at the time, namely some performance problems and getting stuck in a particular mode. I ended up abandoning vim bindings because the JetBrains plugin was also buggy, and I straight up had no feasible way to get those bindings in Xcode, but I hold out hope for a glorious LSP-based future where I can just use vim and get a…

There are a few. I am using VSCodeVim[1] with the default settings (besides the typical `jj` command)

I love it, and using anything else feels weird. I remember having some problems with it before as well, but I haven't bothered looking at the settings or anything for months. I had to go back just now to see if I had any weird configs set up, (I don't)

[1]https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim.git

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#419

Post by CalChris »

greggyb wrote: post #104
CalChris wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice that ESC works but I also want : ex-mode to work as well. It's why I continue to use MacVim rather than Visual Studio Code. VSC's vim emulation is pretty good ... except for ex-mode and I use that a lot. So I go back to MacVim and stay there.

I've heard good things about a (maybe experimental?) feature to use neovim for VSC's ex-mode. Have you tried that?

I haven't but I will give that a try. Thanks.

MacVim is a bit clunky but I've gotten used to it. I tried to get YouCompleteMe to work with it but failed (the plugin interfaces are ... complicated). I can't get function name syntax highlighting to work to my satisfaction but still I've stuck with MacVim.

Maybe VimR (gui for neovim) or neovim + VSC will work. --- This works-ish. :s/this/that/ works but g/hello/p doesn't. But maybe it can. I'll investigate.

Re: How Did Vim Become So Popular?

#420

Post by cwxm »

generalk wrote: post #79
stragies wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, and then i discovered EVIL, the vi layer for emacs. The best of all worlds: Vim text manipulation grammar over the emacs engine.

I've used Emacs for many years, and recently switched to Spacemacs, a set of configs that kind of takes over Emacs and puts a great platform on top of it. I frequently describe Spacemacs as a better vim than vim. Don't get me wrong, I've used vim for ages; I'll never stop editing server config with vi, nor will I stop getting mad when vi is actually vi and not vim. But for a day to day code editor? Spacemacs is aston…

Have you taken a look at Doom Emacs? I liked Spacemacs, but I found Doom more performant, as well as not abstracting too much, which allows you to slowly learn Emacs as you go.
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