Ask HN: Is switching from VSCode to Vim worth it?

I probably started using vi in 1989. What I learned then I still use all the time.

On the other hand, I primarily program Android at work, and in 2009 Android recommended I use the Eclipse IDE, so I learned how to use that. Then starting around 2013, Android said they were shifting from Eclipse to Android Studio, so then I learned that. Android Studio has odd keyboard shortcuts - on a Linux (or Windows) box you jump to a line by hitting Control-G - on a Mac you hit Command-L.

The vi on my Mac and Linux seem fairly similar in terms of keyboard shortcuts and what I use now on both of them is what I used in 2013 and what I used in 1989 as well, and I have used it for a host of things. Whereas even in the specialty of Android programming, the recommended IDE switched some years back, and it has differences on different platforms.

I don't know. My take is, I learned Vim once, and I'll stick to it no matter what kind of text editing I do. Learning Vim is like learning to ride a bicycle. Once I've learned it I can ride a normal bicycle, a modified bicycle, a sports bike, one with a child seat in the back, doesn't matter. I can ride it in the US, in Europe or in China, it's portable and I only have to learn it once. I don't want to learn a mode of transportation that only works in France. I don't want my way of getting around to depend on a cloud service which may disappear, or a company which may stop supporting at some point in the future.

> Whenever I have to use VSCode (mainly for the live share feature, I find myself pretty lost with VSCode's tab based interface (I usually end up with like 20 tabs cluttering my workspace, and tabs are local to a split, which is jarring for me).

Yes, VSCode definitely has its own model similar to Vim's buffer/tab/window but that is somewhat unique to VSCode. There are some deep keyboard shortcuts that are similar, but quite different to Vim's, and I recall the VSCode Vim plugin tries its best to split the difference, somewhat.

Something I find very helpful with VSCode tab management in complex scenarios is the "Open Editors" pane. By default it is at the top of the Explorer panel. I think it defaults to minimized in fresh installs, though, but deep in the past it was the "only" tab management interface and a little bit more central to early VS Code workflows so some of us learned to rely on it early and others coming into VS Code fresh don't notice it at all. It's still one of the easiest places to do more complex tab and split management when the vertical tab bars are too cramped to be as useful as a horizontal list of opened tabs/splits.

Awesome! This will make my liveshare sessions so much more bearable. I also found a plugin[1] that enforces single editors per tabs.

[1]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=martybeg...

> it does exactly what i want it to

It's difficult to describe how incredibly valuable this is. Pretty much my entire software stack[1] is scriptable, which means I can sand every corner as soon as it becomes an issue. The impact to my productivity from reduced mental load is honestly incalculable, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't concentrate nearly as deeply on complex things without it.

[1] I've started scripting my browser to behave better too, but that's the main holdout at this pt