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 2 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

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Ctrl-left/right jump to the beginning/end of words
No exactly sure what you mean here.
Page up/down let you scroll up/down quickly. Ctrl-P :123 lets you jump to a specific line, but I generally use editing history (alt-left) instead.
I can type perfectly well...
Ctrl-{ or } does this I think.

Do you have any more compelling examples?

[–] abruptly8951@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Ooh fun, these all take 2-3 key presses

Delete the contents inside a function delimiter by {
Delete the next nine words
Delete the contents inside long text quotes

And these more/less key presses

Start a regex search with a single button
Perform the same edit 100 times in a jagged files (good luck not f'ing up your multi cursor)

But it misses the point, of course every editor can do just about anything, but there is a lot more mouse involved and learning it is more difficult because the keybinds aren't combinatorial

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Ctrl-shift-}
How often do you want to delete exactly 9 words? It's much easier if this is interactive.
Not a common task IMO.
Ctrl-F and click a button. This is rare enough that a button click is fine.
Not sure what you mean by "jagger files" but I find multiple cursors are a lot easier to get right than e.g. regex replace because they give you instant feedback. Vim sequences are more like "oh you got it wrong, better start from scratch".

[–] abruptly8951@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

1 is just going to highlight right?

2, how about 6 words, 10 words, 100 words

3, 4 I use all the time

5 if your edit locations don't line up so that you can alt drag a single column, this is what I mean by jagged. I would use a combination of find and repeat action.

Start from scratch - skill issue :p

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

how about 6 words, 10 words, 100 words

Yes exactly my point. How often do you need to delete exactly 100 words? Do you count them? Obviously not - you probably guess and delete 50, and then 25 and then 20 etc.

[–] abruptly8951@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

10dw . . .

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)