this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Don't discount the possibility that some people that use vim, are old enough to remember using vi, over a modem connection. When you know the keyboard shortcuts it can be a lot quicker too even now.
Vi is incredibly snappy when it came to commands.
Want to save? :w
Want to quit? :q
Want to save and quit? :wq
Very elegant. GUI WYSIWYG doesn't come close when it comes to commands.
A lot of the things I'm using are generally hangovers from those low bandwidth days. I've opened a file and I know what I want is a way down? Not a problem 10-Page down to move 10 pages down the file without sending all that to the terminal.
What to cut the next 5 lines into the buffer? 5dd. Move to the line you want to paste to. Want to remove the next 5 characters? 5x. Often on a slow link moving your cursor along had a delay. But if you knew how far you needed to go you could do 30+arrow right to get the cursor to move directly there.
I think most are obsolete now, but I'm still used to using them out of habit mostly.
Man, this comment made me feel a little embarrassed at myself. I saw the shortcuts and thought about how I have a tradition of going to the top of the file when I'm done editing and about to save/quit. I always hit the shortcut for it and think "gg boys! Good game" and then quit out of vim.
Stop judging me.
Wait, I thought we were still using vi.
Well it is. But back on unix proper it was just called vi, not vim (aliased to vi)
Depending on your distro, vi is vim aliased with the fanciness off by default.
That would be me. I still call it "vi", default to it, and use "less" to preview files because I do almost everything on CLI. Vi is incredibly fast and powerful once you know it like second nature. I prefer vi over most, but the learning curve is a beast.
It gives me a little burst of glee every time I ci" or ct in a clever way. If I ever spend the time to learn registers I'll be unstoppable