| | farresito on Aug 3, 2015 | parent | context | favorite | on: Vim: Takeaways from One Year of Typing
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 IntelliJ or you might not. You might like cscope or hate it. Tt doesn't matter. One needs to find the tools that helps him in their day to day job. But if you need an editor, vim is no doubt the single best out there. |  | | melling on Aug 3, 2015 | next [–]
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 features too: http://emacsrocks.com/e10.html - AceJump | | | | farresito on Aug 3, 2015 | parent | next [–]
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 <space>. It's quite nice, actually :). The only difference is that instead of pressing <space> and getting all the jumps available for each word out there, I press <space> 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. | | | | mateuszf on Aug 3, 2015 | prev | next [–]
> No other editor stands next to vim And no other operating system stands next to emacs. | | | | farresito on Aug 3, 2015 | parent | next [–]
I knew someone would answer that. It was just a matter of time. | | | | dkns on Aug 3, 2015 | root | parent | next [–]
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'. | | | | FreeFull on Aug 3, 2015 | prev | next [–]
I've switched from vim to kakoune some time ago. vim does have the advantage of a bigger ecosystem, but I do believe it is possible to have an editor better than it. | | | | farresito on Aug 3, 2015 | parent | next [–]
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. | | | | FreeFull on Aug 3, 2015 | root | parent | next [–]
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. | | | | farresito on Aug 3, 2015 | root | parent | next [–]
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? | | | | FreeFull on Aug 3, 2015 | root | parent | next [–]
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). | | | | martanne on Aug 3, 2015 | root | parent | prev | next [–]
| | | | sea6ear on Aug 3, 2015 | prev | next [–]
Yet the ancient Evil* from the elder world that is Emacs plots to consume Vim and absorb it's functionality. When that day is fulfilled what other editor will be able to stand? * http://emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil | | | | sankho on Aug 3, 2015 | prev [–]
nonono read the rest I love the VIM! But... there's an abundance of internet quotes like "No other editor stands next to vim" (see parent comment), so I wanted to make sure the reader didn't think I was proselytizing. | | | FAQs
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.
Why is Vim editor so popular? ›
Customization. Vim is highly customizable and extensible, making it an attractive tool for users who demand a large amount of control and flexibility over their text editing environment. Text input is facilitated by a variety of features designed to increase keyboard efficiency.
Why do good programmers use Vim? ›
We have learned that Vim is a powerful text editor popular among developers. It's based on shortcuts, called the Vim language, which can make coding and writing faster and more efficient. With Vim, you can jump to any specific text position and rapidly make precise edits.
What is the disadvantage of Vim? ›
Since it is so customizable, the user needs to maintain his or her development setup over time and make sure all the plugins work well together. This can be more challenging if many plugins and customizations are used. Once you learn Vim well, any text entry field that doesn't use Vim keybindings will feel broken.
Why do competitive programmers use Vim? ›
VIM is a text-object oriented editor… its not that hard to learn.. And as a developer you can learn VIM because it is fast and lightweight. It is a very simple and useful text editor. Though you write a big amount of code, its lightweight.
What percent of programmers use Vim? ›
Microsoft Visual Studio (32%) IntelliJ (28%) Notepad++ (28%) Vim (23%)
Why do people use Vim over IDE? ›
Understanding the Underlying Processes: While IDEs provide powerful debugging and automation features, they often abstract away the intricate details of program execution. Vim, being a lightweight text editor, encourages a deeper understanding of the underlying processes.
Does Facebook use Vim? ›
Facebook engineers have written millions of lines of code. There is no mandated development environment. Some developers use vim. Some use Emacs.
Why use Vim in 2024? ›
Customizability: Vim can be extensively customized through configuration files and plugins. Portability: Vim is available on almost every Unix-like system and has ports for other platforms. Lightweight: It is lightweight and fast, making it ideal for use on remote servers and systems with limited resources.
Do people use Vim at Google? ›
There are a lot of VSCode users in the company too so it's not exclusive to one tool (it's really just a personal preference, but vast majority of software engineers use VSCode or Vim there). Google also has a lot of Vim users (Bram aka Vim's creator also works there).
Contrary to this popular belief there are many reasons to use Vim. If you are the type of coder who lives and breathes in the terminal and could easily do without the GUI altogether, then Vim is an excellent choice for an editor. One of the clear advantages of using Vim is its usability when SSHed into remote servers.
Is Vim actually useful? ›
While the path to mastering Vim may seem daunting, the endless possibilities it offers in terms of speed, health benefits, and adaptability make it a skill worth acquiring.
What percentage of programmers use Vim? ›
If we look at the StackOverflow survey for 2019 about the most popular development environments, Vim is still there on the 5th place, with around 25% of Web Developers using it.
Why use less instead of Vim? ›
On large files less fires up immediately and vim is quite slow. I think that vim is loading an entire file in the memory while less just loads visible chunk. May be other vi implementations are more efficient with large files. Besides — vim really shouldn't be used on log files.
Why vi is better than Vim? ›
For simple text editing tasks, both vi and vim will behave similarly. However, vi is preferred because we can expect it to be on POSIX compliant (or at least mostly compliant) systems. Moreover, regarding the performance, vim requires a little more resources than vi due to its more extensive features.
