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Comment by halotrope | Hacker News Reader

For me it is being able to efficiently navigate a file without leaving the home row (Gotta learn touch typing first). Once you understand the commands follow a composable grammar it is really like a superpower for dancing around text.

„Go down 5 lines, move right two word, replace the contents of the brackets“. I don‘t use the actual editor all that often but have vim mode enabled in all my „real“ editors like VSCode or JetBrains Suite. I am often wondering how people do edit source efficiently without vim mode but I am too shy to ask.

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Honestly, this stuff is not a bottleneck for me. The things that both emacs and vi do, and vi does a little better:

1) Supports more than basic text manipulations. Rectangle selection and deletion? Check. Regex operations? Execute shell command on selection and replace inline? Record a macro and execute N times? Modes? Stuff like that.

2) I know it really really well to the point I don't need to look anything up to use it.

3) Runs anywhere. Got a shell on the hard disk controller? It will be there.

Vi is better only at 3. Emacs 1-2, and I would say 3 partially compared to other visual editors that you sometimes can't run even if you tried.

I really don't care about the Lisp, or the home row stuff, or whatever. That falls under #2. As long as I memorize and get good at how some operation is done, and the effort is similar, I'm fine.

And then we get to #1, and pretty much all good editors today do well there.

>Rectangle selection and deletion? Check. Regex operations?

These are vital features from my perspective, but completely orthogonal to whether an editor has a post 1980s interface.

And it's also nice to be able to handle large files.

Re 3) how does one look into gaining access to a shell on a hard disk controller?

Long time vim lover here as well, but I guess I hear often that for a lot of folks, input isn't the bottleneck.

I don't see it as a bottleneck, but focus. Not searching for the mouse or something or stretching fingers to Edit with Meta Alt Control and Shift etc. but fingers where they feel comfortable efficiently browsing the files.

Yes I hear that as well. IMHO most of the time is thinking but when I want to move stuff from my brain to my screen I prefer maximum bandwidth and not having to consciously think about it. To each their own I guess.

Totally. I also find that using it, I'm more willing to externalize my thought process, put code on the screen to reason about it and quickly scrap or modify it if it doesn't work.

I've been using vim for about 7 years and for me it's not so much about the efficiency as it is the pleasure of commanding (programming!) a powerful, wellmade tool.

And once the commands become second nature, you almost feel “at one” with the file you’re editing. I feel the fluidity that vim offers me lets me dedicate more cycles to the problem at hand.

This is the same for me, I very recently got over the hump, and finally am a proficient Vim-er! I never cared as much about the efficiency.

Not talked about enough, is the fact that Vim is simply fun. I simply enjoy typing with it. You’re right, it really is a pleasure, and it makes you think about programming differently.

It stimulates a part of my brain regular editors never did. It’s exciting to think about the best way to perform a series of actions, or learn a new command. Or brew up a quick macro to do something wild, no other editor could dream of!

I have been using VI(M) since the 80's and it's amazing how fast you can navigate in it when it's just deep muscle/neural memory. In fact if you asked me how to do some navigation in there, I actually could not tell you - but I could just do it.

I'm also someone who immediately installs a VI plugin into any IDE I use, as otherwise I'm lost.

IDEs and their editor key/control systems come and go, but VI(M) remains constant, and has done so (for me) for 35 years.

I simply won't use an IDE if it doesn't have a decent Vim plugin.

Some people use trackballs or pads with their thumbs, or trackpoints.

> Go down 5 lines

Look at the beginning of a target line, remember the number (takes up a slot in our limited short-term memory), switch to command mode, type the command.

Hold/mash "down" button until cursor is there.

After watching a few vim coding screen-casts I have the impression that the second way is more popular in vim too.

> switch to command mode

Why? Just use the 'relativenumber' option and do 5j.

> the second way is more popular in vim too.

Maybe for moving down 5 lines, but (I hope) not for things like "replace the inside of the brackets with what's in my A register". Otherwise you're really better off using a different editor.

> Why?

To be sure that the editor isn't in insert mode. Using another slot of short-term memory to keep an editor's mode seems wasteful.

Contrary to popular techy opinion, short-term memory is not composed of hard, fixed "slots" that fill up and overflow. It's not like remembering one more byte of information will make a variable name fall out of your memory on the other end.

Besides, it might just as well become something you don't need to use memory for at all - just press Esc to make sure. If you're in command mode, nothing happens. If you're in insert mode, you've entered command mode.

> short-term memory is not composed of hard, fixed "slots" that fill up and overflow.

Nevertheless it is a limited resource.

> just press Esc to make sure

It's better to press Esc twice. Otherwise there's a risk of terminal emulator interpreting a command as an escape sequence.

TBH I think I almost never look at the line numbers in vi, but the alternative isn't always holding/mashing j.

I occasionally use a count (5j to move 5 lines down, especially good for moving ~4 lines at a time), sometimes use C-u/d, C-f/b, or H/L to scroll half a page up/down, a full page up/down, or move the cursor to the Highest/Lowest line on the screen (these are good for large movement. And you can use zz to recenter the cursor on the screen after H/L). But likely the most common vertical movement I use is curly brackets/braces to move a paragraph up/down.

In CUA editors to me the nicest shortcuts are Control[+Shift]+Backspace and Control[+Shift]+Arrow because they involve the editor understanding a basic construct of human language (words). Vi takes that to the next level.

If that was a genuine question, I have coworkers who just embraced their IDE shortcuts (IntelliJ and Eclipse can do all the things vim can with weirder shortcuts and no vim mode) or they use emacs / emacs-style shortcuts

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