Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Editors (Vim)

missing.csail.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 120 posts

Re: Editors (Vim)

#81

Post by thunderbong »

pvg wrote: post #38
chongli wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time vim user, I’ve tried VSCode a few times and I cannot for the life of me figure out what all the hype is about. Can anyone who is proficient with it explain the philosophy behind it and what makes it so great? This is a sincere question, not a rhetorical one.

It's Emacs for Javascript people - a good thing since Emacs is moribund and most programmers are at least a little bit Javascript people. A highly programmable, cross-platform editor with zillions of extensions/modes that support all sorts of languages and environments. People complain about its resource requirements and performance, just like they did with Emacs. Vi(m) users are the natural enemy of VSCode, just lik…

This shows the stance of the people in the different "editor groups" perfectly! I'll never understand why programmers get so attached to their tools that they start evangelizing it for everyone else. Just look at the other responses to this comment. People are either questioning each bit or are trying to defend them.

If it work for you good, if not, fine. Just don't get crazy about it. It's just an editor!!

Re: Editors (Vim)

#82

Post by lawn »

fstarship wrote: post #10
lawn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use it myself but it's possible to embed Neo Vim in VSCode. So you're able to use edit text using a real instance instead of relying on a crappy emulation.

I am not entirely sure if you are referring to https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetlia... I just switched after using vs vim and got much better performance. I had neovim installed anyway for the EX commands

Yes, that's it.

Re: Editors (Vim)

#83

Post by erklik »

hwestiii wrote: post #15

I feel about Vim the way RMS seems to feel about Linux. Even though, (presumably) everyone knows the relationship of vim to vi, I don’t feel there is enough explicit acknowledgement of that fact. Vim is evidently a wonderful tool, (I say this as a confirmed 20 year emacs user for whom emacs is only usable due to excellent vi emulation possibilities) but it clearly wouldn’t exist without the basic foundation provided…

I use vim regularly on my day job. However, I am not familiar with more of the advanced side of things, and would never call myself an advanced user. That aside, I was always of the impression that vim was simply vi but extended in a sense.

Is that not the case? How different is vi to vim?

Re: Editors (Vim)

#84

Post by ilaksh »

I have been using vim as an advanced beginner off and on for more than 15 years I think.

I use it lots of times (not for everything, I also use Visual Studio Code), mainly because it means that I can just ssh over to a VPS and edit a file in there, without having to set up fuse or some other way to edit locally. It seems like less work to just get into files and set up a new VPS. And I know there will be syntax highlighting for everything.

And also I have kind of a sunk cost of finally learning how to do basic things over the course of many years.

But personally, I think that it is embarrassing for people who seriously espouse that modal editing is better than more modern concepts. The reason we have hjkl for movement is because that is what the terminal was like when vi was invented. And the reason its Escape which is a little inconvenient on modern keyboards is because the Escape key on that terminal was more like where Tab is. And the reason its modal editing is because "real time editing" didn't even generally exist when vi was invented:

"Back in 1970s, terminal screen are 80 columns by 24 lines. There's no real-time editing. You edit by typing a command, then call another command to have the screen update to show the result of your command. Vi's “modal editing” is evolved from this." http://xahlee.info/kbd/keyboard_hardware_and_key_choices.htm...

Re: Editors (Vim)

#85

Post by pvg »

thunderbong wrote: post #81
pvg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Emacs for Javascript people - a good thing since Emacs is moribund and most programmers are at least a little bit Javascript people. A highly programmable, cross-platform editor with zillions of extensions/modes that support all sorts of languages and environments. People complain about its resource requirements and performance, just like they did with Emacs. Vi(m) users are the natural enemy of VSCode, just lik…

This shows the stance of the people in the different "editor groups" perfectly! I'll never understand why programmers get so attached to their tools that they start evangelizing it for everyone else. Just look at the other responses to this comment. People are either questioning each bit or are trying to defend them. If it work for you good, if not, fine. Just don't get crazy about it. It's just an editor!!

A big, fun part of any hobby or craft that involves tools is kvetching about the tools. It's often at least as fun as the practice of the hobby or craft itself.

Re: Editors (Vim)

#86

Post by cycomanic »

smitty1e wrote: post #28

If you like modal editing, consider https://www.spacemacs.org/ The org-mode[1] outlining and magit[2] wrapper for git are most worthy. [1] https://orgmode.org/ [2] https://magit.vc/

I used spacemacs for a while, but once you use several layers it becomes so slow that it makes VSCode feel snappy.

I also find that because it has such a customized way of doing things it often becomes quite difficult to make your own customizations, especially if you try to follow guides written for pure emacs.

I've just started using doom emacs, another "distribution" around evil-mode. So far I really like it, it is much snappier than spacemacs and the layering and customization system is much closer to traditional emacs.

Re: Editors (Vim)

#87

Post by kart23 »

chongli wrote: post #7
jedwards1211 wrote: post #2

Vim emulation in VSCode worse than any other IDE I've used. All extensions have to run on the same thread in a background process and intercepted keystrokes are passed to that process over IPC. So if other extensions (like the TS language tools) are tying up the extension host process, the Vim extension can't respond to your keyboard input until other extensions yield. Performance issues come and go but for awhile I…

As a long time vim user, I’ve tried VSCode a few times and I cannot for the life of me figure out what all the hype is about. Can anyone who is proficient with it explain the philosophy behind it and what makes it so great? This is a sincere question, not a rhetorical one.

these are my favorite features, in no particular order.

* Tons of quality extensions, incredibly easy to install and manage

* Good color schemes

* ssh extension - remote vscode with all your plugins, themes, etc. with basically zero setup

* integrated terminal

I have no doubt that you can get a better vim setup, but getting vim fine-tuned takes a while for me and figuring out what I like. VSCode is convenient and easy, and works on everything, no suprises. Don't have to worry about fonts, terminal colors, config files, etc. I do think the vim plugin for VSCode is garbage compared with the terminal.

Re: Editors (Vim)

#88

Post by mikekchar »

webgoat wrote: post #70
mikekchar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil mode in Emacs is almost perfect. My biggest complaint is that undo works differently than vim (if anyone knows how to fix that, I would be forever grateful!) I originally used Emacs for about 20 years and then switched to Vim for a variety of reasons. I love the editing model in Vim. But for the last few years I've been using Emacs with Evil and it's been the best of both worlds.

Here you go: (setq evil-want-fine-undo t)

You are my hero!!!!

Re: Editors (Vim)

#89

Post by erklik »

ima_banana wrote: post #9

Has eye-tracking been explored for improved code editing beyond Vim? Vim does away with the hand-travel delays, but many of these ninja keystroke moves to navigate code are just what your eyes do already (but not all, such as the search function).

Recently, I had an idea (which is somewhat stupid and makes me think I am rather lazy) to switch window context between two monitors using my eyes. Mainly because, right now, most of my workflow is from my keyboard, but to switch windows, I have to make either a weird hand twisting shortcut or use the mouse.

I haven't yet found such a solution but I do wonder how hard it would be build such a thing.

Post reply on HN