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Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

karolis.koncevicius.lt

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Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#31

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

smoyer wrote: post #9
d10y3vh5 wrote: post #7

> This article describes my Vim journey, starting from heavy personal customization and ending with a renewed love for defaults this exact pattern is found in so many vi|m articles and is touted as a triumph of vim's default patterns, when it is really a failure of vim to support whole ranges of functionality. as a daily user of neovim, i know that vscode is a superior alternative and am waiting for a month off to tr…

This pattern is also seen in almost every enterprise application purchase I've seen over the last 10-15 years. The process is as follows: 1) RFP, RFQ then purchase your ideal enterprise application. 2) Start customizing it to meet your old way of working (and before you really understand it) while ignoring the fact that X's 10000 customers seem to do fine with the default configuration. 3) Complain that it won't real…

Then should vim be the only editor used in vim mode?

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#32

Post by inopinatus »

smoyer wrote: post #9
d10y3vh5 wrote: post #7

> This article describes my Vim journey, starting from heavy personal customization and ending with a renewed love for defaults this exact pattern is found in so many vi|m articles and is touted as a triumph of vim's default patterns, when it is really a failure of vim to support whole ranges of functionality. as a daily user of neovim, i know that vscode is a superior alternative and am waiting for a month off to tr…

This pattern is also seen in almost every enterprise application purchase I've seen over the last 10-15 years. The process is as follows: 1) RFP, RFQ then purchase your ideal enterprise application. 2) Start customizing it to meet your old way of working (and before you really understand it) while ignoring the fact that X's 10000 customers seem to do fine with the default configuration. 3) Complain that it won't real…

The corollary is: when shipping software, include working defaults.

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#33

Post by roland35 »

I have followed a similar vim path, although my vimrc file never was close to 1,000 lines long! I used to use many plugins though including nerdtree, airline, and surround. But in the end it was always difficult to maintain that setup long term.

I do try to add a few shortcuts to my .vimrc file though which is pretty minor:

- jk maps to escape

- oo and OO map to create a new line below/above but stay in normal mode

- leader \ to clear highlights

and that is about it!

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#34

Post by sharkjacobs »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #31
smoyer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pattern is also seen in almost every enterprise application purchase I've seen over the last 10-15 years. The process is as follows: 1) RFP, RFQ then purchase your ideal enterprise application. 2) Start customizing it to meet your old way of working (and before you really understand it) while ignoring the fact that X's 10000 customers seem to do fine with the default configuration. 3) Complain that it won't real…

Then should vim be the only editor used in vim mode?

Do you disagree in only this specific case or do you disagree in general and cite this specific case as being emblematic of why they're wrong? It's not clear to me what your point is.

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#35

Post by jclulow »

nextos wrote: post #29
dflock wrote: post #21

Chesterton's Fence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence

This should be cited whenever monstrous dotfiles are produced without understanding the reason for defaults. I often see Emacs newbies stealing hundreds of LOCs from different sites, only to end up with a lot of added complexity that is hard to understand let alone maintain. I imagine it's the same for Vim. Emacs defaults are quite usable. I've been using Emacs for 15 years and I'm only altering a dozen variables. Th…

Perhaps ironically this will result in longer dotfiles for all the people who were already happy with the existing default behaviour!

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#37

Post by dragonwriter »

smoyer wrote: post #9
d10y3vh5 wrote: post #7

> This article describes my Vim journey, starting from heavy personal customization and ending with a renewed love for defaults this exact pattern is found in so many vi|m articles and is touted as a triumph of vim's default patterns, when it is really a failure of vim to support whole ranges of functionality. as a daily user of neovim, i know that vscode is a superior alternative and am waiting for a month off to tr…

This pattern is also seen in almost every enterprise application purchase I've seen over the last 10-15 years. The process is as follows: 1) RFP, RFQ then purchase your ideal enterprise application. 2) Start customizing it to meet your old way of working (and before you really understand it) while ignoring the fact that X's 10000 customers seem to do fine with the default configuration. 3) Complain that it won't real…

> while ignoring the fact that X's 10000 customers seem to do fine with the default configuration.

Do they?

If you've seen the pattern you describe almost everywhere, and the key second steps (well, “customize out of the gate to fit your business processes”) are exactly what the vendor markets heavily, what makes you think there huge numbers of customers who are both not customizing and doing just fine?

I've seen and heard of a few cases where customers use software of that kind and minimize customization of the software and instead try to adapt their business processes to the software. And usually those are at least as much horror stories as any heavy customizers.

Really, as much as it's not in the vendor’s interests, big bang implementation of this kind of software that becomes immediately central to a wide array of business processes is probably a bad idea for the same reason that big bang software system replacements usually are, even when there is no existing software system being replaced. Incremental, iterative improvements to business processes and supporting tools are probably a better idea. But big-bang, notionally close-ended projects are more succinct “achievements” on manager/executive CVs resumes, and no one is courting buyers and giving out swag for continuous improvement.

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#38

Post by freshhawk »

I think everyone knows the rabbit hole problem that this kind of article is warning against. Especially for beginners.

But as a counter-example:

I've done most of those "types of vim porn" I guess, then moved to spacemacs, then my own custom emacs/evil setup. Always with some similar window manager and command line tweaking as well.

Probably spent a hundred hours on all this kind of thing easily, in a small number of big bursts.

Over 20 years.

During which time I've had a very comfortable, understandable, debuggable and pleasant dev environment that made development, testing, documenting, debugging and planning a thing I can just work on without really thinking about the tools. Switching between the files, the command line, the failed tests, the docs, the repls and the browser tabs as fast as my eyes move.

I don't need to break out that one efficiency-tradeoff XKCD either because while it was definitely mathematically worth it time-wise, there is no question the wins were happiness-wise and not-swearing-at-my-tools-wise (just the project code).

Learning to type was probably a better ROI, can't think of what else is in the ballpark though.

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#39

Post by kyleee »

ysavir wrote: post #22
simias wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find that vim defaults are very lackluster, I could spend all day listing its faults: - hjkl is not a reasonable default mapping for motion, for one it doesn't make it obvious that j is down and l is up since the keys are next to one another (which makes it a lot harder to memorise in the first place) but on top of that it wastes two very premium home row keys, h and l, for something that you really shouldn't…

I actually feel opposite on many of these things: > but on top of that it wastes two very premium home row keys, h and l, for something that you really shouldn't end up using a whole lot Even if with all the advanced search and move features, I still use the h and l keys pretty often. Being able to skip to a certain character is nice, but I find pretty often I just need to move a few characters forward or back, and a…

i remap space to the leader key, for me it's ideal. worth a try I say

Re: Porn, Zen, and .vimrc

#40

Post by thespoonbends »

nextos wrote: post #29
dflock wrote: post #21

Chesterton's Fence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence

This should be cited whenever monstrous dotfiles are produced without understanding the reason for defaults. I often see Emacs newbies stealing hundreds of LOCs from different sites, only to end up with a lot of added complexity that is hard to understand let alone maintain. I imagine it's the same for Vim. Emacs defaults are quite usable. I've been using Emacs for 15 years and I'm only altering a dozen variables. Th…

+1 to waiting a bit, incurring the inconvenience, and seeing whether you come across alternate solutions. Often the first thing I think of (customize, or install a new package; both of which incur maintenance costs) is just masking not understanding another aspect of Emacs.

Every few months, if I'm not 100% on the utility of a customization/package, I'll remove it and see if I survive without it.

This beats having to declare config bankruptcy.

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