I think vim users highly overestimate their productivity and just like the way using hotkeys feels.
The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#12Why can't you use vim and VSCode? I use the neovim extension for VSCode[1] and it works great! That gets me real vim input and the VSCode extension ecosystem.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#13> excepting those poor, sad professionals who have to write languages that can only be written with a special, hyper-bloated text editor [1]. > 1. I'm talking about C# and Java I write Java in vim, and it's pretty usable. Coc.nvim and coc-java fix code completion. There are also plugins to make running tests, and the debugger usable too. I can't stand the start-up time of IntelliJ!
C# support in neovim is pretty solid, too. Omnisharp, Roslynator, Neotest, nvim-dap. Not much I feel I’m missing
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#14I developed the finger memory for vi when I first encountered it - in 1987! - on a Unix system on which there weren't any other fullscreen editors. Like with the Perl programming language, I probably understand about 5% of the capabilities of a modern vi implementation. But those are hardcoded into muscle memory for the rest of my life. ddp to swap a couple of lines or :e! to undo your edits and reload is fast when y…
So basically, learning vi was about the same as only having a stickshift car available and wanting to drive it. You learn what you need to learn. And once you get the muscle memory, you actually prefer it even though it's weird and kind of obsolete. I've had to give up on the stickshift, but I'm guessing vi will remain available indefinitely. What incentive for someone to learn vi now? Very little. So it goes.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#15I think vim users highly overestimate their productivity and just like the way using hotkeys feels.
It'd be interesting to do a comparison. But to your point, I don't think people use it as much for productivity gains as just the fun of it.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#16I think vim users highly overestimate their productivity and just like the way using hotkeys feels.
It'd be interesting to do a comparison. But to your point, I don't think people use it as much for productivity gains as just the fun of it.
Can confirm. I prefer using Vim because it makes writing stuff fun. Never thought I could ever write for fun.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#17I think vim users highly overestimate their productivity and just like the way using hotkeys feels.
I would classify myself as a vim power user and I agree with this take.
I think I'm probably equally as productive as a person that really knows their editor of choice. The productivity benefits mostly just come from knowing what things your editor is capable of.
However, I subjectively feel a twinge of frustration whenever I need to take my hands off the keyboard to reach for a mouse. So using vim makes a massive impact on my day to day wellbeing.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#18I think vim users highly overestimate their productivity and just like the way using hotkeys feels.
It'd be interesting to do a comparison. But to your point, I don't think people use it as much for productivity gains as just the fun of it.
I've worked with many productive people and the speed they write code at never was a big factor. The first thing you should optimize for is the speed you read code at, that makes a big difference, so look for tools or IDE's that helps you explore and read code faster. Debuggers, jump to reference, lookup usages of symbols and so on are all very important things to have.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#19I developed the finger memory for vi when I first encountered it - in 1987! - on a Unix system on which there weren't any other fullscreen editors. Like with the Perl programming language, I probably understand about 5% of the capabilities of a modern vi implementation. But those are hardcoded into muscle memory for the rest of my life. ddp to swap a couple of lines or :e! to undo your edits and reload is fast when y…
So basically, learning vi was about the same as only having a stickshift car available and wanting to drive it. You learn what you need to learn. And once you get the muscle memory, you actually prefer it even though it's weird and kind of obsolete. I've had to give up on the stickshift, but I'm guessing vi will remain available indefinitely. What incentive for someone to learn vi now? Very little. So it goes.
> What incentive for someone to learn vi now? Very little.
I've seen programmers on multiple occasions spend 30+ minutes writing a script to do what could otherwise be accomplished in less than thirty seconds with vi(m).
I often see HN users dismiss vi's approach to editing as if it were some kind of micro-optimization, but consider what impact writing the aforementioned script has on flow. It's worse than the resident office WaterCoolerGuy chewing your ear off for 30 minutes, IMO.
Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
#20Similar to the author, Telescope really got me to stop using the file tree and really begin to prefer neovim over vscode (well that and the amazing language server support).