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Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

viemu.com

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Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#71

Post by drothlis »

Riesling wrote: post #45

Whenever I am using a program other than vim I feel clumsy. Plugins for Eclipse, Chrome and so on will only bring you so far. The other way around, namely turning vim into a multipurpose IDE does not satisfy my needs. One needs to admit that some features (refactoring support in Eclipse for example) cannot be matched by the available vim plugins. I know there are other solutions, like eclim, but I am looking for some…

You didn't specify an operating system, but for OS X there's KeyRemap4MacBook[1]. Among a zillion other things, it has a setting for "Ubiquitous Vim Bindings" which enables vi-like bindings everywhere, except in terminals, emacs, and vi itself. And some things like password dialog boxes default to insert mode.

I'm not a vi person myself so I can't comment on how effective it is, but I do use KeyRemap4MacBook to enable certain system-wide emacs/readline-like keybindings that are missing (C-w for backward-kill-word, C-m for return) and some ergonomic tweaks (Return key mapped to Control when held down, because I don't have a right-hand Control key on my keyboard).

[1] http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#72

Post by tomjen3 »

drblast wrote: post #19

Don't ever start using vi. After you do, any text editor that you are forced to use that doesn't have vi key bindings will give you fits and make you cry. Learning vi is your standard process of enlightenment and elation followed by a lifetime of disappointment. Think about how you'd feel if you ate the best meal of your life at age 13, and the restaurant where you ate it went out of business the next day. You'll be…

But vi has been ported to just about anything, so why wouldn't you use it?

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#73

Post by pyre »

funkah wrote: post #59

> The first time you stumble into vi or vim, you are shocked and disgusted that you have to use 'i' to start typing text. Can't remember which of hjkl moves in which direction. And you need to press 'a' if you want to insert after the last character of the line. Since you're already probably used to other editors, and if the arrow keys work in insert mode (they do if the system is configured properly, which is over 9…

  > All of this, except the 20 minutes part. I'd hate
  > to have to spend that much time with one of these
  > "enlightened" editors.
Did you have this same resistance to learning when you learned the languages you are presumably programming in?

"I'd hate to have to spend 20 minutes with Ruby, just let me describe my program in 'real' language please."

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#74

Post by tomjen3 »

kstenerud wrote: post #69

I've never really felt comfortable in vi. I first started using it in 1989 at home, used it throughout college, and then used it on-and-off during my career, but it's never really felt powerful compared to a GUI editor. I want a scrollbar. I want a list of files in my project that I can just click on to open. I want tabs I can click. I want multiple windows that I can alt-tab to. And since I spend most of my time thi…

It is very nice to have a tab for each of your files.

Until you have twenty files open and you can't find the right one (will happen sooner than you think, at least on largeish projects).

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#75

Post by andrewvc »

drblast wrote: post #19

Don't ever start using vi. After you do, any text editor that you are forced to use that doesn't have vi key bindings will give you fits and make you cry. Learning vi is your standard process of enlightenment and elation followed by a lifetime of disappointment. Think about how you'd feel if you ate the best meal of your life at age 13, and the restaurant where you ate it went out of business the next day. You'll be…

I just switched from ViM to emacs (mostly for SLIME) after about 6 years of ViM usage, it wasn't a big deal at all, both are great.

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#76

Post by metaobject »

drblast wrote: post #19

Don't ever start using vi. After you do, any text editor that you are forced to use that doesn't have vi key bindings will give you fits and make you cry. Learning vi is your standard process of enlightenment and elation followed by a lifetime of disappointment. Think about how you'd feel if you ate the best meal of your life at age 13, and the restaurant where you ate it went out of business the next day. You'll be…

Don't ever start using emacs. After you do, any text editor that you are forced to use that doesn't have emacs key bindings will give you fits and make you cry.

Learning emacs is your standard process of enlightenment and elation followed by a lifetime of disappointment. Think about how you'd feel if you ate the best meal of your life at age 13, and the restaurant where you ate it went out of business the next day.

You'll be frustrated by all other software. You'll wander around trying to explain to other people why the thing you had was so good, and it was so easy, and that nothing else compares, and wouldn't it be great if everyone did things this way.

You have been warned.

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#77

Post by Riesling »

drothlis wrote: post #71
Riesling wrote: post #45

Whenever I am using a program other than vim I feel clumsy. Plugins for Eclipse, Chrome and so on will only bring you so far. The other way around, namely turning vim into a multipurpose IDE does not satisfy my needs. One needs to admit that some features (refactoring support in Eclipse for example) cannot be matched by the available vim plugins. I know there are other solutions, like eclim, but I am looking for some…

You didn't specify an operating system, but for OS X there's KeyRemap4MacBook[1]. Among a zillion other things, it has a setting for "Ubiquitous Vim Bindings" which enables vi-like bindings everywhere, except in terminals, emacs, and vi itself. And some things like password dialog boxes default to insert mode. I'm not a vi person myself so I can't comment on how effective it is, but I do use KeyRemap4MacBook to enabl…

I am using Linux right now.

I realize that the process of intercepting keystrokes is really OS specific. On windows you need to use hooks, on linux you need to deal with x.

Anyhow, thanks for the link. Since it is open source, I will look into it.

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#78

Post by herge »

kstenerud wrote: post #69

I've never really felt comfortable in vi. I first started using it in 1989 at home, used it throughout college, and then used it on-and-off during my career, but it's never really felt powerful compared to a GUI editor. I want a scrollbar. I want a list of files in my project that I can just click on to open. I want tabs I can click. I want multiple windows that I can alt-tab to. And since I spend most of my time thi…

If anyone is looking for tabs in vi, try out the (you'll never guess) tab feature in vi http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/tabpage.html . What is great is that text completion (ctrl-p) works across tabs, so if you are using a library, open it up in a tab and you can ctrl-p away.

For extra points, learn to use hjkl and map your arrow keys to switch tabs.

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#79

Post by aiscott »

jng wrote: post #48
electrichead wrote: post #39

I know this will be an unpopular comment, but my whole problem with it is actually the attitude of those that use it. After reading the article, I was really impressed and imagining all the ways it could help me after what, 8 years of coding into an IDE; and then I got to this: "Do whatever you want. Don't learn it if you feel it's too much effort just for nothing. Learn emacs instead. Or stay in your IDE using a lou…

I'm the author of the article. Yes, the ending is anticlimatic, but the only reason is that I didn't want to "push" it on people. I just wanted to share my views. I thought many people would complain of fanboyism if I finished with a push to use it. I guess you just can't please everyone.

I believe the GP was referring to the condescending tone.

Re: Why, oh why, do those nutheads use vi?

#80

Post by zrail »

agentultra wrote: post #33

I used vim for about 9 or 10 years before I switched to emacs. From my perspective people use vim because they haven't tried emacs yet (I kid!). I still have the muscle memory for vi and that's what these sorts of editors rely on to be effective with them. Once you get enough practice the editor practically disappears and it becomes more about the text on the screen... almost like you are manipulating it directly wit…

Augh the muscle memory! I used vim for five years in and out of college and then switched to emacs for the cool things you can do with SQLi-mode and shell-mode. Once in a great while I have to edit something on a machine I can't TRAMP to and I use vim, and then my fingers are completely shot for about an hour because they keep trying to type esc :wq instead of C-x C-s.
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