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The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

johnwhiles.com

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Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#41

Post by blt »

jrm4 wrote: post #33

Ha, I'm like this but moreso because I don't strongly professionally program. (I teach IT in a presently not super-technical program, and get a pretty good bit of freedom and variance in what I do.) I feel the same way about vim that I do learning cursive; I honestly wish I could erase it from my brain because -- and it took a long time for me to figure this out -- it, for me, brings NO advantages. Now, what would be…

Why do you want to erase cursive from your brain? Or am I misunderstanding the analogy?

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#42

Post by dasil003 »

clircle wrote: post #11

I think vim users highly overestimate their productivity and just like the way using hotkeys feels.

As a long-time vim user I admit this is probably true compared to modern IDEs/editors in the majority of developer workflows today. On the other hand though, if I'm logging into random servers and manipulating any kind of text, especially over a low-bandwidth, high latency connection, I'll make a VSCode user look like a kindergartner who hasn't learn to hold a pencil yet.

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#43

Post by kartoshechka »

diarrhea wrote: post #38
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately my employer doesn't allow force-pushing :( Instead we resort to using jetbrains stuff.

Same at my place. I think it’s for compliance reasons, but it feels patronising. A bit like taking away the sharp tools so us dummies cannot hurt ourselves. Next, maybe No-Code GUI programming because a real language is too scary too?

golang almost accomplished to be non scary language, but the users have been fighting back

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#44

Post by submain »

I used VSCode for a good 5 years. Before that, it was intellij (and long before that, eclipse).

I have switched to neovim and have been using it for the last 5 years. I haven't had a desire to move back.

There's something about using the keyboard to seamlessly transition between tabs, buffers, terminals, and control window positions and sizes that makes me enter into a flow state a lot easier than other editors.

The only thing I truly miss about VSCode is how easy it is to set things up. In neovim it can be a PITA.

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#45

Post by mmh0000 »

I was a long, long-time Vim user from ~2005 to ~2020; I loved and still love Vim. But, man, it's a time-sink. Sure, I can edit fast, but I first need to spend an hour fixing some random thing that annoys me in my vimrc.

After pairing with many co-workers using vscode, I saw the light and had to switch. Then I discovered vscodevim[1], and now I have the best of both worlds! The ease-of-use and "it just works" of vscode, and the power of Vim when I need it.

[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vscodevi...

EDIT: Years of "fixes" I've had to figure out and add: https://doc.xn0.org/.vimrc

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#46

Post by mmh0000 »

sneak wrote: post #35
tkzed49 wrote: post #12

Why 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. 1: https://github.com/vscode-neovim/vscode-neovim

For me, a major reason is the pervasive spyware baked into VSCode. A lot of the code I write are things I would prefer Microsoft and the US military-industrial complex (of which MS is a big part) not have any data about.

Hello, and welcome to vscodium:

https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#47

Post by MarkusWandel »

acuozzo wrote: post #19
MarkusWandel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reside…

Well part of the "5% of a typical modern vi clone" capabilities is applying a regex over a range of lines, and judicious use of the "." command. Yes, that often replaces writing a script. But probably still not worth learning the editor for.

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#48

Post by mkehrt »

qwertyfoobar wrote: post #32
mkehrt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is a midelevel vimmer and has been using it for 20 years, that's probably true. But the muscle memory is there, and it's standard everywhere . I do get a lot of leverage out of macros and text objects, features which I'm sure have equivalents in IDEs and other editors, but I know how to use them in vim.

I don't think there are IDEs which are as scriptable as (neo)vim or emacs. Am I wrong?

Oh, I have no idea. I assume that they must have some features, but I really only use vim and vscode with vim bindings turned on.

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#49

Post by sodapopcan »

mmh0000 wrote: post #45

I was a long, long-time Vim user from ~2005 to ~2020; I loved and still love Vim. But, man, it's a time-sink. Sure, I can edit fast, but I first need to spend an hour fixing some random thing that annoys me in my vimrc. After pairing with many co-workers using vscode, I saw the light and had to switch. Then I discovered vscodevim[1], and now I have the best of both worlds! The ease-of-use and "it just works" of vscod…

> but I first need to spend an hour fixing some random thing that annoys me in my vimrc.

That's a not universal problem, of course. I barely touch my vimrc anymore. I've paired with vscoders a bunch and never saw any light ;)

Re: The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer

#50

Post by jack_pp »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #7
subjectsigma wrote: post #3

Long time on and off vim user. Stopped reading after the first obnoxious paragraph. Maybe mid-level vim users are lonely because they’re such jerks.

Yeah, you really don't _have_ to be insufferable. I use emacs and evil/vim mode, have done for years, and it's not like I bring it up all the time or whatever, or shame people for using vscode. It is just a tradeoff, like anything else. Using a niche tool means that those not in the niche are alienated, but those in the niche are drawn to you/familiar. Any time someone brings it up, I basically say "yeah, I use this…

I suggest people learn the basic movements and use whatever editor they want with the vim extension. To me that's best of both worlds and what I personally use
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