Vim users: stop using hjkl

I've been a VIM hater for years but I'm really enjoying it recently.

Mouse works, scroll wheel, arrow keys work even in terminal.

It's really about switching files, navigating by class/definition, and 0 latency GUIs. ZERO. No excuse for having to wait for your computer when you are just editing text files.

Sublime Text is pretty fast but still I'm often waiting for it to build a new tab or format search results. Eclipse is unusable.

More importantly, why don't we have eye tracking so we can just look and start typing ? Maybe leap motion can get us there.

There's a difference between "more efficient" and "easier to learn". You're advocating the latter. This is not a good thing.

For example, moving around by using the search feature (at least a well-designed incremental search like Vim or Emacs) is more efficient for longer distance moves (e.g. more than a couple of lines)--it's faster and, more importantly, takes less thought and context switching.

When you have to move to a distinct part of your text file, chances are you know what the content there is. With a command like /, you directly turn that knowledge into efficient movement. With the arrow keys, you have to leave the home row and do a bunch of movements to get where you're going. You have to figure out how to turn the word you want to go to into a bunch of arrow actions. It's even more difficult of your target is off-screen.

Ultimately, a rich set of movement commands you can access without moving your hand is going to be more efficient than using the standard arrow keys. This is particularly true for somewhat semantic commands like moving by block or expression or moving to a word (the command in question here).

Ideally, you want to move around faster with less context switching. Keyboard-oriented editors like Vim and Emacs are much better at this than any other editor I've seen, as long as you learned how to use them properly. This really makes the learning curve more than with it.

I did remap the keys at first but found that the hjkl layout for dvorak is not at all uncomfortable. I frequently jump between disparate *nix systems, and for most part use the canned nvi in preference to vim. I try to do most of my work with as generic a vi keyset as possible. Multiple screens, etc, are handled with tmux (or with screen if its the only thing available). Dvorak is defaulted on my local workstation, and as I connect through a terminal emulator, the host unix box does not know or need to know that I run dvorak or have my terminal set to amber and black, etc. In short, I try to make myself comfortable while avoiding tinkering whenever possible.

I can assure you Vim is not making a MILLISECOND difference.

Vim is making a 5 seconds difference on every edit. Each edit can be defined as commenting out blocks of code, insert/delete text, or moving blocks of code. If your IDE provides convenient key combo to do these tasks, then great, you have no reason to use Vim. But as soon as you reach for your mouse, you just wasted 1 seconds. Dragging your mouse to select the text you want to change takes another 5 to 10 seconds.

> Oh, yes, and 100% of your time is spent coding. You don't lookup documentation and you don't do any file management at all.

Documentation lookup is much faster through terminal :) Man page is easier to navigate than JavaDoc because of that no mouse needed.

File management is easier and faster through terminal. Think about the process that you move/copy file in GUI. 1) You open one Window, then navigate through folder tree with mouse double clicks; 2) You issue a copy command to the file you want to copy/move; 3) You mouse click to destination folder then paste it. Terminal based file management is just `cp /source/folder/autocompleted/with/tab/key /destination/folder`

I think the true argument here is not Vim or not Vim. It's about mouse or no mouse.

"imagine eliminating both the indicator, and the modes"

I was using modeless editors all my life; I was working with Zend Studio and Komodo IDE which are definitely modern editors. Yet I chose to have modes and switched to VIM. In other words I have no problem with imagining editors you talk about, I just don't like them.

"When I wrote Apple Writer in 1978 ..."

That's a funny thing, because VIM appeared in 1993 and only really became what it is now around 2006. Whatever you did deprecate, it was not VIM.

With all due respect, you seem to know next to nothing about modern VIM. You didn't use it, right? I am using it every day and I can compare it with several other editors and I can assure you that VIM offers nearly everything other editors do inside the insert mode - you can work never leaving it, then it's like it was modeless - and that normal mode is an additional feature that accomplishes things not possible in other editors at all.

Anyway, I'm alright with you convincing people not to use vi. It's archaic and cumbersome, has many missing features and so on. On the other hand, please stop bashing modes - it's ok that you don't like them, but that's your personal choice - and stop including VIM in your rants.