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I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

evanhahn.com

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Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#12
post #4
post #2

Kudos for reading all those docs and sharing some nuggets. Does anyone else feel vim clumsy like the author? I'm trying to understand how one could accidentally lowercase a whole buffer, or trigger scary messages or open unrecognized menus. Not condescending, just curious. I find the q: thing relatable, but not the rest.

Uh to be perfectly honest for the past … 30 years I’ve ran with a buddies vimrc and really never took the time to understand it; it was perfectly good lol and to this day I could not recreate it if I lost it. > lowercase a whole buffer, Happens a lot to me actually! That and accidentally incrementing a numeric value haha..

maybe throw it in your friendly neighborhood LLM

Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#13
I rerun vimtutor from time to time, because I still don't remember every trick from it. I've recently tried to read the whole embedded "introductory documentation" on a train, learned a lot, but probably need to do it again. Setting every option in the .vimrc seems a nice exercise, will need to do it some time! I like to nuke my config from time to time anyway. (My experience with Vim is about 14 years I think.)

Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#14
> The feeling of true Vim fluency—one where every keystroke is exact, I never make mistakes, and I’m exploiting every obscure feature—is a fantasy, at least for me.

Perfection is not particularly attainable, or necessarily the point. Nor would it be that fun, I think? It's nice to have some aspect to improve upon. See this Casals quote:

> A reporter asked Casals, "You are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day?" He answered, "Because I think I'm making progress".

Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#15
post #8

"The feeling of true Vim fluency—one where every keystroke is exact, I never make mistakes, and I’m exploiting every obscure feature—is a fantasy, at least for me." - that's a wrong mindset. bash that jk hundred times and adapt when it becomes a nuisance

> that's a wrong mindset The very idea there is a 'right mindset' is weird to me.

OP didn't necessarily say that, they just said _that_ particular mindset is not it.

Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#16
post #2

Kudos for reading all those docs and sharing some nuggets. Does anyone else feel vim clumsy like the author? I'm trying to understand how one could accidentally lowercase a whole buffer, or trigger scary messages or open unrecognized menus. Not condescending, just curious. I find the q: thing relatable, but not the rest.

I miss keys sometimes, but if it makes bad edits (it doesn't always!), I just hit `u` to undo.

Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#17
post #11

> single keystroke could move the cursor halfway across the file to exactly the right spot. sorry what is this? exaggeration?

Nope! "G" moves the cursor to the end of the file. Very useful. Inferior editors have ctrl-end or alt-end, but with Vim, 90% of your lazy fingers stay on the home row!

Re: I set all 376 Vim options and I'm still a fool

#18
This feels like the "wrong" direction today with the advent of AI? Just seems like in the realm of "bending yourself to the tool vs bending the tool to yourself," it's the LATTER that's about to get a whole lot easier, if it isn't already.

So, sure, there are probably things you can learn, but e.g. I'm much more about "I think it should be THIS way so how do I make it do that."

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