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The vi family

lpar.ath0.com

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Re: The vi family

#111

Post by throawayonthe »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #104
be_erik wrote: post #4

The history and endurance of vi is impressive. I never thought I would be using the same editor today that I started using in the mid 90s because it was more l33t. The comments about LLM contributed code seems like a specific axe to grind that otherwise detracts from a nice history lesson.

Yes, it almost feels like inserting politics to an otherwise apolitical discussion. Just unnecessarily charges the discussion and makes one not want to engage with the article.

you keep using that word, 'apolitical', i do not think it means what you think it means

Re: The vi family

#112

Post by throawayonthe »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #43
grebc wrote: post #6

Interesting the history is varied for such a simple tool. I am but a lowly mouse/GUI user so rarely have to dwell in a shell, but I learnt the basics of vi in my 1st year of university and never forgotten. Gotten me out of many a pickle being able to reliably edit a file quickly.

Simple tool? Visual text editor is probably the most complicated piece of software in coreutils.

there's a visual editor in coreutils? i didn't realize

oh i guess there's GNU Readline, but that's not in coreutils i think

Re: The vi family

#113

Post by t43562 »

jmathai wrote: post #109
t43562 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He IS saying that. Vi is more efficient for him every hour every day because he has been able to learn it to the point where there is nearly zero effort in using it. To learn something else would be to throw away all that hardcoded memory and try to rebuild it.

Learning how to use a proper IDE is a change in workflow. I never made that switch. The muscle memory of 2 decades of using a software is under appreciated. For me, it is about preference for what to optimize for.

I have tried making that switch many times and lasted for a few months and then one day I find I've been back at the CLI for a week without noticing.

I love CLI tools that effectively give me the things an IDE would offer such as astgrep for refactoring for example. zoekt with a browser does pretty good indexed searches. fzf can be used to build up almost any useful way of selecting things that you can imagine. So the CLI becomes my IDE.

Re: The vi family

#114

Post by ulbu »

jmathai wrote: post #109
t43562 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He IS saying that. Vi is more efficient for him every hour every day because he has been able to learn it to the point where there is nearly zero effort in using it. To learn something else would be to throw away all that hardcoded memory and try to rebuild it.

Learning how to use a proper IDE is a change in workflow. I never made that switch. The muscle memory of 2 decades of using a software is under appreciated. For me, it is about preference for what to optimize for.

IDEs made the mistake of locking the user into desktop-traditional keybinding paradigm instead of using a more flexible one which would allow for implementation of both vim and desktop paradigms. (don’t respond with “well they have vim mode plugins”. no they don’t. they’re hacky and unreliable)

Re: The vi family

#115

Post by skydhash »

flaunf221 wrote: post #96
nananana9 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ancients did know it better. I sometimes try working without vim keybindings as it's a pain installing them everywhere. I usually give up the 3rd time I have to delete a function argument and can't dt, or select the body of a function and can't vi{. For everyone even somewhat decent at vim, having to hold right arrow until the cursor reaches the target is a humiliation ritual, and I genuinely feel second-hand emb…

The Ancients used HJKL instead of JKL: - which is where fingers rest with proper touch typing - simply because the ancients had keyboard with arrows drawn at HJKL. It's a copy-paste design.

My pinkies are not that strong to have to rely on the right one for navigation. I usually move my whole hand to press with the pinkies.

Re: The vi family

#116

Post by loloquwowndueo »

ulbu wrote: post #114
jmathai wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning how to use a proper IDE is a change in workflow. I never made that switch. The muscle memory of 2 decades of using a software is under appreciated. For me, it is about preference for what to optimize for.

IDEs made the mistake of locking the user into desktop-traditional keybinding paradigm instead of using a more flexible one which would allow for implementation of both vim and desktop paradigms. (don’t respond with “well they have vim mode plugins”. no they don’t. they’re hacky and unreliable)

My usual saying is that if all you wanted from vim was a few keybindings, you weren’t really using vim’s capabilities to any extent that matters anyway.

Re: The vi family

#117

Post by loloquwowndueo »

nineteen999 wrote: post #106
rockland wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue the musical instrument analogy, I already master the piano and I am happy with it solving my requirements. Learning the guitar will be a great undertaking, and provide me no new songs to play. Hence, I will stick to my piano.

That's actually funny, because I play both.

Show off :)

Re: The vi family

#119

Post by 40four »

I’ve been a long time vim user, and I honestly never really bought into the efficiency claims. That gets repeated over and over, but If you’re a slow typer then no editor can really make much of a difference, and development in reality is a lot of reading code and thinking about code when it comes down to it.

I’ve never used it because I thought it would make me some lightning fast super developer. I’ve always used it because it’s simply fun. It’s makes editing into this interesting sort of game. You start out with a simple set of skills from vimtutor, and inevitably brute force your cursor around the screen for a while. Little by little your movements become more complex and efficient, and the journey to figuring that out is fun and interesting.

It makes you think about typing in a totally different way. It makes it into a some kind of interesting game where your goal is to accomplish a task in the fewest keystrokes possible. That problem solving aspect scratches an itch inside my brain that has always kept me coming back. It’s just fun, and I don’t think that gets talked about enough

Re: The vi family

#120

Post by jgalt212 »

> wondering why so many people would choose to use a fifty year old text editor with a notoriously steep initial learning curve

The alternative is just as steep, if not steeper.

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