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Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

andre.arko.net

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Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#2

Post by lutusp »

> Vim is the worst editor ... except all the other editors

Yes to the first five words, no to the rest. How many Vim users realize that some of its more infuriating behaviors can be traced back to its predecessor vi, which had to be able operate with a "paper terminal", essentially a roll of paper as a display, without wasting too much paper during editing?

And how do I know this? During my time at NASA designing part of the Space Shuttle, I was obliged to use vi and its immediate predecessor, with a roll of paper as a display. It was bad then, and it's worse now. The difference is there's no longer an excuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi#History

Quote: "vi was derived from a sequence of UNIX command line editors, starting with ed, which was a line editor designed to work well on teletypes ... "

Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#4

Post by bgar »

First of all, you have to dump Janus. It is bad for you. Learn to use stock Vim and gradually integrate plugins as needed. I recommend NeoBundle to manage them, as it is able to compile plugins if required.

I've been using vim for years and the only plugins I use are vim-airline[1] and vim-bufferline[2]. Of course, my editing needs may not be as complex as yours, but in reality most things you think you need a plugin for can be done with plain Vim. Feel free to check out my humble .vimrc[3] for some inspiration.

1: https://github.com/bling/vim-airline 2: https://github.com/bling/vim-bufferline 3: https://github.com/wolfcore/air-dotfiles/blob/master/.vimrc

Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#5

Post by chrismorgan »

lutusp wrote: post #2

> Vim is the worst editor ... except all the other editors Yes to the first five words, no to the rest. How many Vim users realize that some of its more infuriating behaviors can be traced back to its predecessor vi, which had to be able operate with a "paper terminal", essentially a roll of paper as a display, without wasting too much paper during editing? And how do I know this? During my time at NASA designing par…

I am curious: have you used Vim much in the past few years? (Determine for yourself what "few" means here.)

Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#6

Post by chrismorgan »

seren wrote: post #3

As a regular Vim user, I don't understand why some of these features, like Ctrl-P are not implemented natively in C, rather than to have to rely on Vimscript or Ruby plugin.

Writing things in Vimscript makes for easy and entirely reliable deployment. Ruby requires a +ruby build and Ruby to be installed, but at least avoids some of the warts of Vimscript, while still being as simple as "put it in and use it". (For myself, I'd prefer not to depend on Ruby, or even Python, though it's a much safer bet.) Any plugins in C require a compilation step before you can use it.

Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#7

Post by icambron »

Yes! With the exception of item #5 and #6, I really strongly agree with these items. Vim's automatic indenting, in particular, just seems systematically broken.

On 5, ctl-p works great for me. I have it set up to use git in choosing what to ignore and it's plenty fast. On 6, I probably just don't know any better.

Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#8

Post by icambron »

bgar wrote: post #4

First of all, you have to dump Janus. It is bad for you. Learn to use stock Vim and gradually integrate plugins as needed. I recommend NeoBundle to manage them, as it is able to compile plugins if required. I've been using vim for years and the only plugins I use are vim-airline[1] and vim-bufferline[2]. Of course, my editing needs may not be as complex as yours, but in reality most things you think you need a plugin…

That may well be good advice, but it doesn't really solve the other problems he's complaining about, right?

Re: Vim is the worst editor, except all the other editors

#9

Post by seren »

chrismorgan wrote: post #6
seren wrote: post #3

As a regular Vim user, I don't understand why some of these features, like Ctrl-P are not implemented natively in C, rather than to have to rely on Vimscript or Ruby plugin.

Writing things in Vimscript makes for easy and entirely reliable deployment. Ruby requires a +ruby build and Ruby to be installed, but at least avoids some of the warts of Vimscript, while still being as simple as "put it in and use it". (For myself, I'd prefer not to depend on Ruby, or even Python, though it's a much safer bet.) Any plugins in C require a compilation step before you can use it.

I was maybe unclear, but I was regretting that a fuzzy find for opening files was not part of the vim core. It seems to be a generic editor feature that could benefit everyone.
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