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The problem with vim

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Re: The problem with vim

#51

Post by asdasf »

gexla wrote: post #50

I have found Evil to be the best emulator that I have tried. But even then, I wonder, why try to emulate Vim? Why not just use Vim? And Vim is more than they keys. It's the whole ecosystem of plugins which come together to be the Vim way. There really is no replacement.

I'm a 15+ year vi user, and I can't stand vim. Everything about it is clunky and cludgy and nothing ever quite works nicely. I really want more features than vi has, but I can't live without vi input. So vi-mode plugins for various editors/IDEs are really my only option.

Re: The problem with vim

#52

Post by jacobparker »

asdasf wrote: post #51
gexla wrote: post #50

I have found Evil to be the best emulator that I have tried. But even then, I wonder, why try to emulate Vim? Why not just use Vim? And Vim is more than they keys. It's the whole ecosystem of plugins which come together to be the Vim way. There really is no replacement.

I'm a 15+ year vi user, and I can't stand vim. Everything about it is clunky and cludgy and nothing ever quite works nicely. I really want more features than vi has, but I can't live without vi input. So vi-mode plugins for various editors/IDEs are really my only option.

As a vim-but-never-vi user I'm interested in hearing more about what you consider to be clunky/cludgy/not working quite nicely.

Re: The problem with vim

#53

Post by catnaroek »

For me, it was the other way around: I started as a vim user, but, once I started using Emacs, I could never look back. Proof General (http://proofgeneral.inf.ed.ac.uk/) is, put it simply, the best environment for certified software development with theorem provers. And, even when using more mundane languages like Haskell, having the REPL (ghci) running within the text editor if very useful when one is lost in type land.

Re: The problem with vim

#54

Post by tsm »

niuzeta wrote: post #44

Personally, this is why I limit my usage with vim with the core vim(to me it means vim-as-out-of-package-or-gvim-package), my customimzed .vimrc, and highlighting plugin. The original vim alone is more than enough to satisfy my needs, and it's compatible with virtually every machine that I'll be using after all. I can venture on plugins for more convenience, but I already have an ample satisfaction and I would rather…

If you use Firefox, I recommend the It's All Text! plugin, which opens $EDITOR in a new window and seamlessly transfers its contents into the textfield you care about.

I think a Chrome version is in the works, but there's nothing releasable yet.

Re: The problem with vim

#55

Post by PaulHoule »

I switched from emacs to vim a few years ago.

One of them is that vim is actually closer to a windows/mac style editor than emacs is. You can navigate with the arrow keys, you just need keep track of being in insert mode or not. The things that are different are sufficiently different that you won't cross them up. Back in the emacs days I was always typing ^X^S into word or typing ^S in emacs when I want to save.

Re: The problem with vim

#56

Post by fixnum42 »

Recently I was studying Programming Languages Theory with Racket (using this book - http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/) and I didn't like DrRacket. So I decided to use Racket with Vim, but the only way could do it was through GNU Screen and Slime plugin for Vim. It works, but it takes several seconds for expressions to travel from Vim to GNU Screen and it is quite inconvenient. Furthermore, I don't have invocation history in the REPL, so if I mistype function name, I'd have to type it all over again. Does anyone know of a better option for Racket with Vim? How do you use interpreted languages with Vim?

Re: The problem with vim

#57

Post by catnaroek »

PaulHoule wrote: post #55

I switched from emacs to vim a few years ago. One of them is that vim is actually closer to a windows/mac style editor than emacs is. You can navigate with the arrow keys, you just need keep track of being in insert mode or not. The things that are different are sufficiently different that you won't cross them up. Back in the emacs days I was always typing ^X^S into word or typing ^S in emacs when I want to save.

You can navigate Emacs with the arrow keys, too. (But C-v and M-v are much more pleasant to use.)

Re: The problem with vim

#58

Post by asdasf »

jacobparker wrote: post #52
asdasf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 15+ year vi user, and I can't stand vim. Everything about it is clunky and cludgy and nothing ever quite works nicely. I really want more features than vi has, but I can't live without vi input. So vi-mode plugins for various editors/IDEs are really my only option.

As a vim-but-never-vi user I'm interested in hearing more about what you consider to be clunky/cludgy/not working quite nicely.

All the extra stuff that makes vim more than just a vi clone. Everything from built in stuff like the auto-completion to plugins like syntastic. Everything technically works, but never nicely and I always end up frustrated with the warts and just go back to plain vi. I should give emacs a shot, I've heard evil is supposed to be a better vi than vim.

Re: The problem with vim

#59

Post by seren »

cardamomo wrote: post #37

I remarked to a friend a couple months ago--right when I started to feel about the same way as the author of this article--that I love vim. As I said these words, I realized that the truth in them is sort of startling. I love vim. No, it's not like loving a person, but it's at least as strong an emotional connection as loving my favorite coffee mug or loving a particularly thoughtful gift from a friend. As an aside,…

The worst thing for me is editing an Excel sheet. Every time I have finished typing something in a cell, I hit ESC, which results in clearing what I have just written...

Re: The problem with vim

#60

Post by joebo »

My situation is the opposite. I spent 2 years with vim and switched to emacs. I used evil mode with emacs for about six months and then decided to go back to emacs bindings*. I use key chord mode and ace jump mode to quickly jump around. I find that workflow better and even easier on the wrists/fingers. Ultimately, whichever editor I use I end up getting hand pain on different fingers so I will sometimes toggle back and forth to balance it out.
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