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Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

sankho.github.io

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Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#81

Post by overgard »

savanaly wrote: post #62
overgard wrote: post #51

Here's the thing: when you're coding, how much time is spent on reading vs writing? For me it's probably 90/10. Since most my time is spent concentrating on understanding code, the last thing I want is an editor that forces me to consciously think about text operations. "d[downkey]4" might be theoretically more efficient, but I spend way less cognitive energy holding down the shift key and pressing the down arrow 4 t…

>Since most my time is spent concentrating on understanding code, the last thing I want is an editor that forces me to consciously think about text operations. "d[downkey]4" might be theoretically more efficient, but I spend way less cognitive energy holding down the shift key and pressing the down arrow 4 times. The point is well taken, but don't forget that for most people that downside of increased cognitive press…

I used it as my primary editor for two months, which IMO is more than enough time to give to a project like that. I was efficient in it, but none of the supposed productivity gains came about. On the other hand, in my IDE I can control-click on a method name to jump to it, or hit ctrl-r to rename something across the entire project, or hit alt-enter to automatically import a symbol when I know the name of a class I want but I can't quite remember the namespace it's in. Those things really do save me a lot of time; but the efficiency comes from the development environment being able to understand the code structure, not from being able to stack key commands.

If someone wants to use vim I'm not saying they shouldn't, I just think it's vastly overhyped.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#82

Post by falcolas »

iLemming wrote: post #8

now you should try Spacemacs

I've picked it up three times now, and every time the plugin combination I chose (nothing outside if what's included in Spacemacs, and using a fully supported install) would lock up the editor while using full CPU 3-4 times a day.

The minor upgrade in functionality wasn't worth the instability.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#83

Post by overgard »

hammerandtongs wrote: post #77
overgard wrote: post #51

Here's the thing: when you're coding, how much time is spent on reading vs writing? For me it's probably 90/10. Since most my time is spent concentrating on understanding code, the last thing I want is an editor that forces me to consciously think about text operations. "d[downkey]4" might be theoretically more efficient, but I spend way less cognitive energy holding down the shift key and pressing the down arrow 4 t…

"""an editor that forces me to consciously think about text operations""" """I say this as a person that knows vim well.""" These two phrases don't go together. Would you say you knew how to play a piano well if you were still consciously thinking about where each note was? If you don't use vim to the level that it's subconscious and "in your fingers" it might not seem all that useful... Fwiw "ag" and the various plu…

> These two phrases don't go together

Sure they do. VIM has such a culture of minimizing keystrokes that pretty much anything you do, you start wondering if you could have done it with fewer key strokes, or if you could have done it better. It's hard NOT to think that way because that's the entire point of getting into VIM in the first place.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#84

Post by schoen »

overgard wrote: post #83
hammerandtongs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""an editor that forces me to consciously think about text operations""" """I say this as a person that knows vim well.""" These two phrases don't go together. Would you say you knew how to play a piano well if you were still consciously thinking about where each note was? If you don't use vim to the level that it's subconscious and "in your fingers" it might not seem all that useful... Fwiw "ag" and the various plu…

> These two phrases don't go together Sure they do. VIM has such a culture of minimizing keystrokes that pretty much anything you do, you start wondering if you could have done it with fewer key strokes, or if you could have done it better. It's hard NOT to think that way because that's the entire point of getting into VIM in the first place.

Speaking of minimizing keystrokes in vim, you might enjoy this puzzle from the 2012 MIT Mystery Hunt

http://www.mit.edu/~puzzle/2012/puzzles/william_s_bergman/in...

(because it's about minimizing keystrokes in vim!).

Edit: I didn't know about vim golf, which is a slightly different take on a similar phenomenon.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#85

Post by FreeFull »

farresito wrote: post #67
FreeFull wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of kakoune initially intended to rewrite vim from scratch, so there is definitely a similarity. A big difference is that kakoune operates in terms of selections rather than motions, with built-in support for things like multiple cursors as well. I find it more intuitive to use than vim, and just as powerful.

Interesting. I've already given it a short try and I can see some differences. Do you use it as your main editor when you need to use an editor?

