Ask Experienced Devs

1064 readers

1 users here now

Icon base by Delapouite under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Users of Vim and similars, what exactly makes it useful compared to other text editors? How much time do you suppose you save when working with it? (programming.dev)

submitted 3 months ago by ICastFist@programming.dev to c/ask_experienced_devs@programming.dev

72 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'd like actual examples instead of "I work faster", something like "I can move straight to the middle of the file with 7mv" or "I can keep 4 different text snippets in memory and paste each with a number+pt, like 2pt", things that you actually use somewhat frequently instead of what you can do, but probably only did once.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's fair, but in a week you're effective, and after a month everything else seems wrong - like typing with oven mitts on.

But I enjoyed learning vim. It was like learning the controls to a game that I get to play every day. Now ten years later, I'm still finding little tricks and optimisations. I'm still having fun learning vim.

If that doesn't sound fun to you, then I get why it isn't worth it, though.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

I wish it worked better on non ANSI USA layouts. So many commands are just impossible to do on my keyboard. So I gave up quite quickly after I found that out.