Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learn Vim (2021)

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 215 posts

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#151

Post by dmitriid »

btschaegg wrote: post #132
cod1r wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like at a certain point of efficiency there are diminishing returns. A good analogy is typing speed. You don't need to have 200 wpm to be productive. Everybody adapts to how efficient they need to be at what they do. Vim is not a requirement for being productive. If it was, it would be the most popular editor. I also don't think the person you are replying to is saying that it isn't important to "master" your…

I'm in two minds about this. Yes, wpm aren't everything (see the other discussion in this thread) and the same goes for the full range of your editor's functionality. On the other hand, tools like Vim, Kakoune and Helix shouldn't be treated like your average Java IDE, for example, which shifts the line of what I'd say is reasonable learning investment. What you're dealing with there is a programming language for text…

> would involve 10 minutes of drudge work in their simplistic editors, instead opting for "deploy & pray" when the task was totally doable in a couple of seconds with a Vim macro.

I really very much doubt this. Sounds like an application of rose-tinted glasses and wishful thinking to some one-off task that then is extrapolated to all tasks.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#152

Post by dxdm »

aquariusDue wrote: post #123
zamnos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to hit 200 wpm but I haven't seen too many programmers who hunt-and-pecks at the keyboard and can't touch type. Even on a Qwerty keyboard you should be able to get high double digits, if not hit/exceed 100 wpm. The two sites I like for practice are: https://monkeytype.com/ https://play.typeracer.com/

Typing fast for sport is fun, that I understand. But it's really weird (to me at least) how most developers say that measuring lines of code as a performance metric is an awful idea, and then there are others that more or less kinda shame people for not being good or great typists. Am I crazy? Isn't it conflicting? Maybe those two groups don't overlap at all? Then do great typists believe measuring lines of code to b…

> that measuring lines of code as a performance metric is an awful idea, and then there are others that more or less kinda shame people for not being good or great typists

I'm not on board with shaming people, nor do I think that lightning speed typing is needed. However, one I want to type my lines of code, no matter how few they might be, it's about translating thoughts into code as easily as possible. It helps not having to bother with the details of typing, but the typing more or less taking care of itself. Keeps the zone and the focus on the code, and not on the keys.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#153

Post by mo_42 »

I have been using Vim for about 15 years now. I'm not really opinionated about Vim, Emacs, or any other IDE. There are many great tools out there. Also Vim emulators are really powerful in IDEs.

There's however one thing I don't hear very often: Vim is not a text editor with "powerful" features such as useful keybindings. It's more a language for editing text. As with programming languages your ability increases super-linearly as you learn to compose keys.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#154

Post by blackbear_ »

scotty79 wrote: post #140
archarios wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VS Code with vim keybindings is extremely popular. If you don't know how to use vim, you just don't realize how much of a time/effort saver it is. I can't imagine not having wrist pain if I had to use the mouse every time I wanted to move my cursor around for more than a few characters/lines. Trying to not use vim feels like going back to the stone age whenever I can't use it. I like to use vim bindings even when I'm…

Ctrl+G + line number Ctrl+F + what you are looking for PgUp PgDown plus visual scan Home, End, arrows (plus potentially control) for pinpointing the exact spot. Shift for block marking. Ctrl+C (or X), Ctrl+V for moving stuff around. No reason to touch mouse or learn cryptic shortcuts.

Only after learning vim you realize how clumsy and slow this is.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#155

Post by pessimizer »

imiric wrote: post #95
pugworthy wrote: post #77

It's kind of weird to read about "learning" VIM, at least from someone who's been using it (er VI) for 40 years. It's nuts, but if asked, I don't even know how to do certain things in VI; I just do them. Ask me what keys to press to go up, or down, or right or left? I dunno - I just do it. Yea it's nuts. It's like baby duckling bonding - the first editor mindset (aka EMACS vs VI) you use, you just bond to and it just…

Slight tangent, but what's with the capitalization of VI and VIM? You surely know those are not acronyms, yet I've seen VIM miscapitalized many times, even by experienced users, and it's always slightly irritating. EMACS, while historically accurate, also isn't common anymore.

If you're old enough, you may have started using it on a terminal that was all-caps.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#156

Post by btschaegg »

dmitriid wrote: post #151
btschaegg wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in two minds about this. Yes, wpm aren't everything (see the other discussion in this thread) and the same goes for the full range of your editor's functionality. On the other hand, tools like Vim, Kakoune and Helix shouldn't be treated like your average Java IDE, for example, which shifts the line of what I'd say is reasonable learning investment. What you're dealing with there is a programming language for text…

> would involve 10 minutes of drudge work in their simplistic editors, instead opting for "deploy & pray" when the task was totally doable in a couple of seconds with a Vim macro. I really very much doubt this. Sounds like an application of rose-tinted glasses and wishful thinking to some one-off task that then is extrapolated to all tasks.

Hey, I didn't say I do this every day. But I've had enough of these conversations that I can assure you that this low a bar is needed for some people to skip important jobs. If your doubt applies to the usefulness of knowing the system, I don't really know what to tell you -- if you can't take someone's word for it, I don't think anything less than you experiencing it yourself would convince you, anyway.

As for one-off tasks: Yes, that's what Vim bindings are good for. Just like AWK-Scripts are great for throw-away scripts. Being able to perform simple one-off tasks quickly is, incidentally, a skill I find to be far too rare even in programmers. I mean, I would've thought at least us techies see the benefit in knowing how to teach the computer to do the menial tasks for us.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#157

Post by tmdh »

I really want to use vim, but I can't because it's laggy whenever I try to use a premade setup like AstroNvim. I don't want to learn how to setup my vim enviroment. I want a VSCode-like experience in vim, out-of-the-box. I have used Helix for some time, but it has it's annoyances.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#158

Post by HAL9000Ti »

zamnos wrote: post #115
cod1r wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like at a certain point of efficiency there are diminishing returns. A good analogy is typing speed. You don't need to have 200 wpm to be productive. Everybody adapts to how efficient they need to be at what they do. Vim is not a requirement for being productive. If it was, it would be the most popular editor. I also don't think the person you are replying to is saying that it isn't important to "master" your…

You don't need to hit 200 wpm but I haven't seen too many programmers who hunt-and-pecks at the keyboard and can't touch type. Even on a Qwerty keyboard you should be able to get high double digits, if not hit/exceed 100 wpm. The two sites I like for practice are: https://monkeytype.com/ https://play.typeracer.com/

What do you think Linus Torvalds' typing speed is? https://youtu.be/S5S9LIT-hdc?t=3

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#159

Post by kamikazechaser »

HAL9000Ti wrote: post #158
zamnos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to hit 200 wpm but I haven't seen too many programmers who hunt-and-pecks at the keyboard and can't touch type. Even on a Qwerty keyboard you should be able to get high double digits, if not hit/exceed 100 wpm. The two sites I like for practice are: https://monkeytype.com/ https://play.typeracer.com/

What do you think Linus Torvalds' typing speed is? https://youtu.be/S5S9LIT-hdc?t=3

Low 50 if we go by the video.

He might obviously be in the 80+ range irl.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#160

Post by BeFlatXIII »

archarios wrote: post #110
croh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about only Vim as editor but Vim as keybindings too. Nowdays, most of all modern IDEs support Vim keybindings along well integrated IDE features.

Even a lot of web-based IDE type things have VIM bindings available!

…and Mac OS X has Emacs-like bindings. We live in a world of abundance.
Post reply on HN