Yes, I do use it as my main editor (I have "vim" aliased to start kakoune instead). Knowledge on how to use kakoune doesn't seem to interfere when I need to use vim for some reason (such as ssh-ing into some machine that doesn't have kakoune).

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#86

Post by martanne »

FreeFull wrote: post #61
farresito wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've taken a look at kakoune. It's very similar to vim, isn't it? When I say vim, I also mean neovim, which currently is already superior to vim in a lot of ways.

The author of kakoune initially intended to rewrite vim from scratch, so there is definitely a similarity. A big difference is that kakoune operates in terms of selections rather than motions, with built-in support for things like multiple cursors as well. I find it more intuitive to use than vim, and just as powerful.

I too find kakoune interesting and have recently begun to add multiple cursor/selection support to my vim like editor.

https://github.com/martanne/vis

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#87

Post by farresito »

melling wrote: post #72
farresito wrote: post #3

vim overhyped as an editor? It might be overhyped as a programming tool (you won't write 2x the same amount of lines in a day; you will not be 5x more productive), but as an editor, it deserves every single bit of hype that it has. No other editor stands next to vim. A lot of people dislike editors. It's fine. There are a million tools out there that help people become more productive programmers. You might enjoy Int…

The great think about VIM is that it lets you do the same about of work with less effort. Over your lifetime, you might type half as many keystrokes to do the same amount of work. Look at VimGolf and the following video to see what I mean. http://www.vimgolf.com https://vimeo.com/53144573 - Precision editing at the speed of thought All editors should place an emphasis on minimal typing. Emacs has a few cool precision…

The thing I appreciate the most about vim is not the fact that you can be a little bit faster with a lot of things; it's the fact that you can edit code for hours and you won't get tired at all. At least you won't get even close to as tired as you would were you using a mouse. It's simply the least painful of all the ways out there. I guess it's the main reason I use it.

Thank you for the links. I do use the AceJump equivalent for vim, and I have it mapped to . It's quite nice, actually :). The only difference is that instead of pressing and getting all the jumps available for each word out there, I press followed by two letters, and it jumps directy to the word which starts with those two letters, or it simply shows me links to words that start with said letters if there's more than a word starting with those letters.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#88

Post by AlexeyBrin »

savanaly wrote: post #70
chousuke wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your example is somewhat badly chosen. If I had to delete four lines, I'd most likely mash dd until done, or maybe Vjjjd. It would be completely automatic and not require reaching for numbers or the arrow keys, making it significantly faster and more comfortable as well. I find that vim is extremely good for reading code, since navigating around a file is very easy (and I am in no danger of accidentally editi…

Great point about reading the file. I feel paranoid when using a text editor like sublime now just arrow key-ing or scrolling around a file since hitting practically any key will insert or delete a character!

This is why any decent text editor or IDE has an UNDO method.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#89

Post by dkns »

farresito wrote: post #56
mateuszf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No other editor stands next to vim And no other operating system stands next to emacs.

I knew someone would answer that. It was just a matter of time.

We need some sort of variation of Godwin's Law when it comes to text editors. Something like 'the probability of someone mentioning emacs as great operating system in any discussion about text editors = 1'.

Re: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing

#90

Post by hammerandtongs »

overgard wrote: post #83
hammerandtongs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""an editor that forces me to consciously think about text operations""" """I say this as a person that knows vim well.""" These two phrases don't go together. Would you say you knew how to play a piano well if you were still consciously thinking about where each note was? If you don't use vim to the level that it's subconscious and "in your fingers" it might not seem all that useful... Fwiw "ag" and the various plu…

> These two phrases don't go together Sure they do. VIM has such a culture of minimizing keystrokes that pretty much anything you do, you start wondering if you could have done it with fewer key strokes, or if you could have done it better. It's hard NOT to think that way because that's the entire point of getting into VIM in the first place.

The goal is to be able to FLUENTLY edit text. Lowering the number of keystrokes can aid that but is ancillary.

Fluency comes after learning it well enough that you aren't thinking about it anymore.

Yes you should occasionally reevaluate where you are on that scale but I don't see that as what you are saying.

Enjoy your ide if you have it figured out to your satisfaction.

Cheers

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