Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) "discover new functionality" is a "learn", not a "use". 2) Vim can have menus too if you want them, and a mouse to go with them... 3) I learn new things about vim all the time without reading the documentation. A massive community makes that quite easy.
>1) "discover new functionality" is a "learn", not a "use". I'm talking about application usability. When I say something is hard to "use" I roughly mean "how easy it is to pick up" and "how easy it is to use everyday". It's a sign of poor application design when you have to learn it instead of merely using it. After six years of regular vim use I still find myself constantly forgetting key shortcuts and which featur…
No, what this actually is a sign of is disingenuous arguing. I have conceded that vim is harder to learn. What I do not concede is that it is otherwise hard to use. You understand what I am saying, but being purposely difficult.
2) If vim's menus were to cover everything vim can do, then we would have ourselves a usability issue. That menu system would be absurdly deep (which is really just an argument in favor of vim if you think about it critically).
3) Blogs are not "technical documentation", which is what you said. Not to mention that any developer in the world should be able to use compat mode without reading anything. The rest of vim's feature set is large enough that it will require some type of research to uncover, no matter the presentation. Textmate can avoid this by having a dramatically smaller feature set.