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Just Use Sublime Text

delvarworld.github.io

41–50 of 112 posts

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#41

I sort of, but very reluctantly, agree. I would add that modern VIm package systems like SPF13 make it much easier and more accessible, I'd suggest the author check that out instead of continuing to maintain that 700 like vimrc file. That having been said, I still end up fixing a lot of bugs that crop up even with my SPF13 setup (the bright side is I can now contribute those fixes back to a project so others don't ne…

> 1. Split management that is easy to work with. Command-K, Command-Up to do open a new vertical split pane in Sublime with the current file. Command-K, Command-Down to close the pane and move the file back, or just Option-Command-1 to switch everything back to a single column no matter how many were open.

I've used split management in Sublime. I can say with some certainty it is awkward to work with compared with VIm's. Perhaps that's partly because I'm used it it.

One pet peeve I have is that Sublime came with a VIm mode package but yet didn't implement the split behaviours for it. Also you can't "open in split" which is supported in multiple ways in VIm.

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#43

Refreshing to see this after all the Vim gospel programmers out there claiming it's benefits. I do have to say though, I've seen some videos of real Vim pros at work and it's -majestic- how swiftly they move through lines and duplicating lines, editing params, refactoring, etc - a thing of beauty akin to watching videos on /r/artisanvideos[0]. I'll stick to Sublime Text and Nano when I need some ssh terminal editing.…

I feel very bad for anyone that uses Nano for any kind of terminal editing. Not to mention there's a whole class of very serious developers that live in the terminal. Nano is the notepad.exe of *nix.

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#45
I think this article drastically overstates the learning curve. Also,

> It’s probably the most customizable editor ever

Emacs is way more customizable. Its help is also more accessible, its extension language awesome, its plugin ecosystem thriving.

"God willing Vim will one day have a non-Vimscript language we can use."

That day is today, and has been for years. VimScript is not the only way to extend vim. It supports scripting via Ruby, Python, and other languages, as long as you use a version built with this support.)

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#46
post #12
post #9

So, in a few thousand words, the author manages to give multiple reasons not to use Vim and not a single one to use Sublime Text, except this: > But Sublime has things Vim can never have. It’s the new hotness and has a more active community than Vim does. "Things Vim can never have"? Details please. "It's the new hotness"? Yeah, because I choose my software based on its hip factor rather than its suitability to do wh…

>It's the new hotness These people are the reason we are going to spend the next twenty years cleaning up after these two-week fad languages/frameworks.

Sublime Text is 6 years old. While not comparable to the age of vim or emacs, it's not exactly a "2 week fad" piece of software.

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#47
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, when it comes to navigating and manipulating a single document I can see vim's advantages, but having spend a few days recently trying to learn vim I didn't find any replacements for things like jumping to a file by name or recursive regex searching, things that I've come to rely on in Sublime. Feel free to point out if I missed them, but it seems based on my initial experience with vim that there's not…

Much of what you're looking for is provided by plugins (eg. command-T). There's no question that vim requires a lot of messing around with initially to get it configured the way you want it. But that rapidly fades away and it's not such a big investment of time for something as important as an editor.

I think there are two kinds of programmers, those that love tweakability and configurability and spend lots of time customizing and perfecting their setup, and those that just want to use stock software with as few modifications as possible. I'm in the latter camp.

I'd like my skills in using a piece of software to be transferrable - I'd like to know that if I'm using vim or whatever on my personal machine or on another machine with no customization, that the experience is the same between both. For the most part, Sublime provides that.

However, I'm willing to give vim another shot, do you have links to the plugins that you mentioned?

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#48
This article is very low on content yet appeals to those who really want an excuse not to learn something. "Oh, I don't need to feel bad about that time I gave up on learning Vim because of that random guy on the internet."

People end up becoming proficient in Vim because they enjoy using it, because it works for them. There are thousands of them.

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#49

I sort of, but very reluctantly, agree. I would add that modern VIm package systems like SPF13 make it much easier and more accessible, I'd suggest the author check that out instead of continuing to maintain that 700 like vimrc file. That having been said, I still end up fixing a lot of bugs that crop up even with my SPF13 setup (the bright side is I can now contribute those fixes back to a project so others don't ne…

I agree that the author seems to be missing some of the beauty of keyboard commands and navigation. Sure Sublime does some things vim can't, but you can do things in vim you certainly can't with mouse-only input. For instance, I use visual block mode dozens of times a day, which allows identical edits to be made to multiple lines simultaneously.

I do complex search and replace very frequently, and almost always on a particular group of lines. In vim that's as simple as typing `:{start},{end}s/{needle}/{replacement}/g`, but in a GUI I have to select the lines with the mouse, likely reselect since I didn't get exactly the right selection the first time, then find the control key to hit before I can even start thinking about my search terms.

I think it comes down to giving you the power to make the edits you will be doing frequently. I find it interesting the author spoke so much about autocomplete and autotab. It's probably just a matter of preference but I've always found that those features get in the way of effective coding. Every time I'm forced to use Visual Studio for something I feel like it's an unloved little kid that keeps piping up: "hey, hey I know what you want to do" but it's always sorely mistaken.

Let me replace on lines 6 through 437 of some text dump the leading curly brace with a function call to turn it into a code file and you'll win my heart, because those are the sorts of transformations that I want my editor helping with.

Re: Just Use Sublime Text

#50

Or just use vim in Sublime Text through vintage mode or the vintageous plugin. I use mouse navigation plenty when browsing code, but a mouse is never going to be as effective at routine tasks like changing text inside a matching bracket, switching case, etc., none of which require dealing with vim plugins. Sure, all those things can be done through an IDE like ST without vi bindings, but only by memorizing even stran…

I do this and it's really the best of both worlds.
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